welsh hills again

Outside the sky is a bruised, fast-moving grey and the wind is battering the garden.  Through the kitchen window I watch the black and green of the elder tree thrashing and twisting.  The hens are firmly in the henhouse.  The wind whistles in the chimney and tugs at the doors.  The old house hunkers down between the yew trees, its back to the shelter of the rock. In another world a few days ago the sky was this colour: There was a wind there too, the mistral blowing hard and cold from the North, but the colours were vivid and the light was strong.  Hundreds of enthusiasts were re-enacting an assault on the castle at Les Baux.  It was an extraordinary spectacle with horses and geese as well as soldiers and archers and peasants.  In the audience were numbers of children also dressed in their chainmail or carrying their wooden swords.  For a moment the lure of dressing up was strong and I would have loved to ride side saddle in medieval dress o...

We have wheeled in the housesitters and tomorrow we are going to Provence for a few days.  It will be a ludicrously early set off.  I think leaving the house at 4.15am was mentioned but I had my fingers in my ears and was going lalalala at the time so can't be sure. There are so many things to do here.  The cutting garden needs weeding and sorting and the sweetpeas, having flowered their hearts out for months, are ready to be cut down.  The raised beds in the kitchen garden need clearing and composting and I am plotting new herbs, with the inspiration and encouragement of Mark Diacono's "A Taste of the Unexpected".  A fraught question this one, with the question of what is right for the house and the site balanced against the lure of the new.  Like Scarlett O'Hara, I shall think about it tomorrow, or even on Thursday.   The kitchen is groaning with apples and our daughters have both put in pleas for more apple based jellies, particularly ones to have...

This summer we haven't had an away holiday. There is too much to do here and the complications of getting someone in for the chickens, peacock, cats, house, holiday cottage and garden are a bit daunting. When I was working and living at ninety miles an hour I needed holidays like I needed air. I couldn't go back to work without the sense of when the next one would be. They were like rocks in a fast running river, stepping stones that allowed me to keep going. Now that I have stopped whizzing up and down to London and leaping on and off trains and planes I don't feel the same need. It is beautiful here and, when people come and stay in the holiday cottage for its peace and beauty, it seems perverse for us to insist on going somewhere else, possibly somewhere less beautiful, and requiring the crush and hassle and sheer mind-numbing boredom of modern low cost air travel. And it is not green either! But every now and then it is good to heed the urge to get out more. So ...