so that was Christmas was it?

...and it's over, thank goodness. It's not that I am against it or anything but I just never have the time to actually do it justice. I'd love to be able to titivate and do creative things with a holly branch and a few balls but it takes me all my time just to cut to the chase, grab a turkey, smack mince pies together and stuff decorations on a wobbling tree. Said tree fell over this year - was lying on the sofa like a overweight bejewelled harlot the morning after, so I shoved it on to the floor and said those immortal words of a stressed mother 'SOD IT!' But the aghast looks of the surrounding pack of males that dominate this hovel on the hillside made me pick the the blowsy bint up and stick her back on her perch in the window where she can beckon to the outside world each evening until 5 January.

So it eventually came to pass in a whirl of cooking, clearing away, more cooking, more clearing away. As I sat peeling the inevitable mountain of sprouts I thought of Woozle in a hospital bed in London, fighting so bravely - instead of a 'x' on each one this year we had a 'w' - bless her and her hubby Jimmy.

We left the house behind on Boxing Day and yomped through the woods to get some of that crisp cold fresh air - it was like the rush hour on every footpath and stile! The world and his wife were out in force taking the air. Meanwhile back at the ranch - more cooking and clearing add an ironing mountain and two bulging washing baskets and you get the picture......and this is Christmas....

A hospital trip in deep snow for the junior shepherd early one morning left him with his hair standing really on end without gel! Having his nether regions shaved into a mohican to match may just have put him off hair sculpture or ever - well we can but hope! One more trip and he should be sorted.

Before we knew it it was New Year's Eve and our first venture into a street party to welcome in the New Year. An added complication - about a foot of snow and solid ice all down the lane. Much cooking was being done in kitchens still jaded from Christmas - the last few weary mince pies struggled into a hot oven, were promptly forgotten only to emerge some hours later as missiles that could bring down aircraft on the Manchester - Europe flight path which passes over our houses.

The gathering point was a garage, the heating was a chiminea, the food was hilarious varying from Sri Lanka veg curry to ubiquitous cocktail sausage rolls, tiramisu and syrup sponge and custard, a collection of slo cookers held mulled wine and cider punch and what resembled fruit salad - 'bung it all in' seemed to be the way to go. As the adults, wrapped in more layers of thermals than woolly onions, nattered away in the garage the kids revelled in the freedom of playing in the snow and ice by the light of the full moon and they didn't seem to feel the cold at all. The chiminea waddled into the garage at one point but had to waddle out again because of the fumes from the smokeless fuel which gave us lot half an hour of hysteria as we made up headlines for the newspapers - 'Peculiar village cult exposed as whole street die in fume filled garage whilst children were left in the snow' etc etc

Games followed and apparently somewhere there is a photograph of yours truly running up the garage with a white balloon between my knees - no ..I don't want to see it thank you. With all the layers we collectively admitted to having donned, a game of Strip Jack Naked would have taken us well towards the Spring equinox.

As the witching hour arrived we all went out staggering on the ice - whether it was the ice or the effects of the mulled wine we shall never know. Just as we slid into a circle with all the kids with frozen wet gloves - yuk, Big Ben struck midnight on the radio, and a single Japenese lantern floated over the wooded hillside in the moonlight somebody whispered it was a soul on its way to heaven and I thought of Woozle and hoped that she was peaceful in London and not in pain. Fireworks lit the sky and cheers echoed up rom the valley - we sang a bit and kissed a lot and finished the mulled wine and the experienced party goers managed to keep going with a bottle of whisky and Sloe vodka until well after 3am.

Sadly Woozle passed away in London at 6;20pm on New Years Eve and a very special, very brave and funny lady will no longer leave comments below. Woozle was one of the first bloggers I actually met way back in 2007 and we have remained in contact ever since. It was Woozle who took the remains of my shocked chickens after the fox came to call. We planned a rendevouz on a car park in Leominster and spent a hilarious half hour with a carrier bag of beetroot that had been rolling round after a market - did we laugh! That's how I shall remember Woozle - laughing like a mad woman scrabbling under cars looking for stray beetroot whilst balancing a chicken crate on the roof of the car as our bemused husbands shook their heads in disbelief.

