To
my horror I’ve realised that it’s nearly three weeks since my last post and I
simply do not know where May has gone! When I last posted we were still in the
far north, with the General Election looming, closely followed by our planned
return south. Since we arrived home, almost a fortnight ago, life has been a
blur of unpacking, garden tidying, service planning and general catching-up
with people and commitments and it’s only now starting to slow down to a more
manageable pace.
It
has been good to realise yet again that the new house is a very welcoming place
to come home to. It’s also been fun to come back to a garden which was still
almost dormant when we headed north and see what is now making its presence felt.
I even managed to remember to take my camera with me on a walk to and from a
church meeting in the village to capture something of our rather different
surroundings and perspective down here in the valley.
So
here, from a still cool and showery Mid-Wales, is a glimpse of our new normal.
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Half-timbered Mid-Wales
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| Hedgerow country |
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| Hills to the right of me |
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| Hills to the left of me |
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| On the bridge looking upstream... |
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| ...and across the road looking downstream |
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| Along the winding road to home |
What a beautiful area to come to, even if the coming home involves a lot of work to sort stiff out. Definitely looks worthwhile! Hope you get some sun in mid-Wales soon.
ReplyDeleteMid-Wales is gorgeous, Nancy, and still relatively undiscovered by tourists, who often dash through on their way to the coast or Snowdonia.The garden makes the most work when we get back, but is worth the effort. Anyway the exercise is good for us. ;-) The sun is peeping out today, so I'll be outside again after lunch.
DeleteBeautiful pictures, Perpetua! I would love to see pics of your actual house in Wales... such wonderful countryside! Am I mistaken, but did you recently move closer to the town or village... or am I mistaken? I know you have a darling little place in France (I keep that painting of it on my computer). I remember Wales fondly from our one visit in 1999. We went to Hay-on-Wye and stayed at a wonderfully old farm (Clifodig Farm), Ponde?, Wales (maybe?)
ReplyDeleteGlad you like them, Rian. I'm afraid you won't get any photos of the house as I never post recognisable photos of our UK home, though I'm happy to do so of the cottage in France.
DeleteNo, you're not mistaken. We moved last October from our old farmhouse up in the hills just a couple of miles to a modern house on a little estate at the edge of the village. I remember you telling me about your visit to Hay-on-Wye which is also set in beautiful countryside rather similar to ours here.
No problem about the house pictures. I actually meant *inside* as I love to see English, Welsh, and Irish kitchens, gardens, etc.... as they show on our BBC's English mystery series, etc. And I especially loved the churchyard photo. There's something about really old churchyards... visited one in Lismore, England and another in Sky, Scotland years ago.
DeleteOh, if it's inside you want I may well manage something, Rian, but I'll need to tidy up first. :-) However, this is a modern house, so our kitchen sin't like something out of Miss Marple, I'm afraid. I'm working hard on the garden, so may well have something to show before too long. There has been a church in the middle of our churchyard since the C12th, though the present building is only 150 years old.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteTruly beautiful Perpetua... and reminiscent of the Scottish Borders, demonstrating yet again the ties through land! Glad that 'no news has been good news' and that you are feeling so settled. I just had a visitor from France (Plueven, Brittany) and thought about you as a result - no doubt we'll be hearing about that e'er lang &*> YAM xx
Yes, Mid-Wales is a wonderful area, Yam, and for us will always be home. We love its green gentleness and wonderful variety of scenery. Even the coast is less than an hour away from us here. No news has been mostly a case of no time and energy once everything else has bee done. :-) I hope you had a great time with your visitor from Brittany and yes, you will be hearing about Normandy again very soon.
DeleteHow green is your valley ..... and mine too. Beautiful pictures.
ReplyDeleteOur area is wonderful isn't it, Molly? Once we reach the Welsh border we know we are home again. :-)
DeleteWhat a beautiful place in which to live....and how sensible to move closer to a village while you have plenty of years to enjoy making the house and garden the way you want them to be.
ReplyDeleteIt's the valley that was often visible in the photos I took around our old farmhouse up in the hills, Helen. Much easier walking here and I can be at church in not much more than 10 minutes on foot. :-) We are also enjoying the house and garden more and more as time goes on.
DeleteReally lovely Perpetua. Much more my sort of country than the mountains of either Wales or Scotland. At least if you find yourself with writer's block it won't last long with beautiful scenery like that all around you.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to hear from you again. Your absence has been noticed,
I thought you might say that, Ray, and I can understand why. The hills and valleys of this part of Wales are much more gentle and always very green. They call Powys the green heart of Wales.
DeleteMy absence hasn't been a case of writer's block this time, but sheer busyness and tiredness, It's taken me much longer than it used to do to recover from staying up all night to watch the election results come in! Anno Domini...
Beautiful pictures. I especially like the old grave markers. Not sure why, but they capture the imagination. Your hills are lovely, as well as the river. What a wonderful place to live, and I imagine things are new every day.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like them, Bonnie. The churchyard is very large and very old, though most of the gravestones are probably C19th. Did you notice the huge yew-tree? Traditionally English and Welsh churchyards had several yew trees planted in them, carrying on a very ancient custom : http://www.plant-lore.com/plantofthemonth/churchyard-yews/
DeleteThe hills are where we used to live, so it's interesting to look up at them now, rather than down into the valley from them. It really is a journey of discovery at the moment.
You live in a beautiful area Perpetua. It reminds me of my old home area in NZ ... lush and green with rolling hills. You are almost making me homesick..
ReplyDeleteIsn't it wonderful; how home feels like home?!!
