welsh hills again

It has been an extraordinary autumn.  Morning after morning up here on our hillside we have woken to golden light and heavily dewed grass.  We face South East and the morning sunlight pours in through our bedroom window, pooling gold on the carpet.  Outside everything is still flowering and glowing.  By lunchtime it is warm enough to eat outside. On many mornings the sky has been full of sun while the valley below us is brimming with mist. But by lunchtime the world emerges bright and clear and warm. Sedum throbs with bees and butterflies. Everywhere berries are ripe.  Cotoneaster herringbones its way up the stone wall by the drive. Rosehips swell. The walnut tree is laden with nuts in their glossy green cases which stain your hands a vicious black. In the edge of the hen enclosure I find this huge fungus, the size of a small plate, ignored so far by the chickens.  They are moulting and looking a bit scraggy, their feath...

Bursting with news here!  The most important first.  There is another new baby in the family.  I know, I know.  My cup runneth over.  How delightful.  The family is full of babies.  Younger son and his wife had their second child ten days ago, another little girl.  She arrived in haste and was delivered by her father, fortunately a doctor, in a layby on the A38 as they were driving to the hospital.  We will be meeting the new arrival on Sunday. I blogged here  about the arrival of their first baby.  Every time a grandchild arrives is different and every time it moves me profoundly.  This is the first time we have been out of the country when a baby has been born and that felt very strange but we were woken early in the morning in New York with a facetime call from the jubilant parents and had the chance to see their faces and the first sight of the new baby.  Since then pictures and calls have kept us in touch but I can'...