welsh hills again

 Yesterday we went to the funeral of a very old friend, the first of our generation to die.  This is not the place to write about the day, that is his story and that of his family.  It may be the place to write about the effect of being brought up once again against the finality of death.  How many times has that happened?  How many funerals have I attended over my own reasonably long life?  And yet the mind skitters away and refuses to engage with the hugeness and the inevitability of death.  When I was younger I, like most people I imagine, simply could not feel in any way that death would apply to me.  Of course I knew it would with my intellect but somehow it was impossible to take seriously as my own future.  I could see the sadness and loss of those who were left behind.  I could mourn my own loss.  I could think about the wife or husband, the children and grandchildren who remained and how their lives might be without the per...

Years, galloping.  In a swish of a tail, barely caught out of the corner of my eye, 2024 has gone and is racing away, over the hill, over the headland, over the sea.  Is this what the blogging is for?  To try to hold onto it?  Who knows.  Photos help. January Bright and cold, so unlike the grey dampness of the end of this year.  In January 2024 I hit the fifth anniversary of starting to run, using the Couch to 5k app.  Mostly I don't stop when I run, as I do very slowly, in case I find I can't start again.  This is a view across the fields to the Clwydian Hills.  It is part of my regular, short round of about 3k and I must have stopped to take it because of the blue of the sky.  I never stop feeling lucky to live here in this little known part of North East Wales.  It is very beautiful and very empty.  Very slowly plans are moving to  make this, now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, into a new National Park.  I a...