welsh hills again

Christmas in my childhood was the classic 1960s British version.  My brother and I were up very early.  On Christmas night  I was permitted to have the travelling alarm clock in my bedroom.  It unfolded from a bright red leatherette box about two inches square, had a luminous golden face and I thought it was entirely beautiful.  Six o' clock was allowed.  Five o'clock was not.   My younger brother and I shared a room.  I would usually wake first and lie there watching the illuminated dial.  At about 5.15 would come a stirring from the other bed as Paul felt his way down in the dark.  "Liz, Liz.  He's been.  He's been.  I can feel it."  The torch would come out from under my pillow.  It was just a stocking on the bed, one of my Dad's walking socks.  Big presents were under the tree and we had to wait until our parents were up to go downstairs but we could open the stockings.  There would be a tanger...

I look out this morning to the sun on the hills.  For years my view of these hills was from the other side, the East.  The hills are the Clwydian Range, running from Llangollen in the South up to the sea on the North coast of Wales.  Clwyd (pronounced Cloo-id) means gate in Welsh and the range is the natural gateway between England and Wales, although for many centuries Wales has included Flintshire, to the East of the range as well.  The hills are topped by a number of Bronze and Iron Age hillforts so my sense of them as a geographical barrier between England and Wales is perhaps an ancient one.  Certainly these days and for a very long time back into history those who live to the East of them would consider themselves just as Welsh as those who live to the West.  Nowadays we live just to the West.  I see the hills from our sitting room and bedroom, from  my study and from the garden.  I love these hills.  When we turn to begin to come ...