Two Irish gentlemen!

It is Fennie's fault ...I have just read her wonderful blog about scents and sounds and was immediately transported to Ireland with the mention of peat smoke! I have a long standing love affair with all things Irish and have frequent bouts of what can only be defined as homesickness when I read Irish Eyes. It started many years ago when for quite a time I was in a relationship with a mad, bad, red headed Irishman . He worked in TV, was a writer and an artist, he introduced me to Ireland, to Dublin in particular and I was hooked. Looking back quite objectively not romantically, I think this was the nearest I was to come to my Mr Right...and of course it was wrong at the time...he was staunch Catholic and I was a newly divorced young mother. My family went wild with horror...I never asked what his did! I met his sister, she was the first nun I had encountered at close quarters and we got on famously. Eventually distance was to mean 'out of sight out of mind' instead of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' and the last I heard of him he was working in Japan.

But Ireland had 'got' to me and never am I happier than when I am on a ferry heading West! I soak up the atmosphere like a sponge, the history , the culture, the mist...whatever ...just bring it on. We have spent countless holidays discovering Ireland, from all of them hilarious memories float to the surface and include....the 'cottage' we rented in an asylum seekers complex next to a dog track. The cottage we rented right out on the West coast that we reached by a causeway when the last words called to us over the owners departing shoulder was 'you will look after the cows!' Whaaaaaaaaaaat! Cows? Where? Oh yes ...there were two of the dearest Hereford cows with three calves that came with the cottage...and came with us for walks on the beach, joined us at mealtimes on the lawn and would have come in and settled in front of he fire had we let them! Noses pressed to the windows as soon as the curtains opened...theirs not ours! I could bore you with photographs of them but I haven't got the technology.

It was while staying at the Cow cottage we found The Burren, an amazing almost lunar landscape with plants and flowers to die for, Thor Ballylee the castle home of the poet W. B. Yeats, Sligo and the Isle of Innisfree...and we met Pete and Doug!

The day had been unbelievable ...July and you could not see your hand in front of your face. The thickest sea mist had crept off the sea taking the sunshine and blue sky, it was like November. It was a case of donning waterproof clothing and walking from one end of the island to the other ...it simply was unsafe to drive anywhere. We took our lunch and our picnic was held in a bus shelter with an old horse and a couple of sheep joining us for company. We trundled back to the cottage not having seen much except rusty corrugated iron, a couple of donkeys and the travelling people's encampment with damp washing strewn across the gorse. The evening beckoned in front of the TV with the log burner taking the chill off the stone cottage. But as quick as it had arrived the mist went and there we were.. a beautiful evening, the sun shining on the clear sea, the brown sailed curraghs slicing through the waves as the teams practised hard for the forthcoming weekend races.

The mist had curtailed our travels around this part of Ireland and we were not going to waste a minute of a sunny evening so off we went with a flask of coffee to the hills and lakes where we watched a couple of gnarled old men shearing sheep by hand under the shadow of a drystone wall. We sat outside a bar near a lake with Guiness for him and an Irish coffee for me and watched the evening sky change to pink and gulls wheeled overhead. On the way back we came upon areas of peat bog that was cut for the home fires ...I was out with the camera and spotted a couple of peat diggers working away as the light dimmed. I walked across and asked if I could take their picture working in the peat. They were only to pleased to oblige and smiled broadly for my camera...I think they only had three teeth between the two of them. I perched on a pile of cut turves and a conversation struck up about peat, the quality, the amount needed to see a home through the winter...I was transfixed. We discussed everything that evening Anglo Irish peace pacts, dog racing, sheep farming, Ireland, England, families...husband had joined me and brought the flask and four cups, a bottle of Jamesons Irish whisky appeared from under a pile of cut turves....the moon shone down on us. One conversation always comes to mind when I think back to that night.....'Well is Shropshire anywhere near Bristol?' .....'Not really...its further up the Welsh border.' ....'Ah ..but I know Bristol' ...'Oh have you been there?' ....'No...but my son is in prison there so he must know it!' mmmmmmmm no answer to that really!

