2022-11-23 18:33
I always used to hate November: greyness, wetness, short days and dank, dark nights. It felt to me as if the world turned inward and the light left the sky and as the days darkened my… Read More
Blog Directory > Life Blogs > My Life Blogs > welsh hills again my-life Blog >
2022-11-07 17:04
I haven't blogged since March! That's terrible. No excuse and every excuse: packing and moving and getting out of the rental house and into the new one. I probably co… Read More
2022-03-19 20:14
So much more to show you on the house. Loving the cladding and the contrast with the render and now that the scaffolding has come down it is possible to see the design of the hou… Read More
2022-01-09 17:14
A year - a long time and no time at all. This last strange year has often felt stalled, coming round again and again, living in the groundhog day of lockdowns and restrictions bu… Read More
2021-11-07 15:00
I always was and I remain a lover of spring. I love the lengthening days, the growing warmth, snowdrops, cyclamen and the daffodils standing in breeze. And most of all I love the… Read More
2021-10-23 15:36
One of the striking things about having a new house built is that it is not a linear process. Rather than following an even curve. slowly growing week by week, it moves in leaps and bo… Read More
2021-08-15 14:28
Months and months ago we booked a ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff. Our son and his family were going to be in France and we decided we would take the campervan and go and visit them.&nb&hell…Read More
2021-08-02 14:13
I was never a sporty kid. I looked as if I should have been sporty but I wasn't. I didn't like games and had no ball skills to speak of. I hated hockey and the clattering c… Read More
2021-07-05 13:56
I have just been for coffee after yoga outside in a friend's garden. We were catching up after our last week away and I was telling her about the progress which my sister and her… Read More
2021-06-20 11:24
I love summer. I love longer days and sitting outside. I love sunshine and flowers. This summer is a strange one, living in a rented house amid the uncertainty and st… Read More
2021-06-06 15:14
Well I am running out of things to say about coronavirus It persists. The new variant first identified in India seems to be more transmissible and is now dominant here in the UK… Read More
2021-05-16 15:00
There is no holding us now! Last week the campervan took us to Scotland. We have always loved Scotland and Ian in particular has an attachment to walking Scottish hills whi… Read More
2021-05-03 13:16
Sometimes having a campervan is a wonderful thing. So here is why: we are allowed over the border into England now, we are allowed to travel within England and to spend time in gardens… Read More
2021-04-18 13:38
Monday 12th April was the day for the opening up of some restrictions in England, not here in Wales where some things (hairdressers!) had already opened and others (outside hospitality) rema… Read More
2021-04-05 10:34
On the 28th March we were at last allowed to stop "staying local" and travel within Wales. Two of our children and their families live in Wales and two in England. We had managed… Read More
2021-03-27 17:15
Has it really been a year since the first lockdown struck and we all retreated to our homes? I went back and read my first blog about coronavirus and see that I wrote it on 28th M… Read More
2021-03-13 13:59
So here we are in the middle of March and on Friday the Welsh Government announced some small changes to the rules in Wales. The vaccination programme is going well with more tha… Read More
2021-02-28 14:41
It was such a huge thing to do, both practically and emotionally, to move out of our old house that it is astonishing to find how quickly and easily we seem to be settling into our rental ho… Read More
2021-02-22 17:15
So we achieved our move, completing on the 15th February, and here we are in our rental property. It has been strange partly by not seeming strange. After fifteen yea… Read More
2021-02-08 12:47
Well here we are, today is the day, moving day. How and why is a long story and I haven't wanted to write about it until now, some funny sense of maybe jinxing things maybe! &nbs&hell…Read More
2021-01-23 14:36
This morning we woke up to snow. This snowfall took me by surprise. Two weeks ago we also had snow but that had been clearly forecast in advance. This morning's snow f… Read More
2020-12-31 16:31
So here we are: the last day of 2020. What a strange year and what a strange point we have reached with the virus. Yesterday the Oxford Vaccine was cleared for use in the UK by t… Read More
2020-12-21 15:47
A press conference on Saturday afternoon, the 19th December. Boris Johnson and his scientific advisers announce that the spread of a new strain of the virus is causing great concern.&n&hell…Read More
2020-12-13 11:42
Five things to be thankful for this Christmas.We are still here. We come to the end of 2020 still alive, still living, breathing, laughing, doing, still here.Ian. We have c… Read More
