welsh hills again

First a thank you for the good wishes and comments over the last few days.  I really do appreciate them very much. Amazingly, here we are at the end of the month again.  I have been taking part in the end of month view hosted by Helen at patient gardener for most of this year and have really liked the insight it has given me into how things change, and what doesn't change much!  This is the first time I have taken winter pictures from the usual places so here goes: Here is the side garden covered in snow.  And yes, I did fail to get the dahlias up before the snow came! Here is the cottage garden, deep in snow. The hedge in the cottage garden. Looking up through the new orchard toward the cutting garden.   Here is the sunny bank! And here is the kitchen garden.  The hens are not at all impressed and are refusing to come out of the henhouse which is beyond the greenhouse, in the shelter of the yew hedge. So there you are.  The radio ...

Bakehouse and pigsties Ian inspecting the roof.  The roofer and his father worked so hard to get it all battened and felted before the weather came.  It should be fine now until they can slate it. The yew tree produces a good area of shelter. Somehow I think I took my eye off the ball.  The geraniums never made it into the greenhouse. We always call this the sunny bank.  Doesn't look too sunny just now! Rosehips  make me smile.

I am sorry for the silence over the last week.  My father in law continues to be in hospital and much time is still spent visiting and keeping his spirits up.  My sister in law, who has been seriously ill for some time, has declined rapidly over the last month or so, went into a hospice on Thursday and died on Saturday. I don't intend to blog about it any more than this and don't really have a lot else in my head just now but I just wanted to explain my silence and my absence.  I will be back in a week or so I expect.

Beautiful morning, coldish but bright and clear.  Builders working on the roof. Today is a bit of timetabled day!  Having already done the usual morning round of laundry, chickens, washing up it looks like this: 10.00am Take cottage guest to station 10.40 - 12.15ish  Drive to Manchester to have lunch with parents who are up visiting a friend. 12.30 - 2.20  Lunch, chat. 2.20 - 3.00 Drive my mother to the hospital so we can both visit my father in law who has been having a rather bumpy time of it. 3.00 - 4.00 Visit! 4.00 - 4.45 Take my mother back to her friend's house. 4.45 - 5.30 Drive to daughter in law's house to lend her my sewing machine and say hello to older grandson. 6.00 - 7.30 Drive home All this driving is not doing much for my carbon footprint.  Maybe I'll plant a tree! Actually went back to hospital for the first hour of visiting in the evening to keep him company until our older son arrived for a visit, so back about 9.00 pm....

The middle section of our roof was taken off yesterday as the wind whipped round the house.  By the time I went out to work in the late afternoon the visquene which is keeping us watertight was thrumming in a near gale.  The trees around the house strained at their roots, the yews heaving and twisting, the sycamore lashing, suddenly leafless, in the wind.  The event I was attending was in a church now used for public meetings sometimes and all evening the wind roared above the vaulted roof.  I hoped my roof would still be there when I got home. When I came out the wind threw itself at me and bundled me down the steps.  I battled along the street to the carpark, the breath pummelled out of my chest, and fell into the car.  It was quiet and still with the door shut, disturbed only by an occasional rocking as the wind buffetted the side of the car.  I drove home through the whirling dark and was nearly at the bottom of our hill when I rounded a ben...

You may take for granted the daily round of hospital visiting, father in law's cheerful stoicism in the face of all that has been thrown at him, Ian's determination to do the best for him, the endless not knowing about what comes next. But life goes on too, oddly enough, and in other news.... Scaffolding has gone up in readiness for the roofing job on the house.  The house looks strange in its metal exo-skeleton and I must admit to being a bit daunted by the idea of no roof and no roof in November at that.  It's a good job we have a great builder or the phrase "a bit daunted" would be an understatement rather than the truth! A ginger cat turned up on Sunday and is doing a lot of sitting determinedly on the step.  I've had this before when we lived in cities.   I never used to feed a passing cat in order not to encourage it to leave home but it's hard to know where this one has come from.  Our only near neighbours are at the farm and they say it isn...

At this time last week my major concern was that Ian's back was better but not quite right. I was bothered about the fact that I have bought some new grasses, which felt like a big deal after years of grass hating, and they were still in their pots. I was bothered about the achingly slow progress of my kitchen. On Saturday morning my ninety two year old father in law fell and broke his hip. My life hasn't changed half as much as his but nothing is the same.

I have really enjoyed the discipline of the end of month view photos and have been messing about with a slideshow to see how the year unfolded. I thought you might like to see!