So now when I smell those evocative peat fires as we wander across Ireland I remember two men digging peat...we named them 'Doug' and 'Pete' in the photograph album.....and the evening we put the world to rights under an Irish moon.

Now ....where is that ferry booking form.....

homework!

Thank you En Peu for the baton and here is my homework.....

Twelve sounds or smells that would surely reach me...

1. have got to start with sweet peas...my mother loved sweet peas and she grew them every year all over the wire netting that bordered the chicken run from the striped lawn. There was always a bunch on the kitchen windowsill, and every other place she could find to put one! When I got married I carried a basket of sweet peas and pink and white roses...and the church was stuffed with them. Thanks mum. One whiff of that scent and I am madly looking for the flowers.

2. The song of a thrush...after rain .....early evening in May.

3. Bacon cooking.....I have known strict vegetarians nearly wilt at this smell..but it always takes me back to evenings when my Uncle would visit my Grandad...and my mother would make them bacon sandwiches and we would all sit outside under the trees in the early evening.

4 Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas' Under Milkwood......amazing.

5 Now for one smell that is simply not available anywhere else but Brighton on the South coast. Its just the smell of summer....geraniums, ageratum flowers, lobelia, the sea, sun tanned skin, coffee, hotels, buses, chickens being spit roasted, antique shops, hot pink concrete, pebbles, oil paint and linseed oil...all mixed up! The favourite smells of teenage years long past.

6. The Rhos Male Voice Choir from Llangollen...I have a dear friend who sings in this choir and have been to many performances that leave me spellbound. But good old Dylan Thomas creeps in again because hearing the Rhos singing Eli Jenkins Prayer is just wonderful.

7. The smell of damp wool....the real stuff...still on the sheep...clean sheep of course! Working with the sheep when they are damp you become enveloped in this smell..it is so warm and comforting somehow. Early in the year in the lambing shed ...as a new lamb is born and it finds its mother and they bond seemingly by unique smell...and the shepherdess heaves a sigh of relief. A pure wool garment washed and drying flat still has that smell.

8. The sounds of the sea.....rushing and sucking over a pebbly beach.

9. The smell of the hay harvest...pure sweet grass drying. As dusk falls if you walk through it and disturb the top layer......Estee Lauder beat that!!

10. I have no idea if it is the custom in all seaside towns, but in Wales where they need little excuse for a good old sing song on a Sunday night...open air hymn singing. With the sea gulls wheeling above in a clear blue sky. We stood amazed one evening as a drunken yob of about 20 years of age staggered from a nearby pub and balanced his pint on the seat of a parked motorbike...leaned on the handlebars to gain support and sang the whole of Amazing Grace ..the proper hymn book version without missing a note! We all stood and clapped...and he sank to the floor!!!

11. Lavender....oil, flowers, whatever...just pour it on...

12. Kris Kristofferson singing 'Me and Bobby McGee' .....years ago I was somenone's 'Bobby McGee'..........

there you go..homework done and dusted and I'm off...out through the door like the proverbial scalded cat to go and cause mayhem somewhere..just like when I had real homework all those years ago....

Baton handed on to Mountainear, Country Craft Angel, @themill, Irish Eyes and Posie Rosie

Emily

There have been some wonderful country characters remembered between us ...here is mine...Emily.

Born in a simple cottage in the hills she certainly knew what hard work was all about from a very early age....that hard work never hurt her she would recall.. in fact it shaped her life. She had a wonderful memory and an eye for detail and loved to share her memories with anyone who cared to listen. Emily became the font of all knowledge when we were compiling our local history book...we would scurry along to her cottage to check something, to borrow a photograph...but once there we were but flies in her web...we would only be 'popping in'...don't be silly....'popping in' could take two hours at least...how many times was I caught on that one...how many saucepans did I burn I wonder? Emily would settle down in a straight backed chair...smooth her wrap round pinny over her lap ..tuck a wisp of hair back in its correct plait coroneted about her head...fix you with her beady all knowing gaze... and that was it....captive audience!

