welsh hills again

Rain, grey, thin, drizzling rain.  I have been out all morning at my Welsh class and in half an hour I am out again.  I really do not want to get wet before I go.  I really do not want to break my run of time in the garden. I rush out.  I deadhead a dozen or so daffodils by the crab apple tree and rush back in again, hair already frizzing, shoulders damp, hands dirty despite the gloves. Does that count?

Rain, slow, soft rain.  Mist obscuring the valley, the ridge of Pen y Cloddiau vanished into solid grey.  Dense grey cloud behind the oak tree.  No sky, no view, no climbing hills.  A small enclosed world of rain and grey. A blackbird sings from the roof of the bakehouse.  A bullfinch sits in the hawthorn hedge, its breast a startling rose pink flash against the green.  I walk out into the meadow. Fine soft heads of grasses bowed down with the rain brush my legs.  Roses drip petals and raindrops.  Foxgloves stand tall.  In the meadow poppies bend their brilliant heads under the weight of water. The scent of honeysuckle rises up by the hedge and drowns me.  Just for a moment, I let go of the wish for sun and summer and lie back in the water, into a dream of grey and green.

Rain - teasing me, throwing drops on the greenhouse roof, darkening the flags, tossing the twisted willow, passing over leaving the sweetpeas still gasping. Wine - a glass by myself, FIL sleeping, my visiting parents in the cottage, Ian away.  Cliche tells you drinking alone is a bad thing, this feels like entirely earned luxury. Friends - a day snatched yesterday from normal life with people I would not have met without blogging but who are now woven into my life.  Lots of laughter, some sounding off, driving home smiling. Cake - made two lemon cakes which sank spectacularly.  Tasted wonderful as had to fill the hole with icing.

I have been tagged by red haired runner and writer Preseli Mags for a meme on memory.  Memories are a blur and a swirl.  I try to pick something out, make something emerge from the mist. My brother's trainset, a Hornby train, the track secured to a big board.  Paul had two trains with their sets of carriages, painted in brown and cream.  We used to play a lot together, my brother and I.  We lived up on the edge of the moor and went to school across town so we didn't really know the few local children who lived further down the common.  We spent hours up on the moors and out on the common whenever the days were fine, but sometimes, it being the Pennines, rain streamed down the window and we hung around moaning that we didn't know what to do.  My mother wouldn't let us say we were bored but she was good at coming up with projects which would take us a while.  I only understood when I had children of my own that there was an element of self intere...

Well here I am with another evening on my own and this time I am up here without a car. The wind has been battering the house all day so inside has been the only place to be and here by the woodburner the wind is blowing in the chimney and making the flames leap higher. All day the wind has shouted and shuddered and thrown great showers of rain at the house. Astonishingly the hens, who have been shut into the run all week while I have been away visiting my daughter, were so desperate to get out that they have spent the day being buffeted about the garden, their feathers blown inside out like a bad hair day, struggling against the wind and rain, hiding in the bottom of hedges but determinedly not going back into the henhouse until nightfall. I, by contrast, have been huddled by the fire, half watching the rugby and half reading the paper. I decided that a good use of a few hours being shut in against the weather would be to make my Christmas cake and Christmas pudding so all day the rai...

Oh no it is raining again. A couple of days ago we had such a lot of rain the path in front of the house turned to a stream. The land drains worked a treat and all the water from behind the house came spurting out and rushing down the hill. Let's try to take a positive approach here: the hills are a glorious green. The vegetable garden does not need watering, including the new beds in the field which require the humping of heavy watering cans. The onion crop for some reason is the best ever. The hens are all laying, the Welsumer and the Frisian bantam having at long last given up their joint attempt at going broody, much of which involved sitting in the nesting box together, taking turns to sit on each other's head. I am about to go and see my daughter and son in law and my parents, which, as Ian and I are both going, will mean a lot of my favourite people all together. The roof is not leaking (fingers and toes crossed here). But I do long for meals outside under the yew tree a...

Sunday 7th June 9m miles, 698 calories used, 9.00 to 2.00 Another morning of pouring rain, too wet to see, too wet to stop, we just slogged on through the rain, water bouncing off the roads, swelling the paths with puddles, too wet to stop for our ten minute rests. The whole world was streaming with water and that included me, right down to my underwear. We found a tumbledown shelter for our lunch, a brick shed with an old tin roof with a hole in it. We sat on some logs just out of reach of the splash of the rain through the gash in the roof and ate our sandwiches and changed our socks again. There was nothing to do but walk and to walk at speed so we arrived at Heath Cottage near Forden way too early to a warm and easy welcome. There was a boiler room to hang our sodden clothing in and newspaper with which to stuff our boots. There was a warm lemon cake and tea and, after a shower, a fire in the living room and newspapers to read and a chat. Bliss. Monday 8th June Forden to Llanymynec...