welsh hills again

Well a whole month has whizzed away since I last blogged and its hard to know where the time has gone:  a visit from a dear friend who lives in France was the focus of the beginning of July.  I love the way that a visitor makes us get out into this lovely part of the world in which we live rather than gardening and working and sticking to our admittedly delightful routine.  A highlight was a walk on the beach at Newborough Warren in Anglesey  (Llanddwyn in Welsh) and a meal at Dylan's in Menai Bridge looking out over the water.  Newborough Warren is large and wild, fringed by pine forest which is home to red squirrels, and crowned by an island accessible at low tide.  You can look across the sea to the mountains of Snowdonia or away out west towards Ireland.  Why do I love the west?  I do not really know but the North West, Wales and west Wales, North West Scotland and the South West of England all draw me and the sun going down over the sea alway...

Life in a campervan is a pretty close quarters experience.  It is a small space.  If there are two of you sharing it you come to know where to put yourself, when to sit, when to go out of the van, how to move around so that you don't spend your time falling over each other.  After three weeks travelling in the van in Northern Spain Ian and I had got very good at it.  We had also spent most of our waking and sleeping moments together so it was strange to hoist my rucksack onto my shoulder and turn my back on him to find the apartment which would be my home in Salamanca for a week while I did my Spanish course.   Ian was going to drive home to Wales through Spain and France.  I didn't watch him go.  I was too busy wrangling my bags into the tiny lift. I had decided to do another intensive week in the hopes of boosting my Spanish.  I seemed to have stalled frustratingly at a level where I could read quite well but struggled with speaking and l...

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post.  I am feeling so much better now!  The consensus from the medical types in the family is that it was a viral infection (and how often have we heard that about the otherwise unexplained!?).  Whatever it was it has gone and I am back to normal and very thankful for it. Nerines.  Can you ever have enough? It is a good thing to be back on form because last week was a rush around week.  It began with a trip down to Devon for the christening of younger son's two younger children.  Addy who is three and nine month old Daniel both behaved impeccably while having water on their foreheads and being handled by someone they do not know.  Actually that is probably not quite true for the three year old.  Chris and his wife are churchgoers so I imagine that Addy knew the minister who was christening her. There were a few minutes before the ceremony when she decided she might like to take her shoes off b...

Well while we wait for things to happen on the house front I have decided to turn my mind to learning and doing.  I love that sense of stretching myself and gaining competence and I feel as if I have been floating along in my comfort zone for a while.  There have been so many things going on: lots of new babies (ten grandchildren now!  can you believe it?) and the buying of the plot and putting the house on the market.  Now the last of the new grandchildren is here safely, just ten days ago, and there is nothing to do with the house other than play the waiting game.  The garden is pretty cared for at the moment thanks to the 100 day project and we have an August full of visitors coming up.  So here is a week or so of lull when I think I am going to shake myself up a bit. I used to be a great list maker when I was working and have dropped the habit for most of the time.  Life is full of cooking and eating and going to yoga and choir and spending time ...