welsh hills again

Every now and then I realise I have been accomplishing things, almost accidentally, not in a ticking things off a list sort of way.  I look around and, amongst all the undone things and the half done things, I find that something has actually been finished almost without my noticing.  So here is a celebration of July's accidental accomplishments. At the beginning of the month I made elderflower cordial, just catching the flowers at their best. I took cuttings from the scented leaf pelargoniums and all but one took.  Now they are in bigger pots and flowering. This one is a cutting from Attar of Roses which is suddenly throwing up a larger and more dramatic flower than its parent.  I have been nurturing this one. New pots have been bought and planted up. Little jacket for younger daughter's new baby, due very soon, is growing by the day. Old oilcloth which has been relegated to outside use was brought out and made into a new kneeler for th...

I have never been a great shopper.  I am always puzzled by the idea of retail "therapy" and am mildly astonished that many perfectly lovely and intelligent people seem to enjoy spending time in huge shopping centres like Bluewater, Westfield or, my personal bete noire, the Trafford Centre.  Too much choice makes me shut down and too much pressure to spend turns me into a one woman awkward squad and makes me hang onto to my purse. There is not a lot of shopping you can do up here anyway.  We are not totally in the middle of nowhere.  In twenty minutes or so you can be in any one of three nice small towns, Mold, Denbigh or Ruthin, where you can do a supermarket shop if you want to, find some good small shops and buy a decent cup of coffee.  There are some lovely independent retailers too like Homewood Bound and the Craft Centre just down the road at Afonwen but you have to travel forty five minutes or so to get to Chester to find a proper city.  In fact C...