welsh hills again

I have been reading a wonderful post at Esther's Boring Garden blogspot (and don't be fooled.  She was just too modest to call it Esther's fascinating garden blog which is what it is.)  In it she talks about her dream garden, not a fantasy garden but the way parts of her real garden represent bits of a dream: a single primrose by the path is a bank of primroses.  It resonated  strongly with me.  I suspect most gardeners have a dream version of their own garden.  It's that dream that keeps us plotting and planting and musing about our gardens. That sensation is very strong when you are slowly making a garden.  So much of my garden as yet in is my head and what is happening on the ground is sometimes something of a surprise, so vivid are things in my mind's eye.  So here are some of my dream spots. Under the viburnum by the gate to the field the soil is shaded and dry.  In my head it is marbled with cyclamen and dancing with epimedium....

We meet some lovely folk who stay in the cottage.  After all, if you choose to come here you are not after noise and fleshpots and potted entertainment but comfort and quiet and a dose of rural bliss.  Whether it is families with young children who love opening the cottage door and letting them run in the field or couples who sit on the bench with a glass of wine watching buzzards soaring and looking into the view, it is not at all uncommon for people to tell me that I am living their dream.  It's a perfectly sensible thing to say - I'm living my dream too for that matter!  The place, the garden, the ancient house, the hens, the self sufficiency.  It's all pretty damn lovely. But it's not all moonlight and roses you know.  I thought it was time to show you some of the grot as well. So here is the dream, although I expect you have got the idea: And here is the not so dreamlike.  The kitchen is plastered and painted.  No electrics yet....

One of the magic things about blogging is how one blog needs to another and you discover new favourites to add to your personal list. By just this sort of hopping along I found Sally at who's the mummy and another world of fascinating blogs. Sally blogged in response to a tag about her dream and has kindly tagged me to write about mine. Well this is tricky. When I was younger I could have told you about the dream of living on a Scottish island, or running a bookshop with a coffee shop attached. I could have written about the dream of travelling through New Zealand in a campervan, revisiting the places where I spent my adolescence, finding out if the grass is as brown, the sky as blue, the sea as ultramarine as I remember it. I could have told you about the dream of having children (somewhat unrealistic as a I recall. I thought I could read novels while the baby slept contentedly in its pram. Huh.) Even a few years ago I could have told you about the dream of living in the country...