welsh hills again

I had settled down to watch Grand Designs on Channel 4.  It was just the kind of build I love - eco-friendly, with a small budget, and passionate and principled builders getting their own hands dirty, not a "£2m throw money at it and produce an identikit piece of modernism" build.  Ian was watching with me.  I had a glass of wine in my hand and a fire going in the woodburner.  Perfect. Then the commercial break.  A young and beautiful woman was being used to sell skincare products to women at least ten years older.  So far, so normal.  I can't remember the name of the magic moisturiser which was being promoted, which I must say seems both ironic and pleasing, but suddenly a line in the advertising pap leapt out at me "Der der der der der der der .... skin seems older..... der der der" with the exhortation to use whatsit and improve things. "Skin seems older"?   Well hang on, if you wake up one morning and "skin seems older" that's bec...

And the world glistened white and shining.  It is cold as cold but the sky is vivid and the air sings with cold.  The birdfeeders are thronged with birds who fluttered and twittered in the trees as I filled them.  Even the woodpecker has been swinging and tapping on the peanuts all day long. The valley is perfect and untrodden.  If you watch for long enough you will see a quadbike making its way along the other side, down the steep slopes, a bale of hay strapped to it .  You will see the sheep gathering or the sharp black shape of a horse moving across the field towards the black shape of the woods.  A tractor makes it way along the road in the bottom of the valley but no cars move.  No post comes. The hedges are works of art. We have spent the day shovelling snow, bringing in logs and kindling, tramping down to the pumphouse which controls our water supply, checking and sorting, feeding the chickens and the cats and the peacock.  The weath...