welsh hills again

Daffodils sing of spring and spring arrived this weekend in a glow of sunshine and yellow flowers.   I have been out in the garden all day long, spring cleaning the shepherd's hut and tidying and weeding everywhere. Spring hits me like this every year, giving me a great rush of energy and sending me outside at every opportunity. All the furniture came out of the shepherd's hut, except for the built in sofa which folds down as a bed and everything was laid out on the grass.  I swept the hut out, wiped down all the woodwork and cleaned the windows.  Then back it all went. Rugs were beaten, curtains shaken out, and the woodburning stove cleaned out. Today I painted the door and tomorrow I will rub down and paint the windowframes, as long as it is dry.  I have a yen to change the cushions and the rug and to move from a palette of soft creams, pinks and greens to something in blue and yellow.  It must be spring! As a break from cleaning and weed...

I wonder if there are people out there whose house and garden always look the same and who thus don't need to tidy up for visitors.  What a perfect world that would be: the kitchen floor would always be clean, the flower beds would always be weed free and there would never be piles of electrical gubbins on the kitchen table.  I'd love to live like that but in order to achieve it I would have to move house to a small and perfectly formed modern flat, divorce my delightful husband and live meanly by myself, stop having cats and chickens and trying to run two acres of garden, a holiday cottage and numerous outbuildings.  I might be able to manage a small and perfectly formed balcony.  I think I might be saying that in order to achieve it I would have to live someone else's life. This week Karen and Kate came to visit and it was really lovely to see them.  Did I say I love having visitors?  However as a result I spent days before their arrival weeding, and ...