She told amazing stories of her life in the hills, of carrying dynamite in her bicycle basket, her father was keeper of the powder house keys. Those keys were brass to ensure no sparks could be accidently caused. A this stage keys would be produced from behind her .... a magician could learn his trade here. A strange casket of blue, purple and white crystals would twinkle in the evening light...we would lean foward to gaze in awe as Emily pointed out the different mineral characteristics within. From birth to death Emily could recount the lives of families that lived along the 'dingles' the scandals, the tragedies...the everyday life of country folk she was a 'people watcher' like no other.

Emily married and lived up here in the hills but sadly it was not a marriage blessed with children and I think that may have been her one regret because she certainly loved children ...now and then if you looked closely a wistful look would be there for a second...fleetingly. As if to compound that she became a widow at quite a young age. Her faith became her backbone...her family had been staunch Methodists ...'they signed the pledge' she would proudly acclaim. I think Emily had as well because she was not a happy person when the WI had their monthly meeting in the pub after a walk....definitely not a happy Emily that night. It was through the Methodist chapel that Emily was to meet her second husband Tom ...who sold potatoes and was known to all as 'Tato Tom'. Well if ever there was an incongruous pair this was it! The whole village stood back in amazement..open mouthed..gobsmacked...whatever label you want to put on it! She preached in chapel...virtually hell fire and brimstone...He wheeled and dealed around the countriside...a couple of calves here, a few spuds there out of an old green van. The original country version of Arthur Daly.

One of the most remembered quotes in 'Never on a Sunday' referred to 'Tato Tom'......

'Uncle Harry lived at Crowsnest and had a butchers round..he had a shed where he cut up meat. He used to trade a bit with Tommy G that came up from Minsterley and one Sunday morning Tommy came up and wanted to trade....

'How much do you want for that cow?' asked Tommy

'No...I amma dealing today!' Uncle Harry replied

'What do you mean you amma dealing today? he said

'Well its Sunday'.....said Uncle Harry, 'I dunna deal on a Sunday..'

Tommy thought a while...

'Well..if today was tomorrow how much would you want for that cow?..

So it was that Emily married Tato Tom and became pasenger in the old green van with a couple of Jack Russell terriers on her lap and a sheep or goat in the back looking out of the window. On Sundays she would preach from the pulpit and he would sit in his Sunday best in the congregation as proud as could be but no doubt thinking of his deals for Monday! They had fields dotted around all over the village. a barn here.. a shed there..their way of farming would leave a modern farmer heading for the auctioneer's hammer and a farm sale. So the fun would really start at hay harvest...it would be all down to logistics...how on earth they ever sorted it out I shall never know..but they did...the barns and sheds would be filled..the animals moved around by walking them along the village lanes...Tommy in front like Moses leading the tribe with Emily dashing frenetically around at the back accompanied by a handful of terriers who did little but make a noise.

Emily was however to become a widow for the second time and after the funeral we waited ...and watched...and waited for Emily to give up the small holding and the animals and perhaps retire gracefully...but no! She carried on as if nothing had happened...not selling the bags of potatoes perhaps but the animals seemed to multiply until the very hedges were bursting with goats, chickens, ponies, donkeys and sheep. Emily couldn't drive so how was she going to manage her kingdom dotted about as it was? A trusty neighbour stepped in, he and his wife shared Emily's love of animals. One of the last times I think I saw Emily was perched on top of a trailer of hay bales ....in her 80's. The rickety trailer being towed by Wilf's pony...she was laughing and waving regally.