2020-11-24 12:28
It is a couple of weeks since my last entry, a couple of weeks with various things happening, some to do with the virus and some not. The first was a strange period of visual disturban… Read More
2020-11-08 13:16
Tomorrow we come to the end of the "firebreak" lockdown in Wales, two weeks and two days of further restrictions. It has not felt like the first lockdown at all and it is interesting t… Read More
2020-10-28 12:30
So here we are on day five of the sixteen day "firebreak lockdown" in Wales. The main difference for us from the local lockdown which preceded it is that we are no longer allowed to me… Read More
2020-10-18 15:52
Today I found myself struggling to remember exactly what I had done this week and I realised that one effect for me of this protracted period of lockdown and semi lockdown is that the weeks… Read More
2020-10-10 14:25
Last time I blogged I said we were on the Welsh Government's Amber list up here which meant that the numbers of coronavirus cases were rising and a return to more restrictions was poss… Read More
2020-09-26 14:09
Three weeks since I last blogged. Why? I don't know. That is the reason, I think, that I don't know. I don't know what is happening with the virus and what we should… Read More
2020-09-03 15:03
Well the nicest of reasons for not blogging for the last couple of weekends: some time spent with younger son and his family. They have three children under seven and two dogs, a… Read More
2020-08-16 16:28
This week we went away, yes that's right, away from home! We went to stay for a couple of nights in The Bull Inn in Sedbergh with some friends. It felt odd to pack a bag, to… Read More
2020-08-10 15:28
Well here, rather extraordinarily, is a week with lots of post coronavirus firsts in it! Some restrictions have been eased and while new cases have risen, both here and in England,&nbs&hell…Read More
2020-08-03 10:43
Can this strange period really have been going on for so long? Sometimes I am so used to it I hardly register it as strange. I get up, I do my Spanish skype or zoom call three mo… Read More
2020-07-26 11:21
Time to generate a bit more energy. While things have opened up a lot in England, life here stays pretty much the same. One change still to come in Wales is the reopening of the… Read More
2020-07-19 15:20
Well now we have achieved it: all our children and grandchildren have been seen again and I am once more comfortable in my own skin. This last week we made our longest journey since Fe… Read More
2020-07-12 15:19
On Monday 6th July the rules in Wales restricting travel to the local area were lifted and we set off down to South Wales to visit our elder daughter and her family. It was February si… Read More
2020-07-05 15:14
Well tomorrow is the day that we in Wales are released from the "stay local" restriction which has generally been taken to be five miles with a little leeway for those people living in rural… Read More
2020-06-27 14:26
Once again what coronavirus lockdown looks like in the UK depends on where you are. Many more relaxations in England, to be honest so many (and none of them applicable to us in Wales)… Read More
2020-06-22 11:06
Is it easing a little now? Watching the news on television it certainly looks like it. Living up here under Welsh rules in a rural part of the country it doesn't seem very differ… Read More
2020-06-14 14:24
What's new here up our hill in North Wales? Not a lot. Last week we had a socially distanced cup of tea outside in the garden with some friends. On Friday we bought take away fis… Read More
2020-06-07 13:12
Big differences at the moment between Wales and England: Welsh lockdown continues with the minor tweaks which allow you to meet one household outside within five miles of home. E… Read More
2020-05-31 10:16
If this blog is to be any kind of record of these times for me and my family, this week we have to record the furore around Dominic Cummings. Cummings has been a trusted advisor to the… Read More
2020-05-23 13:54
Week 9? Well it could be week 29. This is just what life is like now, especially here in Wales where the lockdown restrictions remain in place. It seems that new infections… Read More
2020-05-17 11:05
Well I was wrong about there being not a lot of difference between the arrangements in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Restrictions have been eased significantly in Engl… Read More
2020-05-10 10:42
Have we really been confined like this for seven weeks? Sometimes it seems unbelievable that so much time has passed. Sometimes I can barely remember what it felt like to get in… Read More
2020-05-02 16:32
A strange week on the political front: Boris Johnson returns to work after coronavirus. His fiancée has their first child, a baby boy. Official figures this week beg… Read More
2020-04-26 10:34
