welsh hills again

Somehow I have rather lost the pattern of blogging.  Instead of that gentle insistence at the back of my mind that once a week is about right I have slipped to once a fortnight or even once a month.  There are plenty of great blogs which I like where the blogs appear about once a month but I know that for me a weekly blog is what feels about right.  It means that I get into the habit of sharing things and that I don't sit down thinking that so much has happened since my last blog that I don't quite know where to start.  I think this shift is partly down to having become fond of using Instagram.  It is so quick and easy and such a supportive and engaged community.  It is really easy to use little bits of  time to Instagram things and then feel that the longer time which you need for a blog is something you can't quite find.  But I don't want to stop blogging and I think if I don't give it a shake up and find time to blog a bit more often I might fi...

I have always loved September. It might help that it is my birthday month. It might also be because I was a child who liked school and, even though I had loved the summer holiday, I also loved the buying of the new pencil case, the new pencils and rubbers, the folding back of the stiff cover of an exercise book to reveal a pristine sheet of clean paper, smelling of promise. October is OK. There is still a chance of a day filled with the golden light and long shadows of an Indian summer. The only problem with October is that it is followed by November when the clocks have gone back and the days are grey with wind and rain and the light has all gone by mid afternoon and I have to work hard at shedding the sense of gloom and focussing on the light and warmth of Christmas to distract me from the grievous loss of my outside life. So I have mixed feeling about autumn. Is it beautiful, with flowers still glowing and crops thronging the kitchen? Or is it full of sadness, full of the loss of su...