Twmpath dawns

Now I'm not a natural dancer me. In fact I find the whole thing rather embarrassing. I can't watch Strictly Come Dancing (and not just because of Brucie) and Dirty Dancing doesn't do a thing for me at all.

Discos and nightclubs were always something I enjoyed more for the company, the music and the dressing up than the actual throwing of shapes on the dance floor. My dancing has always been more embarrassed hopping from foot to foot than anything likely to set the dance floor on fire.

But show me a barn dance, celidh or twmpath and I'm your woman.

Barn dances were the Thing when I was young. Dad was in the local Rotary Club and the Rotarians were fond of a barn dance. Not that they were held in actual barns all that often, usually a village hall, but I do remember a few good ones in barns with sawdust on the floor, hay to sit on and some poor beast rotating on a spit outside.

This sort of dancing doesn't require any particular prowess or grace. You can gallop about shrieking with laughter, trip over your toes or once (memorably after a pint or two at a university ceilidh) step on the hem of your skirt and pull it right off. Now that was funny! It was a good job I had my best knickers on that day...

Rotary barn dances were replete with whisky and cigars and businessman bonhomie. There were so many that I soon learned the dances. Stars, promenades, skipping in a circle, making an arch, all good fun. One I remember involved two couples linking arms to form what was called a basket. You then spun around and the men involved made it their business to get the women airborne. I have clear memories of flying around in such a basket formation courtesy of two enthusiastic (and very probably drunk) Rotarians.

Tonight was a giggle too. A twmpath dawns in the village hall, organised by the parents association to raise funds for the school. A scampi and chips meal followed by dancing. The children volunteered, adults were press ganged, protesting but secretly wanting to. You can't do that sort of dance and worry about making a fool of yourself, just as you can't not smile when doing that sort of dancing. And it was terrific fun. The children enjoyed themselves and we even won a raffle prize (a big fluffy sleepy teddy bear). The proceeds of the raffle (over £300) are going to Haiti now, not school funds, by request of the children.

It all rather took my mind off other worries - chronic abdominal pain, thought to be gall bladder - which meant I couldn't eat tonight's scampi and chips, on doctors orders, no matter how much I wanted too. I was back at the surgery again on Tuesday. Doctor mentioned the word 'surgeon', I said: "I don't like the sound of that" so Doctor ordered another ultrasound scan and a low fat diet. No scampi and chips for me then. I realised, discussing this with aforementioned doctor that this has been going on for three years now. I've tried to ignore it in the hope that it will go away but all the while it has steadily worsened while I spend my days counting the hours until the next dose of Paracodol and nights lying awake imagining all kinds of horrible reasons for the pain and worrying how I would tell my daughters...

Meanwhile I'm back clocking up the miles in my trainers again. I'm 'sort of' training for the Llanelli half marathon which means I'm doing the training, but I haven't actually entered. Yet. After so much rain, then so much snow, and a few weeks of not being able to run because of boring medical issues previously mentioned, it was great to be out and moving again. Human bodies, I have realised, need to move and to sweat. Muscles need to be contracted and relaxed, limbs stretched, preferably in the fresh air in nice countryside. Running does that extremely well, as does dancing I suppose and I always run with music, so perhaps it is dancing of a sort just in a straight(ish) line.

I'm sure everyone went home happy from tonight's Twmpath. It was a bit of a laugh, a great deal of silliness and lots of smiling. I danced with somebody's son, somebody's husband. I did a couple of dances as the bachgen (boy) rather than the merch (girl) which was confusing as I couldn't get the hang of promenading as a man. And twirling around holding hands with my partner was something I did a lot in the playground, but that was a long time ago and I've forgotten how!

Were my daughters embarrassed? Probably, which means it must have been a successful night! Those two are now unconscious in their beds having danced themselves dizzy. One is clutching a big white fluffy bear.

Happy days.

Going snowhere fast

Just when I thought it couldn't possibly snow any more - it did.

I took this photograph at 10am today of the road which passes the end of our drive, which can be seen on the right at the far end before the lane  . Nothing had been along it and the snow in the centre of the road was eight to 12 inches deep. No work, no school, no where!

This drift is across the corner of the green lane bridlepath which goes up through our land. The picture just cannot do justice to the size and scale and it's quite breathtakingly beautiful in a white, sculptural way.

The lane normally looks like a lush green tunnel. Not today!

