This is the view from my front door. It's been too good a year for tree growth so you can't actually see my track.
The reason for the picture? To-day has not been as boring as I expected; as you can see my house is quite remote, a third of a mile of steep, rocky and in places wet track to get to it. It is not visible from the road nor are any houses visible from my front door. The result is that visitors are few and far between.
I have also to tell you of a peculiarity of mine I have not been able to overcome: I am incapable of getting dressed unless I am going out. This didn't really matter when I was working, I had to get dressed because I was going out. Now I'm retired I tend to do things like sorting out my notes, playing with my blog in my, fortunately, new, purple, respectable dressing gown.
So there I was when my daft dog shot out of the house barking. It was my next door (almost) neighbour who grazes my land for part of the year and does things like mend my fences in payment. Of course being a Welsh farmer the fact that he wanted me to get some (?) sprags, the diagonal posts that support the straining posts, was not arrived at for half an hour or so. I long ago found that to ask a farmer what he wanted was seen as the height of bad manners, so we discussed the weather, his sheep, my dog, his dog, the neighbours, the course I was doing at Bangor, how is youngest daughter is getting on at Cardiff University etc. We eventually get to the fence posts and then on to how he's getting to the said fence. It's far too steep to get to from either his or my land, so he has to load the necessary equipment on his tractor and set off around the mountain, about a mile and a half by road then turn on to the mountain and make his way over the top for the same distance till he gets to the fence. Eventually that was all concluded and I returned to my blog.
Half an hour later the dog dashed out again. (This is quite useful as I am getting a bit deaf and do not always hear vehicles coming up the track.) This time it is a chap from Scottish Power to inspect my electricity poles. Now he is not originally Welsh nor even a farmer but there are always things to discuss! How can he get to a neighbouring property, he can't find the track marked on his GPS system. I explain that it's only a grassy track across the field and I don't know whether the house is occupied at all. That seems daft as the house is in fact the nearest building to mine but over the brow of a gorse infested hill and I haven't been that way for decades. In the end we decide he would be wisest to say 'No access' as even if he found the right gate it's unlikely his van would get there.
We go on to discuss what he's going to do, the much better quality of 50 year old electricity poles, like mine, compared with modern ones, how slovenly British Telecom are when using Electricity poles, the probability that at some point another man will come to replace my antique wires that bring the electricity into the house, the age of the house (lost in the mists of time), what green measures he is doing to his house in Rhyl, how much he would like to live out in the country. Of course all this chat is not strictly necessary, but it's very pleasant leaning on the gate in the sun, even if I am still in my dressing gown. Eventually he replaces the 'Danger of Death' notices on my two poles, no not replace, adds to, the regulations have now changed so the notice has to be three metres from the ground instead of two. Wraps barbed wire round the post in the field in case I have a sudden urge to climb it. Have a discussion about the general ingnorance of Heath and Safety Laws and how useful they can be - no one can argue with him if he says it's too windy to do a particular job.
Eventually, he goes on his way to his next job and as it's now almost midday I think, perhaps I should have a shower and get dressed. No doubt he'll be telling his girlfriend about this odd old woman up in the hills!
My day has now reverted to the usual - boring housework, the minimum I can get away with, do some washing, letting the dog out for a run; shopping, can't do without a paper; and as my son's away for the week eating precisely what I like, and, hovering at the back of my mind, what on earth am I going to put in my portfolio? An e-mail received yesterday has upset a large part of my plans, the centrepiece was to be a review of a book supposed to be published last July but I now find won't be available till March! I expect I'll think of something else.....