Writing and performing were Emily's passion. She wrote one act plays for the WI and would perform in them..dressing up accordingly..sometimes they did not appear to have been written by one so deeply involved with the Chapel! Poetry simply flew from her pen, hymns, songs, dittys..all recited at the local Eisteddfodd each March...or indeed wherever she could find a captive audience. She was the original Victoria Wood and would have a village hall full of people rocking in their seats with tears running down their weatherbeaten faces.

So it was that I came knocking on her cottage door for snippets of information about the history of our village...I never left empty handed...apples or plums from the orchard, eggs warm from her hens, a couple of pullets my young son had been playing with. We would sit in the straight backed chairs in front of the fire...Emily would talk and I would listen...her hands were never still...as she talked she would be stirring a basin of batter for welsh cakes that would cook on the griddle in front of us..which we would share with mugs of steaming tea...so strong it would catch the back of my throat...but that was how Tommy had liked it apparently.

One evening I arrived and was amazed to find Emily with a man in a turban loading up some of her goats into his van. They were laughing away like old friends ....I went to leave not wishing to interrupt what was obviously a business transaction...but Emily called me back and I was introduced to a very charming gentleman of Indian origin who bowed low to us both as he left. I must have been standing there open mouthed ...Emily laughed and put a weatherbeaten brown hand on my arm...'for goodness sake girl stop looking so shocked!' ...Girl! I was in my forties for goodness sake! 'come on in and have a cuppa and I will explain' ...and explain she did..still laughing at the incredulity that must have been so apparent on my face. What...she asked me ..just what was she supposed to do with all her male kid goats? Not ever having had a lot to do with goats this was not a problem I had encountered..so I waited for the answer which was simply that she had an arrangement with this man who took them away for religious festivals....errr but dont they kill them? Hysterical laughter followed...so what do they do to lambs at the abbatoir? The comment that followed was one i have never forgotten...'they have the best life they could have ever wished for while they are with me and my dear you would do well to remember there is no room for sentiment in business!'

There's a song...'Isn't it ironic?' that I can hear in my brain...something about winning the lottery and dying the next day ....a fly in the Chardonnay....rain on your wedding day...etc etc...

So it was with Emily...she wrote a magnificent poem for the millenium...I heard her read it once at a WI meeting in October 1999. She helped us with our local history project so much and was so looking forward to its publication and the book launch in 2000. One Monday evening in November 1999 she played the piano for choir practice went home ..sat in her chair for her evening cuppa and simply died. The next time I heard her poem read was at her funeral. Our book was published in 2000....at the front there is a page that reads.....'this project began in 1998 is dedicated to those who gave interviews, information and support, but who are sadly, no longer with us to have seen the project completed.....Emily is there in that list........'they may rest from their labours: for they take with them the record of their deeds'.....Revelation 14.13

A PS to Wipso ...please join in in the comments box....I dont mind sharing!!

'Granny Grumble' on tour!

My first 'granny grumble' day was lovely...the sun shone...we walked miles and T was as happy as a chubby baby without a care in the world could be. We wandered through the woods along the old railway line and T avidly watched the leaves on the trees moving in the breeze. When we hit the tarmac again we seemed to attract baby watchers like bees to a honeypot...what should have taken me an hour took nearly three because the world and his wife wanted to see the baby, have a natter and tease me unmercifully about becoming a granny...'I can remember your mum taking you to school...' (so can I ...she used to make me run if we were late!) 'OOOoo what a lovely little girl..whats her name?' (blank look ....he is all in blue with a blue monkey..perhaps her eyesight is going..bless) I was even presented with an L plate ferreted from a garage shelf....cheeky!!