For some reason this has been a quieter week. Perhaps we are getting used to being confined? Somehow I have done less. Perhaps the Protestant work ethic of filling every mo… Read More
2020-04-18 19:13
Of course it would be nice if the sun always shone and the swallows swooped and everyone kept their spirits up all the time and mostly I think we are doing pretty well. On Thursday tho… Read More
2020-04-12 10:33
You might think that all weeks would be the same: nothing different to do, nowhere different to go, no new people bring their energy and life. But you would be wrong. Perhaps it… Read More
2020-04-04 11:17
There was an energy last week: planning what to do, what to eat, how to manage. This week has been lower key. The pattern of the days starts to emerge. If I am not careful… Read More
2020-03-28 15:14
Strange times. What to do? What to say?I have written a blog on and off since 2007, less frequently in the last couple of years. Who knows how long this crisis will last an… Read More
2020-03-09 18:00
The night before the Chester 10k I spent the whole evening grumping stompily about the house. What on earth was I thinking? Why on earth had I set myself up to do this? In November when we r… Read More
2020-01-19 16:13
2019 finished with a lovely Christmas down in Devon with younger son and his family where, for only the second time in over forty years, I did not cook Christmas dinner! I don't mind c… Read More
2019-11-19 19:37
I was astonished to find when I came back to my blog yesterday that it has been more than three months since I blogged. In fact my Spanish friend asked me this morning if I only blogge… Read More
2019-08-04 16:41
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… Read More
2019-07-04 19:43
It is six months to the day since I started couch to 5k. So how has it been? Is it worth doing? Am I still running? Have I lost two stone and become an elite athlete?… Read More
2019-07-01 15:37
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… Read More
2019-05-11 19:52
It is a month since I did that first parkrun, a month where I had a few days off for a sore knee and later a week off for a bad sore throat. In between times I have tried to keep up wi… Read More
2019-04-13 18:10
When I started this running lark in January I had no ambition to run real distances. I didn't want to run a marathon but I did think I would like to run 5k, maybe, if I could. &n&hell…Read More
2019-04-07 20:53
One of the things I love about having blogged for so many years is that I can look back on how things were and how things are now. I know in my head that our garden was a field when we… Read More
2019-03-17 15:58
A mixed up sort of week! On Saturday last we went to Florence for a few days. My niece has been studying there this year and we went to catch up with her, to revisit Florence and… Read More
2019-03-05 20:51
The last week of the couch to 5K programme! Amazing but true.This week is three runs of thirty minutes each. For run number one we went to a Pilates class before going down to th… Read More
2019-02-27 20:08
Well week 8 of Couch to 5k means we are coming towards the end. Only one more week after this one!Week 8 required three runs of 28 minutes each. I had decided to try to make it e… Read More
2019-02-19 20:53
For the first time the programme for this week had no intervals of walking and running and it was all running. I think mixed fortunes is the best way to describe how week seven went.&n&hell…Read More
2019-02-11 20:22
It felt like a bit of a come down this week to go out for my first run of the week and find it was meant to be two runs of eight minutes each with a walk in between. I was on such a hi… Read More
2019-02-04 16:36
I was on a real high after run two of week five, having achieved two runs of eight minutes each. The next run was meant to be twenty minutes long. How could that be? And ye… Read More
2019-01-29 10:22
The first run of week five and I was feeling quite close to keen to get on with it! I have been away from home for a day or so visiting my brother in South Wales so I had missed two da… Read More
2019-01-25 13:58
A couple of days ago I looked at what was in store for week four and did not like what I found! Running for five minutes at a time and much more running altogether looked like a real c… Read More
2019-01-18 17:15
Run one. Well, today was run one of week three and I was nervous. This run required me to go for three minutes for the first time and three minutes seemed a big jump from ninety… Read More
2019-01-13 12:10
I was a bit daunted by the idea that, having achieved my three sessions for the first week, I was expected to run for a bit longer in week two. I should point out that "a bit longer" m… Read More
2019-01-10 14:34
I downloaded the couch to 5k app onto my phone and was delighted to see that I could have Sarah Millican as the voice of my trainer! Sarah is funny and dry and far from skinny. I… Read More
2019-01-07 17:39
