One month on

This last Bank Holiday weekend marked our first month here and we celebrated the occasion by sharing a bottle of Prosecco with Peter's parents who were our first guests. We also went to the local agricultural and horticultural show where locals show their best livestock and produce.

After only a month, we both feel at home here. We are enjoying the beautiful and quiet countryside, the amazing sunsets we like to capture on camera and making the house and gardens our own. A friend of mine, looking through the gallery of photos, said that I appeared to be "nesting very well" and that is just it!

Nesting can sometimes be hard work and we have at times felt overwhelmed by all the work ahead of us. In the garden, there is a lot of clearing up, tidying, weeding and cutting back needed. This weekend, we were able to find some of the pond edges as well as a spring that feeds into it! All that was hidden by overgrown plants and weeds! We were glad of two extra pairs of hands and feet! Peter's dad got a bonfire going to get rid of a lot and we now have a load of ash ready to be spread on the vegetable beds to enrich the soil. It does not take long for nature to take over and part of our nesting here is to tame, control and work with its powerful energy. We want to bring some order to the chaos whilst at the same time respecting the natural world and its habitat. We want to look after these three acres of land and a clearing up was our way to begin the process. Even though, right now, the result of our efforts only seems to create more chaos with very little to show for it!!

So it was soul reviving to take a break from all our work on Saturday and go to Berriew Show, where locals come together to celebrate their achievements, show their best produce and animals and get rewarded for their skill and hard work throughout the year. It was inspiring and filled me with hope for what is possible. My goodness, you should have seen the size of some of the cabbages or onions! What a contrast to my small, slug-devoured cabbage plants!! It is also an important social event in this farming community. I enjoyed the combination of informal atmosphere with light entertainment, craft stalls and simple refreshment tents on the one hand and serious competition with judges, prizes, rosettes and farmers, young and old, in white coats on the other! Peter fancied entering the Tallest Nettle section but missed the closing date for entries! Maybe next year... when we have gained some control over this little bit of unruly but oh so beautiful Welsh land!