welsh hills again

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...

Things that make me smile: Chickens, the one left behind suddenly realising and running after the others like a cartoon chicken, suddenly panic stricken, legs akimbo, all flap and silliness. Cockerels shouting at each other, calling and fussing, gathering their girls to them for a particularly tasty morsel. Hens in a dust bath, settling, fluffing their wings, scratching and dousing themselves in dust as if it were water. My grandson, serious, silly, three years old, all blond hair and blue eyes. We are driving. A voice comes from the back. "Grandma." "Yes, love." "I'm beautiful." "Are you, love? That's nice." What is going on here, a very young narcissist? "Yes, and my mummy is very beautiful." "Well you're a very lucky boy." My father in law, telling me yet again, both amused and indignant, at his horror on discovering that the chocolate chip ice cream he had bought was green. "Green! I thought it was...