Disillusioned

That's how I feel today. Our house was meant to be advertised for sale in a big Sunday broadsheet. The agent phoned us last week to tell us it would be in today. We bought a copy of the paper, only to find that our house WASN'T in it. . . This is part of an ongoing catalogue of errors and I shall be glad when the three months are up and we can go elsewhere as we have worked SO hard and it is soul-destroying never to have a single viewer because we were promised a wider remit for the advertising and parochial adverts just WILL not do.

So I took myself off for a walk.

The start of the walk - looking southwards.


Sheep-proof gateway . . .

I walked past an old farmstead which hugged both sides of the road.




I think this was the old vegetable plot, now abandoned to Umbellifers.

The inviting curve of the lane ahead of me. Notice the rough bracken hillside above the road. A common sight in these parts.

The steepest hill for miles around I think - I'd need a block and tackle to get me up this one!

Looking across the valley above a smallholding which always looks half-abandoned.

It's tiny, but it's a Holly Blue butterfly. I love blue butterflies - they remind me of Dorset walks and Dorset countryside, but sadly we don't often see many blues in our part of Wales. This one cheered me up no end.

It was downhill all the way for the first half of the walk. Passing the steep-sided valley where a stream fled southwards, a blast of hot moist and blackberry-smelling air engulfed me.


Willowherb swooned in the last of the summer sunshine, strands of silk bursting from the seedpods.

Part of a neighbour's big flock of Christmas geese. I think she must have a hundred or so.

Looking back along the valley.

This is Orpine, which is related to the garden Ice Plant. I have only ever seen it growing wild in our area - never in England.

The last hill, leading up to home.