welsh hills again

Today the newest member of our family, Grace Lois Joan, first child of younger daughter and her husband, is two weeks old.  Welcome to the world little girl. I have written before about the birth of a new grandchild.  They are all different and this one has made me very aware of something I have thought before and never tried to articulate.  It is one of the great pleasures of life to see your children parenting their own children.  I never realised this when I was younger and I haven't seen much written about it.  The pleasures of being a grandparent are widely celebrated, and they are very great, but the pleasures of seeing your adult children caring for their children have rather taken me by surprise.  I never expected them to be so great and so lasting. When my children were young I both dreaded and longed for the days when they would be grown and responsible for themselves.  I could not imagine them not needing me and not being at the centr...

Has someone speeded up time?  What have I been up to since I saw you last?  Loads and loads, here is a whistle stop tour. Drove to Devon (car just does the three hundred mile journey by itself these says while I snooze on the back seat, I wish). Spent a week volunteering with the National Trust  helping to decorate Killerton House for Christmas. Good things: great company, good food, fabulous instruction from the fabulous Sarah Pepper  so that I now know how to make wreaths and swag mantelpieces.  I am not an experienced or talented flower arranger.  Every day after a few minutes of working away on my own I looked at what I was doing compared to everyone else and felt such a rush of shame and embarrassment that I contemplated just sneaking out and not coming back.  Yet every day when I persevered, following the guidance I had been given, not giving up, remembering that with Christmas decoration "more is more",  whatever I was working on ...