"Lush and green with rolling hills" is a perfect description of the Welsh borders, Shirley. We don't get all that rain to no purpose. :-) I think many emigrants to New Zealand must have felt comforted to find a landscape that seemed familiar on the other side of the world.
DeleteYes, it is wonderful how home feels like home and wherever we travel, this will always be home.
It was so nice to see you had posted, and even nicer to read the post and bask in your winding roads. What amazing scenery you have, at every turn, it seems. Stay well and safe.
ReplyDeleteSorry you had to wait so long Penny. Writing and reading blogs has been very much at the bottom of the list of things to do since we got home, I'm afraid. I'm glad you like our gentle landscape. This is a very pretty and unspoilt valley and we really love the fact that the little river runs along the edge of our garden.
DeleteWonderful photos. It looks a delightful area.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan. Mid-Wales is a truly beautiful area and we've always been grateful that work brought us here and we've been able to stay.
DeleteBeautiful photos - and well worth waiting for. Life away away from the laptop is definitely to be commended!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Catriona. I'm glad you like them. I love my laptop and can't imagine life without it and the internet, but there other things just as enjoyable and even more important. :-)
DeleteI'm so glad you found your new house good to come home to...that is so important! I love the gorgeous greenness of your surroundings there in Wales. And I share your horror at how fast the time flies by!! Where HAS May gone this year?
ReplyDeleteAxxx
Annie, it's now our third time of returning after 2 trips to Scotland and Christmas with the family and we feel it more each time. Given that we lived in our previous house for the best part of 40 years, I'm pleased this feels like home so quickly. Wales is certainly very green, thanks to its usually reliable supply of regular rain. :) I'm not sure I could ever live somewhere that wasn't green almost all the time. As for vanishing May, it has joined vanishing February - the last month that whizzed by so noticeably for me.
DeleteI agree...how has May vanished so quickly ? Everything looks so lovely where you are now living...it seems to have been a very good move, and it is so good that this is clear, so soon ! I hope you manage to have a few weeks of taking things a bit easier, prior to your next trip to France. Jx
ReplyDeleteIt's been a very busy month for both of us, Janice, what with travelling long distances and being so busy around the house. :-) Although we've only moved a couple of miles, living in the valley we used to look down over from the old house is a very different experience and one we're both enjoying. We'll now have a quiet few weeks before we leave for France a month next Monday. :-)
DeleteYour new situation is so lovely. I don't see how you could be leaving for France so soon after just getting back from Scotland. This from an old stick in the mud who really really likes to just stay at home.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you like it, Vic. Yes, we do seem to be like the proverbial rolling stones which don't gather moss, but we're very used to the regular changes after living like this since I retired in 2007. We have packing down to a fine art and our cottage in France is so much closer than the north coast of Scotland. This lifestyle can't go on for ever, but we intend to enjoy it while it lasts. :-)
DeleteWhat a little slice of Heaven you have there, Perpetua. It looks lovely from every angle. Welcome home again, and looking forward to your next adventure!
ReplyDeleteWe've always loved this area since first moving here in the early 1970s, Patricia and are enjoying seeing it from this different perspective down in the valley. We have another month here before we head across the Channel for a while. :-)
DeleteHow lovely it all looks in the spring sunshine.
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel, I've just about kept up my blog posts but the year is rapidly disappearing ... how did we get to be nearly half way through already!
Doesn't it just, Annie! Like you I think Wales is gorgeous in all weathers, but sunshine makes it glow. :)
DeleteI know they say that time passes more quickly as we get older, but this year really has been exceptional in this respect. Let's hope it slows down a bit over the summer so we can enjoy it.
What a beautiful place you live in, Perpetua. The first year in a new home is always full of surprises, and it sounds like your garden is supplying lots of them. Wales is such a lovely place, and I'm so glad I've had a chance to see parts of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad too that you were able to visit Wales, Kristie, and see what a beautiful country it is. Mid-Wales, particularly the inland part where we live, is less visited than the better-known areas and therefore quieter, which suits us very well. :) I'm enjoying discovering the garden and deciding what I want to do with it. Watch this space...
DeleteIt is frustrating when times flies & you realise you haven't posted anything on your blog for a few weeks. It happened to me in April since when, I've been trying to make amends.
ReplyDeleteLove the photographs of your village and surrounding hills. The half-timbered houses remind of similar ones south-east from you in Herefordshire, which I used to see at regular intervals when driving from Lampeter to Coventry & return, in the mid 1970s.
Thanks for the fellow-blogger sympathy, Ricky. You know just what it's like when life runs away with us and we can't fit blogging in. DH and I have been so busty with different things since we got home that the blog has been neglected.
DeleteGlad you like the photos. Yes, north Powys has some marvellous half-timbered houses, which, as you say, are so typical of both sides of the Welsh border. Within a mile or so of our village centre there are three large and fine C17th farmhouses (almost mini manor houses) as well as a good number of smaller farmhouses and cottages and our village is by no means unique in this.
Mid-Wales looks heavenly to me. Exactly where in Wales do you live? I want to return to visit Wales again sometime in my lifetime. I love my Motherland. My great-grandmother came here in the late 1800's from around Cardiff. The Pontypridd area was home to my family for generations. Natgarw was her village. I also spent time in Aberystwyth where I had a friend.
ReplyDeleteI thought you'd enjoy this, Sally, as you have such strong connections with Wales. We are literally in the middle of Wales, about 40 miles inland from Aberystwyth.Your family connections are with south Wales and of course Nantgarw was a mining village in the heyday of the Welsh coal industry. That area has of course been transformed visually since the mines closed and the Valleys are also lovely countryside nowadays. I do hope you manage to make that return visit to Wales one day.
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