welsh hills again

Cait, whose fabulous blog is at Cait O'Connor kindly agreed to be interviewed for her last blog. So on the basis of pass it along and as the interviewer now is Cait, here are her questions for me and my answers: How did you end up on the side of a hill in Wales ? Ah, long story. I grew up on the edge of the Pennines and then spent my teenage years in New Zealand . I always intended to live in the country as an adult but somehow found myself in London and Birmingham and then for years in Manchester, constrained by jobs and children and schooling. Ian and I said we would move when the children had left home but it was a sometime/maybe ambition until we went for a weekend to Ludlow, had a great time just wandering about and somehow came home with a crystallised sense of "What are we waiting for?" We started to search on the internet, wanting an older house and a bit of land, accessible to a train link to London for me and to a motorway to Manchester for Ian. This place...

The wonderful Fennie who blogs at Corner Cupboard mentioned the idea of people belonging to a tribe in her latest blog. It got me thinking and ruminating about tribes and belonging. I am not a joiner of clubs, never was. I was just about the only girl I knew who wasn't in Brownies, resisted my parents' attempts to get me to go to Youth Club and even now would recoil from the idea of being a golf club member or in the Mothers' Union. It is not an objection to what any of these groups stand for, more a sense that I am happier being uncategorised (is that a word?) and preferably uncategorisable. It is not that I am a loner or an introvert, indeed whenever work throws up one of those MyersBriggs personality type tests I am always an extrovert, admittedly one who needs large doses of solitude to balance out a love of company. It is more that I don't like to be identified with a set of assumptions. I am happier on the outside, making connections with all sorts of peop...

I do love contrasts - winter and summer, light and dark, busy and idle, even sad and happy on the age old premise that you need one to recognise the other. This week began with the coming to stay of adult children: first my elder daughter and her husband, arriving on Sunday and taking possession of the cottage. The two younger ones still have rooms in the house that we describe as theirs, even though they have long left home. The two older ones who have been away even longer tend to stay in the cottage when they come and I think like the sense of a place to themselves as well the company and the buzz of the full house. Outside it was cold as ice and stone, the wind cutting through your clothes in the few yards from house to cottage, and Emma came looking for a fleece to borrow. "I always forget you need an inside and an outside fleece to wear here." We smiled at each other. We don't get much time together these days and it is precious. A couple of days later younge...

A brave yellow rose blooming against the cottage wall. The hammamelis mollis. Every year it takes me by surprise. For weeks it is an undistinguished little tree in the corner of the field and then one day it is full of gorgeous spidery blossoms with a clear sweet scent. The new White Wyandotte hens out for a scratch and a wander. A tiny pink flower on the scented geranium, protected by being just under the canopy of the yew tree on the edge of a sunny wall.

Christmas again and how am I doing? It has galloped towards me over the last few days. I like a balance between being prepared (so as not to be too frantic) and having things to do (so as to have what frances calls "a bit of Tizz"). This year there has been too much work and procrastination and not enough preparation so I am skating towards it in a slithery out of control rush, consoling myself that on Christmas Day it is just the two of us this year so I can save the major planning for a houseful at New Year. But here is the list of things to do: Cake - made but not iced although this morning I doused it once again with brandy. The kitchen smells intensely alcoholic. I have also been faffing around today trying to find my favourite recipe for marzipan. For years I thought I hated marzipan but eventually discovered that what I hate is shop bought, over sweet for me marzipan. The home made stuff I adore. So that is another job, but one well worth doing. Puddings - mad...

Eliane who writes a blog about all sorts of matters close to my heart (chickens, wood burning stoves, food) has tagged me to write six interesting things about myself. I think I was tagged to do this one a little while ago now and I suspect I used up anything even close to interesting then but I have had a go at some not terribly interesting but individual things. My absolute favourite food, the thing I would have if I had to choose one thing to eat for the rest of my life, is Ian's homemade bread with far too much salty Welsh butter. It has to be homemade bread and real butter. I remember my grandmother giving me pieces of butter to eat like cheese when I was a child which perhaps accounts for my passion for it now. Anyone seeing one of my doorsteps for the first time tends to do a double take and sometimes I hope that, if I whisk the plate away before they can get a good look, maybe they are still thinking that the slice on my bread is cheddar. When I was about fourteen and ...

I feel it is time for a chicken update. We had friends staying last Friday night and in the morning my friend and I went to let the chickens out. It was cold but bright and still, the sky blue against the bare branches of the apple trees. As we went into the kitchen garden I thought I could see the two older chickens, who have a separate chicken house, out in their run. Odd, I thought, and odder still that they should be lying down. Everything said not right. The bodies of the hens lay in the run, decapitated. Rob opened the door and reached in. The breast meat had been taken from each. Rob is a countryman. "Stoat," he said. "Stoat or weasel." "But how did they get in?" They must have squeezed their way under the floor of the house. All around the outside of the run was protected with a chicken wire skirt but we had not thought that anything could gain entrance through the tiny space under the house itself. We picked them up and took them to the bonfire wh...