Noticed the blackberries in the hedge by the farm gate ...so had to dash home to get plastic bowl and then teamed up with a real 'professional gran' She had arrived to take care of three while mum went to work and had had another couple dropped off as well....she was totally relaxed about it all....she was actually hiding by the rabbit hutch sucking well on a Benson and Hedges when I spotted her! Off we went looking like the raggle taggle gypsies (can I say that these days?.....too late just did....sorry to anyone offended...none meant) a good natured Grandad was hauled out of the TV to join us ...useful for the high ones. We spent two hours laughing at the kids squabbling over 'the biggest blackberry'...we all got stung by nettles and had to find dock leaves...left the spitting bit to the grandad. We stood and watched the buzzards wheeling and mewing above us...the grandad doing the nature study lesson for all the little ones...he was very good and they were mesmerized...back to the job in hand...we picked loads. The pram was weighed down with plastic cartons of all shapes, colours and sizes...well that's what prams are for aren't they? So many nifty numbers appear to be fashion accessories these days with scant regard for the actual comfort of the poor child. Mind you I sometimes wonder if some babies aren't just that as well but we wont go there...no rant today, the rant has gone away...bit of an old tune there...was it the Kinks?

So far this year we have picked strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, whinberries and now blackberries...still to come are the crab apples and the nuts...think I may need a bigger pram! T of course slept...oblivious to all the shrieking and laughing going on around his chariot. We free wheeled home down the bumpy lane watching the children playing horses on sticks they had found in the hedgerow. Professional gran sneaked another B&H on the way ...S has forbidden smoking in the house...gran's not offended...understands perfectly but enjoys her crafty fags.

T slept ..flat out in the shade of the tree until it was time for tea but first two doting uncles had to have a play time so there were shrieks and giggles that could be heard all over the village as they proceeded to vie for his attention. He has a toy mountain at home but looking at the amount here as well we could probably set up a stall. All these toys available and yet this afternoon we watched as five children between 6 and 11 played horses with sticks..they can still do it.

Most of you will have seen the picture below when Jackofall and I were hysterically trying to put pictures up in the common room using the wrong codes so I apologise for it..... but BOD...RAN...where are you....won't have seen it because she was away at the time and somehow didn't realise until the previous post that I was a real live granny grumble!

People watching

Today is the start of a different phase in my life....granny! Or 'granny grumble' as my son describes me! I have been a 'granny' since March but today the work actually starts in earnest as we all pitch in to support T as she heads back to her NHS career. Their mortgage on the little house on the prairie is one of those 'sharp intake of breath' ones...for such a little house.My heart goes out to the youngsters of today struggling to get a toe on the property ladder. Neither set of granparents can offer serious financial assistance so between us we will make sure they have no child care bills to pay! My first 'practice' day.... Saturdays or Sundays will be my normal days but today I have taken a day's leave to 'have a go' where there was a gap in the planning schedule which reads like a military operation! I shall be in total charge from breakfast to bedtime...she says rubbing her hands with glee....! We will be spending much of the day walking...I have a pram up here for such occasions...we shall be sheep watching, showing off to the great great grannies that will no doubt be nosing under the hood of the pram...they will get a shock when Toby chortles back...he is not a tiny bundle at 5 months old...and doesn't he love a conversation!! While he is having a sleep I will be indulging myself by popping in and out of the common room a little more frequently than working full time allows. I suppose I should be doing houseworky things but hell it is my first day as a proper 'granny' I'll celebrate in my own way!!

I shall no doubt be introducing the baby to one of my favourite pastimes ..people watching. I was 'taught' so well by my mother.....on those afternoons when she used to haul me off to Shrewsbury to avoid the pig killing spectre being carried on at home. We would perch on high stools in Sidoli's Coffee Shop in the Square and have big white cups of frothy coffee and watch tables of old ladies gossiping, lovers canoodling, business men discussing..we would guess their names....what area they came from....their likes and dislikes....... Much later...back at home...mum would get out the white paper and a biro or a pencil and sketch them out of her memory and we would see them all again.....and carry on in the firelight....wondering where they went when they left the cafe...where were they now. Some of those sketches are still here, I treasure them....somehow they are all I have been left with from my mother's art work and I just do not know how that happened...because there was so much of it all over her house a one time...big pictures, little pictures, sketches balancing behind ornaments on the mantelpiece intricate doodles all the way along the newspaper edges..these she would do outside in the sun.....the neighbours faces, the dog, an open gate, flowers, me...a chubby five year old in red shorts.