Another drift, this time by the little gate onto the hay fields. Only a fox had walked along it before me. I wonder what he made of all this snow when he got up this morning.

Cloudscapes

It is easy to see, from dramatic skies as we enjoyed yesterday, why artists such as J. M. W. Turner were drawn to Pembrokeshire. The quality of light still attracts artists today and I think it would certainly take an artist, not a mere digital camera, to best capture the majesty of the cloudscapes.

Carew Castle by J. M. W. Turner.

How to make a pony snow angel by Itsy

Hi! I'm Itsy and this is how I make a pony snow angel.

Of course you need lots of snow and it helps to have a big fluffy coat.

First you lie down and you roll like this...

Then you roll like this...

Then get up and admire your handiwork...

Lines

I WILL NOT MAKE ANY NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS!

... unless that is a resolution.

Oh.

Happy New Year!

So that was Christmas...

Weeks of planning, days of anticipation and then suddenly - it's gone! So what was successful this year and what wasn't?

We had a good Christmas. The first success was choosing to spend Christmas Eve at the pantomime at Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan. Puss in Boots, an amateur production, three hours long (with a ten minute interval during which some audience members were able to flee) but a delight from start to finish (if not always for the right reasons). Puss herself was great, a proper actress. Jack was a little self conscious (H7: Mummy why is Jack a girl?) and there were a couple of sulky teenage cast members seemingly dragged off the street against their will. And there was a very good baddie. He was so good at being bad that he often couldn't perform his lines to all the booing and hissing from the audience. At one point they did the Timewarp from Rocky Horror, complete with basques and stockings. We boggled. But it got rid of an afternoon otherwise spent at home with over excited bickering children and we're going to do it again next year.

Food wise this year we did pork cooked overnight for 12 hours following Jamie Oliver's recipe. It was delicious. The meat was meltingly tender and it was so much easier than having to spend hours in the kitchen on Christmas day. Dessert was sticky toffee pudding (M&S) and a Duchy Originals Christmas pudding which we had been given and turned out to be delicious (although I've never seen a pud drink so much brandy. I flamed it, but the pud drank all the brandy before I could get it to the table! No wonder it tasted so nice...)

Best kids' presents? Bath Bomb Factory and Luxury Soap Science, both from Father Christmas, made two children very happy having created a bath bomb and some soap shapes before lunch. Also Cella Sticker and Magnet makers, as recommended by Silverpebble. These were a huge hit, again with both adults and children. Simple, durable and refillable. We now have stickers everywhere! Other well received things for two girls aged seven and six were: Paddington and Water Horse audio books, Paddington and Olga da Polga reading books (a real Michael Bond Christmas this one!), handwriting pens and paper.

They didn't get everything they asked for which led to anxious parental moments, but it didn't matter. I think that sometimes before Christmas children are bombarded with so many advertisements of 'must haves' that they get overwhelmed. Mine had a day of asking for iPods, laptops and mobile phones, but in the end they were happiest with the simplest things (like a pen, piece of paper and their imagination).

Another hit was Rapidough where you have to guess what your team mate is modelling out of dough before the other team guesses theirs. If you don't guess quick enough the other team takes away chunks of your dough, until the loser runs out. Brilliant fun. It's supposed to be for eights and over, but R6 just about managed (with a bit of a sulk every time the other team took our dough!)

What wasn't successful? Firstly Brian working on Christmas Day. It was only half a shift, plus an hour's commute either way, but it meant we couldn't just relax and let our hair down. There was a deadline and Christmas Day shouldn't have deadlines. Then there was the electric kettle which died on Christmas Day (we weren't sad; none of us liked it) and thirdly the flare up of my old war wound necessitating too many pain killers, no running (except for the odd two and a half miler, which isn't nearly enough) and a visit to the doctor on January 5th (exactly the same as last year. Winter doesn't agree with me.)

So that's it for another year. Phew.

Snow!

It only seems like yesterday that it snowed last winter. In fact it was February, but here we go again. Lovely crisp snow that made for very fast toboganning.

But it was short lived. Overnight it rained, then it froze, then it hailed. This morning conditions underfoot on our concrete yard are best described as 'treacherous'.

Even the ponies found this difficult to walk on.

Today's main task was to bring in the lambs for a month or so of extra feeding.

Who needs a sheepdog? Not us!