welsh hills again

It is grey and blowing today.  Eight o' clock in the morning.  The wind lashes the yew tree.  I look through my bedroom window at the rain blowing in rippling curtains across the valley.   Ian has gone to work.  The house is quiet, apart from the noise of the wind, and dark, too dark to see without the lights on.  I pad downstairs in my slippers and go round turning some lights on in the kitchen and the sitting room.  The dog greets me with a wagging tail.   Sadness snatches at me but I turn away from it.  Today is mine to make.  I hear my mother's voice "I think to myself, what can I do to make this a good day for Graham and for me, and then I do it".  So simple.  So complicated. So how to claim the day, how to make it feel like home?  Breakfast first.  A cup of tea in my favourite mug and scrambled eggs.  The rhythm of making scrambled eggs is soothing.  I could do this in my sleep: the little pan on the...

I love to go away and I love to come home.  A week in Devon, staying with my sister, helping to look after my brother and giving my parents a hand.  Being able to do this is one of the many reasons I gave up my big job.  When it works, and last week was a good week, it feels very right.  I know I am making a difference and to see the pleasure my brother takes in our company, to see my sister's children and stepchildren, to see my Dad smile with real happiness at a trip out he could not have taken by himself, to help my wonderful mum feel she is not alone, to chat with my sister and her partner when every one has gone to bed and to snatch an evening with my son and his wife, looking at the scan picture of their developing baby,  all of these things make me feel good, make me feel like myself.  But I missed Ian and I missed home and it was good to come down our drive, to see the view encircling me, to walk the garden and to sleep in my own bed with my own per...

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...