Winter

If I should be the first to go away

Out of the golden sunlight of our peace,

When the dear sacrement of common day

And lowly, love empurpled tasks shall cease;

When the old books beside the evening fire

neglected lie, and closed the garden gate,

And from our hill the blossom tinted shire

Gathers for us an air disconsolate -

Then, oh beloved! Hold me close, so close,

Nearer than thought of pain or sad regret;

So wrapped in you, I even should regret;

The lifelong dread of parting; and the rose

Of June would flower for me, though cold and slow

And weary on our roof-tree fell the snow.

Speak to me then with that most tender voice,

Wherein I hear the forest murmur fall,

The songs of the corn and velvet throated doves

That each on each with muted music call,

Minding each other of their leafy loves.

So gathered safe within your voice, your eyes,

Your dear protecting smile, I shall not know

When the black frost sets in, the dark wind cries.

For as the squirrel and the mole, so warm

Within their snow proof chambers, and the bee

Walled in with summer, wake not, through the storm

Beseigegs hive and forest - so with me

All will be well; for sealed in dreamless slumbers,

I shall not know my world is desolate,

Ages may pass, like leaves that no man numbers,

Whilst in the nest of love I hibernate.

From Spring Of Joy - Mary Webb

Drowning in a sea of vinegar......

....well that's what it feels like at the moment but the end is in sight. When MIL passed away I took on the duty of Christmas Pickle monitor for the family, it was ordained to be because her MIL had passed me her recipes some years before. Recorded in her spidery writing on blue Basidon Bond paper, some in Welsh, some in English - most are in both, all mixed up so it makes for good fun at the weighing out stages especially for the picallilli of which I have no option but to make gallons!

We had never had pickles at home when I was growing up, my mother had an aversion to vinegar and as far as she was concerned pickled anything was simple the work of the devil, especially onions. I remember watching Christine and Maureen Jones at a Sunday School party eating all the pickled onions and wondering what they tasted like - I was far too scared to try one myself.

So I was to be re educated when we went into deep Mid Wales to visit Nanna at Christmas time. It was a ritual, we all had to go for tea one Sunday just before Christmas. It was quite a crowd that squeezed in around the table for cold meat and pickles. I gazed in wonder at the jars that kept coming out of the old Welsh dresser, every colour imaginable. There was the deep purple of the beetroot (sliced or chutney) the gold picallilli, the bronzed onions (with cauliflower and teeny tomatoes) green tomato chutney, runner bean chutney, gherkins, eggs with chillies, the jars just kept on coming each labelled with that spidery writing and dated meticulously and had been filed in date order in the dresser. It was amazing - and then the taste! I couldn't believe my eyes as the little ones were tucking into great heaps of the picallilli as if they were eating ice cream - my two hung back a bit until one of their cousins gave them a taste - and they were away.

We still talk about Nanna's Christmas teas that finished with a huge bowl of sago pudding steaming in the middle of the table. Now if I had put that on the table at home the boys would have turned their noses up but there in that little cottage in Wales with the twinkling of red candles and the firelight from the open grate they loved it. Everybody loved it. When we wrapped up and headed out to travel home each family had a box with a variety of pickles to take home for Christmas. Magical memories.

Not so magical when the house stinks of vinegar from October to Christmas and every jar has to be washed, labelled and topped off with a gingham hat. I enjoy it but just wish I had a little more time to enjoy it more. NOT enjoying it tonight because the dratted cranberry jelly has failed to set and two jars are supposed to be on their way tomorrow - groan.

Meanwhile we had to brave the route to Aberystwyth again yesterday to retrieve the jnr shepherd from uni for the holidays. It was snowing in the South on Friday and I went straight into panic mode as the thought of going across the A44, the mountains, the moorland to the coast with snow but checking the forecasts for this end, and that end, we were going to be just fine. They lied. A text message from Aber went along the lines of 'it may be a good idea to come sooner rather than later...we've just built a snowman' It was indeed a white knuckle ride across the high road - I was driving the truck thank goodness.

He had a little surprise for us!

