Just a quick note - I usually like to write something every day but today I am feeling unwell - nothing serious, just odd. I suspect I've picked up a bug or something, just hope it's not vertigo again! Normally I'm like a pit pony!

Hope to be up and running again soon.

Brightest blessings
Tylluan

Dafter’s post yesterday about children’s parties took me back to my own childhood when parties were almost always held at the child’s own host, or at the very least, the local church hall. They weren’t that common, but you could usually guarantee getting an invite to maybe one or two per year, at least up to age eleven.

One of the great things about children’s parties then was that you got to meet the parents. Your school friends’ boasts that their father was a captain in the navy or mad professor could therefore be easily uncovered. On the other hand, what was really amazing was the stuff you never found out about until you visited their house and discovered The Family for yourself.

Rather than having the resident McDonald’s clown to entertain the party guests, this gruesome task was usually delegated to a reluctant elder brother. Once I remember one particularly warped individual wanting to take the party guests to visit the local chapel of rest at a nearby funeral home, ‘as a treat’.

Some parents were better at parties than others. I well remember the couple who did away with pass the parcel and musical statues and treated us children to several hours of looking at their holiday photographs instead. ‘And this is Aunty Elsie eating an ice cream on the beach at Porthcawl…’ I think one or two children actually threw up out of sheer boredom by the end.

Some must have dreaded it. I remember once turning up to a party just as someone threw a shoe through a (closed) window. The mother, a very smart woman, cigarette holder and glass in hand, just about made it to the door, grabbed hold of my mother, (whom she’d never met before) hugged her and said, ‘Thank God you’ve come! Come on in and have some gin.’

Then there was the family newly returned from the Far East whose idea of party food was bowls of rice and chopsticks. It was the only party where we spent the whole time trying to eat and never got to do any party games at all. The only real diversion was when their cat started swinging on the curtains and howling.

Or the girl whose father used army radios and walkie talkies to communicate with the guests. We didn’t see him at all, just heard his voice ‘Now make your way to the tea table where you will find a selection of jellies, sausage rolls and cakes to eat. DO not drop crumbs on the floor.’

Parties were almost always very small, rather sedate affairs. Girls wore their best dress, the boys almost always had a bow tie. The host mother almost always wore a neat, frilly little apron (apart from mine who had tied a bottle opener and corkscrew on hers to get at the booze when nobody was looking!) If the part was in the local church hall (and I think I only ever went to one of these) then the local vicar or priest put in an appearance and gave a little talk.

I’m not sure whether children actually enjoyed parties. The parents rarely did. But a party did allow for a huge variety of entertainment (often unintended – like watching a grandmother having a sly drink while pretending to supervise the party games).

And looking back, no two parties were ever, ever the same.

Dr Doolittle did it all the time, apparently. But of course it’s just a book (and a film) and most people smile and write it off as fiction. Yet what if we could really talk to animals and they could talk to us? Do we always need language to communicate? Are there other ways such as ESP or telepathy? And if so can these things cross the species divide?

People with pets often say they can communicate with them. Others disagree. Fair enough, there’s no conclusive evidence either way that will satisfy everyone. Besides, there are some human beings I find it hard to communicate with, so I wouldn’t expect to be able to communicate with all animals, no matter how gifted I was in that respect.

Traditionally some animals are thought to be closer to humans than others. Horses, for instance. Also dogs, cats, and curiously, pigs. People who love pigs are always fierce in their defence. I think that it’s easier to communicate with your own pets than it is with someone else’s – unless you have a particular talent in that respect. Most of the time I don’t. Mr Penry, however, apart from getting communications from the spirit world is a dab hand at communicating with other people’s animals.

One of the funniest incidents I can remember in recent years was when we went into an antique shop up in the Welsh border country. There in the shop was a small black collie dog, quietly snoozing and minding its own business. The presence of Mr Penry however, seemed to wake it up, and soon it was bounding all over him and making a great fuss.

Presently my husband turned to the owner and said, ‘Your dog likes television, doesn’t she?’
The woman nodded uncertainly, as though she wasn’t sure she’d like the direction this conversation was taking.
‘Especially horse racing,’ said Mr Penry.
At that the woman’s eyes opened wide. ‘How did you know that? She loves the horse racing, whenever it’s on she gets really excited. Sometimes she even barks at the horses.’
‘She says that next time she barks you should put a bet on the horse. She only barks at the winners.’

Unlikely as it sounds, this was all said quite straight faced. About six months later we returned to the shop and the dog began bounding all over Mr Penry again.
‘I took your advice,’ said the owner, with a big beaming smile, ‘and you were right. Every time she barks, the horse on the screen wins its race. I’ve put a couple of bets on for her like you said, and she’s won a tidy sum now.’

Not proof that people can talk to animals, but an interesting piece of evidence all the same. Unfortunately, our dogs have no interest whatsoever in horses or greyhounds. . If they did, I’d be down the bookies straight away!

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info please watch this space!

Just when you thought it was safe to venture out into the valley again....

Those of you who read this blog on August 10th may recall that I came home to find the sulphurous yellow shed belonging to Mrs Anubis Evans had been demolished!

Today I can exclusively report from the Land of the Twitching Curtains that there is definitely some activity going on over there, including a young man with rippling muscles who appears to be digging foundations. Also they have just taken delivery of copious amounts of corrugated iron, plastic and 2 x 1 softwood.

A replacement shed therefore appears imminent. The whole village is on red alert.

I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that our house appears to be haunted, and also that psychic activity is more noticeable here around the full moon. So yesterday I thought it might be a good idea to try and photograph those areas where activity was particularly obvious and see if I could capture something – anything – unusual.

