welsh hills again

For the last two weeks the house and the cottage have been full of people.  Younger son's dog (possibly the best behaved and gentlest black lab in the world until you tell me different) has been lying on the rug by the fire.  Elder daughter's baby has spent the fifth and sixth weeks of his life being passed around his various adoring aunts, uncles and grandparents.  There has always been someone to walk around singing to him when he got cranky and to sit with him sleeping on their chest.  He has been fascinated by the pattern of the beams on the ceilings in both the kitchen and the sitting room of the farmhouse, staring up wide eyed at the lines of the brown oak against the white paint. Much food has been made in the battered kitchen, with first younger son and daughter in law, and then as younger daughter arrived and they left, younger daughter, working with me, sometimes taking over completely, sometimes being the vegetable peeler or the gravy maker, working away...

I have been mulling away about why I garden and almost sat down to do a philosphical muse but somehow I find I have so much to do outside that I can't spare the time. Must be a moral in there for another time! So I thought I would share some of what is pleasing me in the garden today. This is the new bed in the side garden, still full of foliage and, astonishingly, some of the white foxgloves which were thronging it in mid summer. Last year this area was a building site and after much digging and clearing this is what it looked like in spring this year. The blueberries are turning a fabulous colour. We have had fruit this year for the first time and the bushes have had to be covered against the hens. It is wonderful to see the turning foliage without a draping of green netting. At this time of year the hens are welcome in the garden as they scratch about in the empty beds. The trees are starting to turn too. The sycamore is always first and this year is a buttery gold. Logs are s...