'Stunned' was perhaps the understatement of the year.

But hey ho - it could have been worse - it could have been piercings of bits, it could have been tatooing of other bits - but this will grow out - well it will wont it????

Can anybody knit this boy a hat with spikes incorporated? His ears are cold - What a shame .....

Family on Tour

Pandemonium broke out when I picked up the hospital letter for Jnr Shepherd convinced his appointment was for 10:30 and found it was for 10:00 and he was supposed to be there 15 minutes before......there we were 12 miles away and its 9:40am...

An overnight bag was thrown together, washing to go back to Uni was stuffed unironed into bulging rucksack - quick, quick lets go - hang on...... I need my nice shoes if we go out for a meal tonight ....Ha!

Into the hospital at breakneck speed only to find the MRI unit is new - nowhere near X Ray - in fact at least a mile away down corridors that are still squeaky clean with newness......'You're late! Nurse in jackboots on reception greeted us, 'I hope you have filled the questionnaire in' - once more with even more venom as we look at each other with the unspoken words in a bubble hanging above us 'WHAT questionnaire?' She snatched the appointment letter out of Jnr's hand and turned it with a flourish and hissed, 'THISSSSSSSSS ONE!' In that case sweetheart no we haven't because we didn't even know it was there .....but before the comment took form in my hot and flustered brain she had whisked her patient away leaving me with an empty outer shell - one coat, a jumper and a pen -a bit like a chrysalis off some exotic moth.

Within 45 minutes we were on our way down the A49 heading South but in our panic to get on the road I had left the road maps behind hence a few fraught moments when I tried to do geography in my head to work out how to cut across Herefordshire to get to Powys - I blagged it! It wasn't too far out - probably a loss of about half an hour but we got to the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells to catch up with the rest of the family for one of our family days out. The females partake of the mulled wine samples, hot cider, mince pies and any liquers going, whilst the menfolk wax lyrical about quad bikes, fat sheep and spanners. Christmas shopping is done by the bag full and the little ones get totally buried in the pushchair. I had a long conversation with a man who was selling chutneys and preserves after I tasted his Caramellized carrot relish - it is gorgeous, he told me it had a secret ingredient that gave it the distinctive flavour, within five minutes he had told me what it was - so I shall be having a go at that next weekend.
I know how Cinderella must have felt as the gang decided I should have new boots for Xmas - boots descended on me from all angles, havent had high boots for about 25years. Found a pair - gosh - there's posh! All brown leather and suede stripes .Then we had to part as the little family returned to Shropshire and we carried on to the Welsh coast to deliver uni student back to the student squalor he now calls home!

We helped him lug all his stuff back in and had a brief look at his room - not TOO bad, about the same state as his bedroom here - everything in total disarray but relatively clean, but dear God the communal kitchen - how they don't all go down with Dehli Belly is beyond me. The washing up water looked as though walking boots had been washed in it and the plates left to drain - well personally I would have slung them in a bin ......deep breath and walk away>>>>>>>>>

We met all the flat mates - lovely, lovely people. They spoke to us as though we were very aged grandparents, 'Now there's no need to worry we all keep an eye on him and we know EXACTLY what to do if he is ill, and we WILL ring you if we feel we need to....' etc etc as we were shovelled out of the door.

It would have been too much of a journey to drive home so we had booked a hotel on the seafront for the night. We found it and checked in - another madame whiplash receptionist greeted us, stacatto instructions about door keys and breakfast left us shaking. Fear soon turned to hysteria as I changed to go out for a meal and found I had one blue shoe and one black shoe - so it was on with the new boots!

Aberstwyth on a Monday night at the end of November - quiet? NO! It was heaving - we had a dreadful job to find a car parking space and an even worse time finding somewhere to eat. We ended up in the pub that we visited lat year, Mountainear, ChrisH, Preseli Mags, Bodran and yours truly. We sat in amongst the students - but hang on a mo - all the students were drinking coffees, it was me with the G & T! Is this a new era I wonder? Apparently so - drinking culture is rather 'yesterday'. They have whole sessions on the dangers of drink etc and it seems to be working, yes they still party like mad and get drunk etc etc but perhaps not quite so often and definitely NOT on a Monday night in November!