My days of wearing red shorts are long gone and it appears the puppy fat returned with a vengence and it will soon be my turn to draw the pictures for T and watch the people passing by and try to guess what makes them tick. We may get a few right ...we may not... but that doesn't matter because we will be sharing a special time.

Some of my girls are grannies too! The lambs are still with us due to restrictions currently in place...normally they would have been shipped out to the salt marshy areas on the Welsh coast. Strange how things happen for the best......last summer was so dry we were worried about the lack of grass and had to ship them off to Wales early. This year due to the rain they are in grass up to their armpits so we do not have to worry about the restrictions ...well not for a while yet anyway!! ...and before you ask ...no ...that red brick bungalow with the great wall of china and numerous stone ornaments is absolutely nothing to do with me!!

Finish the paper-round

Well.... I left some poor soul in the lurch holding 26 Shropshire Stars...sorry about that...hit bloggers block...put it down to the Foot and Mouth announcement which sent me off on a tizz as it did to anyone with animals......deep breath then and lets finish the paper round...quickly...the funny woman at the end gets quite stroppy if she can't read her paper at the tea table!!!

The view from the road across the fields to the Long Mountain. We pass holiday lets with names that are the legacy of a past age...the weighbridge, the smithy, resting hill.....a clue to what went on here when no one would have wanted to spend a holiday here... in the dust and grime of a working environment.

A high stone wall surrounds the chapel...making the road narrow for today's vehicles and drivers. The chapel that is wood panelled on the inside where Sunday School continued until very recently ....sadly when Uncle Johnny had to retire (in his 80's) the heart and soul of the Sunday school went with him and modern day alternatives stayed only a short time in comparison. Under the seats in the chapel are wooden ledges where gentlemen could slide their top hats on Sundays...there are few examples of this left anywhere else in the country now...probably ripped off before anyone realised the significance .....but here they are closely guarded.

On past cottages that hang down off the hillside above the road whilst others hug the road from below...their cheeks pressed to the roadside like children to a window...peering out. Little side paths link the various levels of the village and houses have crept down them built precariously on the edge of streams and mine tunnels.

Up a road signposted 'lordshill' this was 'God's Little mountain' in the Mary Webb novels.......now known simply as 'clink'....onto the mine site where a collection of buildings have been safely preserved by English Heritage. There are cottages interspersed with mine buildings...the whole area being known as 'Upper works' ....the narrow gauge railway lines still snake in and out of the trees ...no longer used ...but there are murmers to reinstate an engine......sometime...but there have been murmers before that have come to nothing.......

The old post office once a hive of gossipping women on a Moday morning is now a sad cottage ...its owner poorly...paper cancelled for the forseeable future. The washing line hangs empty the garden tended by a caring neighbour......but the air is one of sadness....

But just down the track still with railway lines visible in the gravel we can get a beautiful view down onto the village and north towards Wales in the distance.

..Then its off at a gallop down Shop Lane ...cottages that once held shops...I remember one comment from our local history project........'I remember Jack and Jimmy's shop on shop Lane ...there was plenty of shelves ...with plenty of space on 'em...' Across the play area to the modern houses with double glazing, manicured lawns, solar panels and caravans....then back across the main road through a dilapidated collection of farm buildings.....planning permission refused to turn them into affordable housing for youngsters ....nonesensical decisions by people in high places.......into the woods and we are home....It has taken an hour and a bit and we have seen some beautiful sights on this daily tour of our village that pays my son enough to keep him in snazzy jeans and CDs of groups like Smashing Pumpkins! Hope you enjoyed it......last picture is the view of the hay harvest on the field in front of our house.

The Paper Round!