I start 2019 at the highest weight I have ever been. I do not like this. I have also been thinking for ages that I need to reduce my alcohol intake. It's not that I drink a… Read More
2018-11-19 17:03
A couple of years ago I wrote a number of posts on the year of being sixty two about the experience of getting older. I was interested in the sense that our generation, in our sixties… Read More
2018-11-11 18:30
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… Read More
2018-11-02 15:33
A strange week which has left me feeling out of sorts and out of shape. Monday started with yoga in the morning and it was a great class which left me feeling invigorated and energised… Read More
2018-10-28 15:40
What a long time since I have written here. I find I am missing the way the blog records the days which otherwise whizz away so quickly so here, with no attempt to be for anyone other… Read More
2018-07-30 14:20
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:grandchildrenteawineeggssunshine… Read More
2018-07-29 13:59
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 fee… Read More
2018-07-13 16:33
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 t… Read More
2018-06-30 19:34
Not long until the end of the project now and suddenly it 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 t… Read More
2018-06-25 15:59
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 i… Read More
2018-06-16 17:10
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 minutesTuesday: did some Spanish in t… Read More
2018-06-12 16:17
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 D… Read More
2018-06-04 16:19
Can you believe it? Day 65 and still going! The last three days have meant quite a bit of garden time, much of it with Ian working as well. It has been practical, functiona… Read More
2018-06-01 15:20
This is nearly two thirds of the way through! That is amazing!Today younger daughter and her two children were here for the morning and for lunch. As usual in the summer we spent… Read More
2018-05-31 16:02
Yesterday was a day full of movement: dance class in the morning (and yay! I have finally cracked hulahooping), a walk and some gardening in the afternoon and yoga class in the evening… Read More
2018-05-29 14:51
Every day I have done a small thing in the garden, unless I have been away in which case I have tried to give it some thought. The greatest difference it is making at the moment is to… Read More
2018-05-27 16:24
Still here, still doing the project! Life has got a bit busy so that it has been a bit of a stretch both doing the project and recording it have so here is a bit of a catch up.On… Read More
2018-05-22 08:54
Yes! Past the half way mark! There have been tiny bits in the garden since I last posted, mostly watering and the kind of weeding where you wander past and pull one thing up. And… Read More
2018-05-19 09:44
Just a short time in the garden this morning before heading off for the weekend.This is a part of the garden I haven't shown you much although in many ways it is my favourite part (when othe… Read More
2018-05-17 12:22
The project is going well. Even on the days when I don't get time to document what I am doing I am managing to do something, somehow, somewhere in the garden.Today I have been admiring… Read More
2018-05-15 18:48
There was very little time for the garden today as I had a whole load of Spanish to do for my OU course and granddaughter visiting booked for this afternoon. So I contented myself with… Read More
2018-05-14 18:53
Today was an astonishingly beautiful day. I wandered about looking at everything which I had planted and making sure it was still alive!Other than that it was a day for yoga, Spanish le… Read More
2018-05-13 17:32
The thirteenth of May. Had he lived, my father would have been eighty four today. His illness and decline were so important to my experience of the garden that I shall talk a bit… Read More
2018-05-12 17:26
Does this count as nearly half way? A couple of days so busy that there was not a space to get out into the garden. I countered that by thinking about which plants I would have i… Read More
2018-05-09 14:43
Another day of just a little time for connecting with the garden. I decided to use it for a bit of plant buying and fifteen minutes weeding in the cutting garden.These are mainly plant… Read More
2018-05-08 19:53
A change of pace for day 38. We achieved so much and worked so hard this weekend and today was full of reports to write, Spanish to do, shopping to get and admin things piling up. &hell…Read More
2018-05-07 16:38
A different sort of day today, quite far removed from the little by little approach I have taken so far with the 100 day project. It has been a beautiful day of warm sun up here and al… Read More
2018-05-06 14:25
Another pause in the 100 day project because of a quick trip to the West of Ireland to the Loop Head Peninsula. Lovely, lively interesting place with a classic mixture of Irish weather… Read More
Subscribe to Welsh Hills Again
Get updates delivered right to your inbox!