The deckchair area of the slabbed seafront has disappeared as the high storm tides have dumped most of the beach as far as the road - boots were a really good idea after all. The hotel seemed to pride itself on its heat - we found the continual high temperature somewhat oppressive and immediately dived for the window only to find it was on a safety catch of 2 inches max. At 5:30am I was gasping for air, glugging glasses of cold water and admiring the frost on the cars parked below - I just wanted to lick the roofs and roll naked over the bonnets.( too much mulled wine I reckon!)

After a morning of shopping and mooching round estate agents - just looking! Honest! We braved the bitterley cold wind at Nant Arian to watch the red kite feeding at 2pm. At 1.45pm there was nothing to see but at 2pm it was like a hundred or so pinky golden dragon flies fell from the sky as red kites just swept around us. Amazing and I dont suppose for one minute the photo shows any of it .... (just keep expanding to find the birds) we shall just have to go back on a warmer day ,,,,,

A strange few weeks...........

since I wrote anything on here. The bathroom is virtually finished, just an new extractor fan and a couple of coats of varnish on the woodwork and that little horror story is at an end. We are now resplendant in black marble, white porcelain and soft peach painted walls - not a tile in sight, no pale pink - big sigh of relief - NEVER AGAIN! Well not in this house anyway!

Meanwhile young Albert, the boy wonder tup has attended to 12 of our 14 pretty sheep in record quick time. We will change the colour on his harness at the weekend and see if his 'wham bam thank you mam' attitude has actually worked! He could have to go round again this time with feeling- or something along those lines........

The Junior shepherd is in his element at university, loves his course, is getting great marks and has made loads of new friends. I actually managed about a week without worrying. On 21 October he collapsed and with the quick thinking of one of his flat mates Emma he was admitted to hospital. He would not let anybody contact us. He told me by e mail when he was discharged!

A heart murmur was found and the talk of valves and open heart surgery nearly sent me into orbit. A very quick appointment with a cardiologist found the problem was actually an extra artery that is taking his oxygenated blood and dumping it in the wrong place. Said alien has to be removed - the procedure has been scheduled for the Christmas holidays. Our uni student doesn't want to miss a day of student life. IF he had had one of the old fashioned school medicals that we used to undergo this would have been found years ago! It wasn't until this happened I realised that none of my boys had any medicals at school! I was actually quite shocked.

Whilst we are in abject panic mode about the baby of the family middle son will not be outdone, he has to have an operation next week to repair a football injury - so I reckon I will be able to leave theose two to look after each other over Christmas while I run away to the hills - and scream........

Monday is our winter family day out at the Winter Fair in Builth Wells, we may be a bit late because Jnr has to undergo an MRI scan first thing then we will dash down to Builth have a mooch and then across to the coast to deliver him back in time for Tuesday's lectures. I think the plan is an overnight stop in a nice hotel overlooking the seafront ....mmmmm lets hope the crashing waves are a bit more under control by then.................

the saga continues.....

what was supposed to be a quick replacement of vile dusky pink sanitary ware in the upstairs bathroom for plain classy white has turned into a full length saga of epic proportions. The thought of the final cost leaves me slighty hysterical. I feel for the plumber - this was supposed to be a quick two evening job - so far it has been two Saturdays, four evenings and we haven't even hit the half way mark yet! I think the point of no return was when he decided he had no option but to replasterboard the ceiling - yes - the ceiling!!! As the tiles went cascading down the walls huge cracks appeared in the ceiling- down it came. It went out in bucketfuls - its still going out in bucketfuls.........my bucket is simply overflowing.

Meanwhile down in Steptoe's yard .... and no that gorgeous pic is of the veggie garden at Harlow Carr - it's not mine - I wish - this is mine below - a quirky area of weird containers due to living on a toxic lead mine site of the past .

Potatoes from a tractor tyre - in fact HUGE potatoes from a tractor tyre!

We have had meal upon meal of runner beans from the other tractor tyre.

Garlic, onions and beetroot have grown fabulously in discarded waste paper bins.