My 16 year old son has a paper round...it has been handed down through the boys and he may soon be handing it over to another teenager depending on those dreaded results due in on 23 August. He is somewhat morose at the moment....normal for a 16 year old to converse in grunts, stay in bed 'til lunchtime and rebel against coloured tee shirts prefering black in hot sun ...well there you go...have walked this path twice before I am not unduly concerned. His mates are all away this week so we have spent some considerable time together and once past the grunting we have had a laugh. He came whinberry picking, met Bodran, raspberry picking, scrubbed the backyard until the concrete was white again, worked in the garden with me and so I have kept him company on the paper round. It is a long haul with 50 papers, 62 on a Thursday but it must be the most beautiful paper round in the country ...so out came the camera.....and here it is!

Starting at the far end ..well over a mile from home...and working backwards.

The Black Hole .....what a name for a hamlet sheltered in an inlet into the hills....two papers here and a walk along a tarmac road perched high along the hill ....peeping between the trees across the valley we can spy Hogstow....many years ago this was a 'Travel lodge' for monks and nuns traveling to and from Wales ...the story of the miller raping the nun and being hanged is legendary in these parts ...and there are numerous variations on the theme...with coffins being found in the stream, ghostly happenings reported by maids and windows cracking.....but from here its quite serene... on we tramp watching a buzzard high above wheeling on the warm air....we were begining to think something had happened to them ...never saw them for weeks but it must have been the cold wet weather because they are back now thank goodness.

When the mining industry finished in the early 1900's a legacy of old buildings were left .....some have been transformed into living accomodation ....as this one ...in the hall there is a huge round boiler door....a good talking point for visitors I should imagine. Off we go again to the corner and while Gary jumps a gate amd plays with a couple of pointers I look down into Crows Nest ...a sharp corner in a hollow which was one a village in its own right with a pub and a chip shop. Where i am standing is only feet away from where a horrible accident happened a few years back when a mini bus carrying people from a party careered over the edge, overturned and landed in the bottom...no-one was killed but many were injured.

There was once a murder along Crows Nest where a father shot his daughter shortly after she had given birth ...the baby had died....he was supposedly getting his gun down to go rabbiting....this happened in the early 1900's ....it is still discussed today!

We have quite a few papers to get rid of here in this pretty place and we will be walking up the dingle to the farm. The boys have all encountered the old horse that would just stand on the track fast asleep....the energetic middle son would run this paper round in the dark nights and one night ran slap bang into the old horse....don't know who was most surprised!

Shhhh! We are being watched!

Looks like the paper boy has got too much energy to me..dancing in this heat...... back along the track we come to some ancient black poplars that are listed and treasured...they stand with their feet in the stream .....must be good for them because they are really seriously old. An oak tree ...a mere youngster cuddles up to one of them.....'tarty madam' the old tree seems to say! Back to the main road for a while but just before we do he are some trees running up the hillside! In amongst these are ant hills housing giant wood ants...not surprising the trees look as if they are in a hurry to get away........... whils back on the road we find what was once the Cross Guns pub.....behind was a club house ....no women would have dared crossed the threshold when this was a working village....when we were collecting memories for our local history project I always remember a very prim and proper lady in a lilac twinset talking about leisure time ....'did women go to the pub?' my friend asked...we shot back in our seats as she glared at us....'No.....any woman that went into a pub was a SLUT!' Well! That put us firmly in our places and for weeks we would grin and say .....'Are you going slutting tonight?'

Any bit of space betwen buildings was grabbed for a garden and treasured because the soil is so poor a lot of work has to go into keeping it fertile. Gardens have sprung up in nooks and crannies and are beautiful to see...here is one right in the 'elbow joint' of the road Its off uphill now with the old wall of the railway sidings on our right and our sheep fields on our left....the ladies look content....little do they know the lambs will be off to the Welsh coast late this week or early next ....shhhhh don't tell them ...they look so peaceful........

I shall be back with the rest of the round ...thought it would be quick .....but it isn't...my fault ...I go off into little stories.....