welsh hills again

I look out this morning to the sun on the hills.  For years my view of these hills was from the other side, the East.  The hills are the Clwydian Range, running from Llangollen in the South up to the sea on the North coast of Wales.  Clwyd (pronounced Cloo-id) means gate in Welsh and the range is the natural gateway between England and Wales, although for many centuries Wales has included Flintshire, to the East of the range as well.  The hills are topped by a number of Bronze and Iron Age hillforts so my sense of them as a geographical barrier between England and Wales is perhaps an ancient one.  Certainly these days and for a very long time back into history those who live to the East of them would consider themselves just as Welsh as those who live to the West.  Nowadays we live just to the West.  I see the hills from our sitting room and bedroom, from  my study and from the garden.  I love these hills.  When we turn to begin to come ...

For the last couple of days the sun has shone in a clear blue sky.  Everything is diamond bright.  The hills have edges.  The bare trees make intricate shapes against the newly greening fields.  Snowdrops shine.  A jet trail rises against the vivid blue sky.  I love this.  For weeks we have been living in a grey world where the hills disappear and merge into the grey sky.  Grey and mud underfoot, grey and lowering cloud overhead.  It has been like living in a wet dustbin.  And all of a sudden everything sings. I wander round the garden and pick some hellebores for the kitchen table.  Everywhere the snowdrops, which have been lurking for weeks in tight bud, are open to the sun.  Under the apple trees are the promise of daffodils in great fat snouts, green but here and there the odd one faintly flushed with yellow.  There is enough warmth in the sun for me to sit outside, wrapped in my scarf and with three layers on,...

I love walking.  The simple act of putting one foot in front of another always calms me, cheers me and makes me engage with the world outside me and stills the chatter of my internal world.  One of the great things about living here is that you can walk straight from the door into countryside that people would travel miles to find.  I used to walk in cities too, pounding the streets at dusk when you can look through newly lit windows into other people's lives.  I still like that but I love the fact that here I can walk out of the door and straight into the green world. I have been here by myself for the last couple of days as Ian was working at our son's house in Manchester.  I am still catching up from our week away with the family, washing and ironing and gardening and shopping.  It was a glorious day here yesterday and as I trudged in from the car with bags to unpack I suddenly thought that rather than sit down with a cup of tea as a break I would walk...

Yesterday was a fabulous bright and glowing day.  How easy it is to spend every hour of every day working and worrying, looking after people, driving up and down the country, baking, gardening, shortening curtains, making jam, working through the endless to do list.  Sometimes you just need to walk away from it all.  Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death.  It was a good day to look up, to breathe, to pull on our boots, lock the door and to set off over the hills and far away. Up the hill from our house, the Clwydians were bright in the sun.  It takes half an hour to get to the top, walking first a lane and then a rough track, gaining height with every step. On a clear day you can see forever, across to Snowdonia and right down the Vale of Clwyd to the sea.  Yesterday was as clear as could be, with tiny puffs of riding cloud. See what the wind does up here.  It was still and calm as we came out onto the top but the hawthorn t...