Leeks are still happily growing in yet another tractor tyre whilst carrots in an old style dustbin are still stretching their way down the bin.

There were failures - peas in a bath for a start - there's an old joke in there somewhere - they will have to go in a tyre next year the soil dried out too quickly in the bath, the radishes in a car tyre were a flop as well.

So the tyres have been topped up and finised off with a good thick layer of grass cuttings to keep them all snug for next year. Wallflowers and bulbs are in the old bath, all the strawberry runners are in feed buckets gathered around in the shelter of the south facing wall and very tidy it is too!

Meanwhile back in the bathroom - Oh I give up...I'm going to bed.

When the cat's away......

...the blasted mice had a field day!!

There I was in lovely Harrogate blissfully unaware what was going on back at home! Whilst I was happily wearing a purple felted braclet and wandering around tea shops gardens and restaurants the bathroom was being demolished in no uncertain fashion. As I walked up the path on Sunday afternoon I looked at all these heavy duty green plastic bags bulging in the borders and wondered - I unlocked the back door and an odour of damp plaster met me full on and I could see a layer of brick dust had settled on the tiled floor. Ye Gods what on earth had been going on? For goodness sake, I only went away on Friday and I left the place spotless and tidy - you would never have known! I negotiated the stairs trying to ignore the boot marks on the RED carpet - grrrrrr! I opened the door to the bathroom and lo and behold the plumber had been to put the new shower tray in that had been ordered ages ago - except that when he took the lowest line of tiles off to release the vile pink shower tray - dozens of tiles followed - the plaster was disentegrating faster than you could shout Polyfilla. Said plumber crept in last night - 'Plaster's knackered!' Fine - now what? They've all got to come off - so the shepherd started last night and finished tonight and we now have a naked shower room and hopefully the plumber will return tomorrow with some scheme to reinstate said bathroom - I hope he's coming tomorow - I have made him his fave - lemon dribble cake.

Meanwhile junior shepherd was back at the weekend to earn some money - he has changed! After just two weeks of independence at uni he now never shuts up! He ws always the quiet one - he can now talk the hind leg off any unsuspecting donkey - it was lovely to see him so happy, animated and joking, regaling us with tales from his flat, his course mates, the field trips and of course the hectic social whirl. He went back on the train on Monday lugging bags full of clean washing, frozen pies and lasagne - s'pose we can relax now and concentrate on the bathroom.....

its gone very quiet in Shropshire ..........

Well - if this is empty nest syndrome I can't honestly say I'm enjoying it. Yes I know, I know - set 'em free. cut the apron strings and all that jazz - done it, don't like it! Strangely enough the junior shepherd was by far the quietest of the three boys, a reader - happy in his own company. He never made much noise at the best of times but now he is not here it is dire.

I'm sure the little grub had been breeding mice in his bedroom. I decided to give it a good turn out today and the fattest mouse ever ran over my foot. I shoved the killer cat in there and shut the door. Later I peeped in to find killer cat fast asleep in the middle of the bed, hopefully full of mouse. No such luck - when I moved the chair out he rushed again - the cat carried on zzzzzzzz - bah!

I couldnt believe the grot that has been collected in little tins and boxes - tiny little characters, aeroplanes, train tickets - you name it - he has saved it. He has always had an interest in geology and has had a rock box since he could walk - I thought it would be better on the shelf and went to lift it - groan - it weighs a ton. All this detritus of childhood filed away carefully....its OK I wouldn't dream of interfering - have just dusted and returned it.

We left the student last Saturday getting to know his flat mates - a drop dead gorgeous, oozing confidence young lady and a couple of likely lads with wonderful welsh accents. They went to a meeting at 6pm - they just sort of went ....no good bye, not even a backward glance as they disappeared towards the student guild leaving a redundant pair of parents. That was it our baby had gone...............

We went down into the town sat on the sea front, ate fish and chips and drove home - that was that. One week has passed, two e mails and one phone call - he's having a whale of a time - we are pleased, very pleased that he is quite happy to face anything and make a go of it, but gosh its quiet here - when we aren't falling out like cat and dog that is............