Having made a small effort at starting 'Christmas', I am allowing myself the reward of writing a blog-post. This whole weekend we have been covered in big fat white powdery christmas snow.
We found a Christmas cake had been delivered overnight to our garden table:-
It can also be quite neighbourly. Our very-welsh neighbour Brynmor keeps clearing our drive - and we clear the pavement so we don't feel guilty that he's done it again. It was interesting to see Ian measuring up for a coffin.......not his I hasten to add, but our landlord is also a funeral director. He does about 2 funerals a week whatever the weather but so many of the local population live up long tracks and lanes they are inaccessible to anything but 4 wheel drive. Hence the measuring of Ians truck. I think he was secretly disappointed he couldn't help out, but the prospect of a coffin sticking out the back of a pick-up didn't seem quite right. A long-wheelbase landrover was found to do the job instead.
Needless to say Ashfield is frozen up - no volunteers, no staff and no work. We cleared the polytunnels of snow this morning to stop the plastic ripping and made sure the heating is still on for the pipes and wet floors. It is truly winter at Ashfield in every sense. It's not a good time of year for a horticultural project anyway, and a lot of the renovation work is still in progress so there are limits on what events can be planned. Ian feels he has contributed all he can at this stage, and with our house project in Somerset getting underway, our time should be spent elsewhere. So it's back to packing and trying to plan the next step day by day. We return to Somerset sometime in Jan or Feb instead of staying till June.
How do we feel about leaving? Well....it's mixed. I could happily live here if it wasn't for having a life elsewhere. Yesterday we were invited for tea by a lovely family from our church, so I feel a little sad at interrupting new friendships before they've hardly begun. Ashfield itself has so much potential - I loved the Apple Day and working in a community group, and the vision for an Art Room will have to be laid down for the time being. On the flip side, we can't wait to get our house going at Pengotton and reconnect a bit with Taunton life. Perhaps we could bring something of Ashfield back with us?
We can see Lan Ganol, above, our own version of 'sugarloaf' mountain, from our bedroom window if you lean out and peer round to the right. For all the beauty I am a little tired of being stuck here with my car iced up day after day, wearing two pairs of socks and wellies every time i go out. Cars are parked randomly at road junctions while their occupants walk miles down frozen lanes from their houses to their cars to get to work. Now we understand why there are so many landrovers in this part of the world and i am grateful for ians gas-guzzling truck. Still, the forecast is for warmer weather by the end of the week.... by which time we'll be back down south in the relative warmth of Somerset....not that it's warm anywhere at the moment.
Even Barney likes the view
at the trig point at 430m above sea level, Craig Chwefri
