welsh hills again

If you are the same age as I am you might remember Ian Dury's song, "Reasons to be cheerful, part 2".  Well here are ten of mine, in no particular order: grandchildren tea wine eggs sunshine books knitting and crochet Ian swallows singing

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 ...

Well it is day 100 plus 3 of the 100 day project.  So how did it go and was it worthwhile?  Did I enjoy it?  What did it do to how I feel about the garden and what did it do to the garden itself?  Time for some thinking. I decided not to do too much wondering about the project while I was in the middle of it as the whole point seemed to be the gently repeated doing so I just let the time pass and committed myself to doing something connected with the garden every day.  When we were here that tended to be something practical and outside, anything from an afternoon of serious hard work to the pulling up of a solitary creeping buttercup. When we were away with children and grandchildren or visiting friends I tried to keep my gardening mind engaged.  Sometimes that was reading although I notice I did not return to my vast numbers of gardening books.  Reading was something I did on the internet or in a magazine.  I am quite surprised I did no...

Not long until the end of the project now and suddenly it is time to pick things as well as to continue with the weeding and sorting.  It makes me realise just how long I have been doing this.  I started on 1st April 2018 at a time when things were only just beginning to grow after a long cold spring.  Now we are certainly in high summer and for May and June we have had a lot of hot dry weather.  When I look across to the hills on the other side of the valley the fields are brown and gold.  This is Wales.  The normal colour of my view is green, many shades of deep verdant green. But this evening through my window shows a bleached dry world.  It is still beautiful but it doesn't quite look like home.  It has been wonderful though to eat outside every day, to sit in the shade because the sun is too hot and to come into the old house where the slate floors and the thick walls produce a cool retreat.  The garden really does need some rain....

I am keeping the project up but with a lot of time spent with older daughter and family and younger daughter and hers  I need to catch up with documenting it! It is an amazing day here in North Wales.  This was the view when I opened the kitchen door this morning and it has stayed pretty much like this all day.  The forecast for the rest of this week is similar so this is a time to appreciate how beautiful it is and to sit on the sense that everywhere needs watering!  Of course it does, we can't have everything! Today's task was just a little one: to cut down the sweet cicely before it seeds all over the place.  Sweet cicely is a  very beautiful thing and while it is flower I love it for the foam of white and the scent.  The plant has a sweet, faintly aniseedy flavour to my palate, and can be used in cooking instead of sugar for things like pies and tarts.  But when it finishes flowering and goes to seed it will seed itself abso...

I have not been recording what I have been doing so here is my attempt at a catch up: Monday: pulled bindweed from the front bed, time taken about twenty minutes Tuesday: did some Spanish in the morning, had a meeting in the afternoon, deadheaded some roses before tea!  time taken about ten minutes Wednesday: today I went a bit bananas about exercise, doing my dance class in the morning, deciding to join in with the walking group in the afternoon and going to yoga in the evening.  I did no gardening whatsoever but I felt great! Thursday was another committed elsewhere day as was Friday.  On Thursday I did pilates in the morning, took the campervan for its service in the afternoon and spent about half an hour in between weeding one of the herb beds which always gets invaded by creeping bindweedn On Friday I went to Welsh in the morning and we went over to see daughter and her family in the afternoon before heading over to some friends for a barbecue.  In ...

I have been better at doing the gardening part of the project than I have at recording it on the blog!  This weekend has been full of family as younger son and his family came up from Devon and two of the others came across to say hello.The sun shone and the children got on amazingly well especially when you consider that they don't see each other that often!  And the value of the garden as a place to be was clear: to sit and chat and play and kick a football or throw a rugby ball or be endlessly pushed on a swing, to feed hens and make dens, to be taken for a walk by granddaughter number one, aged four and a half.  "I'm going to show you that there is even more garden down here, Grandma.  Follow me.  It goes on for ever."  (It really doesn't unless you are four.) So I am feeling more in love with the garden than I have for a long time.  Here is the side garden bubbling over with blue geranium. And the kitchen garden beautifully disguising it...