welsh hills again

As we get older, if we are lucky,  we live a life that suits us.  We find our tribe, we settle into our interests, we create our world from our family and friends.  We know what we like.  We know how we want to spend our time and what simply does not interest us.  We build a world around us in which we feel safe and happy.  When I look back at how life felt for me when I was in my late teens particularly so much of what I remember is the discomfort of not quite fitting and of not quite knowing how to behave.  I spent time with people whose values I did not share.  I did things I did not enjoy simply to fit in.  And then I slowly began to learn who I was and what mattered to me and to make my world in that shape. It is good to have made a life that fits you and to feel comfortable and happy within it but I have been thinking for the last few weeks about comfort and challenge, about the need for self care and the risk of complacency, about...

When we moved up here twelve years ago now I did not really think about roses.  I like roses but I like all sorts of things and there was so much else to think about with the prospect of trying to make a garden in a nearly one acre field high on a hillside.  But that first summer I found that there were some roses here. Mainly they were these: wild roses in the hedges, simple dog roses, simple perfection. And there was this one, an undistinguished looking shrub rose by the gate through to the field.  I have no idea what it is called.  The flowers are small but the colour is deep and the perfume is one of the strongest in the garden.  The first time I walked by and was hit by a waft of the scent I decided it could be as ordinary looking as it liked, as long as once a year it smelled like that. And there was this one.  At the time it was struggling in the kitchen garden, growing between two posts and looking sad and straggly.  As part ...