welsh hills again

I haven't blogged since March!  That's terrible.  No excuse and every excuse:  packing and moving and getting out of the rental house and into the new one.  I probably could and should have blogged but I didn't so here I am now.  We are here.  We are in.   The sitting room is calm and peaceful with our books on the shelves and our cushions on the chairs. The view across the field is almost as lovely as the one up to the hills. The amount of the glass still surprises me after so many years of our seventeenth century farmhouse, built for shelter, not for light.  I love the cladding too against the white render.  It feels like a house which belongs here even though it is yet to have a garden. I have got to know the sheltered sunny places to take a cup of tea and dream about the garden we will create. There are still things to do and in a couple of weeks the green roof will arrive for outside the guest bedroom and over the front porch.  This is something else we have never had

 So much more to show you on the house.  Loving the cladding and the contrast with the render and now that the scaffolding has come down it is possible to see the design of the house more clearly. Loving the tiled floor downstairs and the colour of the kitchen and dining room. Loving the front door and the gorgeous curve in the hall. Loving the internal doors and the handles. Loving the wood flooring upstairs Loving the bathroom tiles,  These are in the en suite bathroom.   It looks nearly done in these photos and in truth there is still a lot to do.  We have no stairs yet so going up the ladder has become almost, but not quite, commonplace.  We have no water although that is coming soon.  There is much to do in the bathrooms, second fix electrics and lots and lots outside. The kitchen is just beginning to be fitted.  That will make a huge difference.  In the sitting room all the drawers and cupboards are lined up ready for the carcasses. And outside is still a building site.  But the

 A year - a long time and no time at all.  This last strange year has often felt stalled, coming round again and again, living in the groundhog day of lockdowns and restrictions but when I lift my head and really look at it I can see what a lot has changed and how far we have come. This time last year we were living in our old house on the hill, waiting to exchange contracts on our sale, surrounded with boxes of books and china. And exactly a year ago today it had snowed.  We walked up to the top of the hills and tried out our snow shoes and were amazed by how beautiful the white world was. And then in February we moved.  It was sort of a wrench to leave the lovely old house and it sort of wasn't.  The fact that the new house was beginning to emerge from the mudbath of the building plot was so interesting and so exciting that it felt right.  It felt time to move on and shape the new stage of life and we knew that in our old house's new owner, we were leaving it in good hands. H