Ghosts, spirits, entities, call them what you will, don’t often materialise although people who are psychic see them more easily than the rest of us. Speaking for myself, most (though not all) of my experiences seem to focus on sound and touch. Other people ‘smell’ a presence - quite literally. The most common fragrances appear to be flowers especially roses, and drains or ‘something rotten.’)

One of my photos did indeed seem promising. It was taken through a window into the kitchen and appeared to show two ghostly figures near the table. I then had to spend quite a bit of time trying to replicate it and see if there was any way the effect could have been produced by non supernatural means. Eventually, after much trial and error, I discovered that one figure was probably caused by a distortion of my own reflecton in the window due to the flash, while the other was nothing more spooky than a smudge on the window itself.

In some ways of course, it’s disappointing. But I’d rather be disappointed than deluded. Even though I do believe in ghosts, I’m not so desperate to find proof that I’ll accept everything at face value.

So no, I didn’t photograph a ghost this time. But maybe tomorrow….

Well, as I never tire of saying, August is an autumn month. If you doubt me, consider this : There are twelve months in a year, so each of the four seasons has three months. Midsummer’s Day is June 21st and therefore if June is in the middle, the summer months are May, June and July. Therefore August is the first of the autumn months. And I can really feel it today – although the sun is shining here there’s little real warmth in the air. I hang out a line of washing and it takes all day to dry whereas on a sunny day in July I can dry two lines full.

The blackberries are ripening fast, as are many other fruits. I always loved going blackberrying, even if I only came back with a handful, they were great in blackberry and apple pie. Mushrooms were another treat. There’s nothing like newly gathered mushrooms fried up for breakfast in the morning.

When I was a child a group of us, including uncles and aunts would often go mushrooming, early in the morning when the dew was still wet on the grass. One of my aunts was really deaf and a bit ‘away with the fairies’ as we used to call it. I usually used to walk round the fields with her because she carried toffees in her handbag and would always give me some. Once she spotted some mushrooms in a field with a large bull in it.

‘Come on,’ she said, climbing over the wall and dragging me with her, ‘We’ll get plenty of mushrooms in here.’
‘But there’s a bull over there, aunty-ah.’ (In common with many Welsh children, especially from the valleys, words that end in the letter ‘y’ have a final ‘ah’ added on for good measure.’)
‘No, it’s a cow. Don’t worry about it.’
I stared long and hard at the bull. The bull stared back. ‘Aunty-ah… it don’t look like a cow. There’s nothing there for the milking…’
But my aunt, remember, was deaf as a post. ‘It’ll be fine today I think,’ she announced.
We started picking mushrooms, and I kept an eye on the strange ‘cow’ down the end of the field. It came nearer.

We picked all the mushrooms from the first fairy ring, then the second, then my aunt spotted yet another and took off in the direction of the bull.
‘Aunty-ah! Come back! The bull’s coming!’
My aunt, heaven help us, had started to sing. ‘Oh, how we danced, on that night, we were wed…’
‘Aunty-ah! It’s pawing at the ground!’
We were really into cartoon territory now, like something out of Tom and Jerry. The bull, head down, had steam coming out of its nostrils and was pawing the ground like something demented. My aunt looked up briefly, quite unconcerned. ‘No, it’s just dancing.’
Dancing? The rest of the family were in other fields, so there was nobody else to appeal to for some sense. ‘Aunty-ah! We’ve gotta go!’ I grabbed her arm and started pulling her towards the wall where we’d come in. ‘It’s going to run at us!’

We got to the wall just as the bull began its charge. I swear I felt the ground shaking. White faced, my aunt threw her mushrooms in the air, seized my arm and somehow got us both back over the wall. We landed in a patch of nettles, but nobody was complaining about that.

And my aunt went off down the lane singing ‘The sun has got his hat on.’

Happy Days....

'Seeking the Green' by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info, please watch this space!

Normally I have posted my blog by this time of the day - but today, mea culpa, I am late. Should be back in an hour or two with a proper posting!

Well, here we are, almost at the full moon – 94% of full, as my moon phase calendar tells it. As a pagan I follow the moon’s cycle in the same way as I notice the season’s coming round – it’s a part of life, and it affects the way I live.

And if you follow the moon regularly enough, you eventually notice yourself getting caught up in her cycle. I don’t mean you go checking the moon phase slavishly every day but you find yourself, from time to time, greeting her as an old friend. And in time you come to realise that we all are – whether we realise it or not – also caught up in a cycle unique to each of us – our Life Cycle, which begins the day we’re born.

When I look back to myself in childhood, I realise I’m still basically the same person. I see the world through the same eyes; hear the same sounds. I still love to see the moon through the trees and the sun on the water. I still get pleasure from snow and frost, the sweet taste of wild strawberries, hearing the waves crashing on a beach.

All that’s really changed is how much – or how little – I’ve integrated into the society around me. We all move through the different stages in life, beginning as small helpless babies, growing through childhood, adolescence, maturity and maybe parenthood and then what? It’s a bit like the moon, growing from the thinnest sliver into the glorious orb that lights up our darkness. But whereas the moon then gracefully wanes and recedes, human beings seem to struggle to remain young forever.

Why should this be? Well, I can only offer my own point of view here. What holds true from my observation may be quite different from yours. I suspect that so much of our lives is spent looking ahead that when we actually arrive at our destination it’s something of an anticlimax. We’re never shown how to grow old, only given endless, unrealistic expectations of prolonged youth.

But while face lifts and botox may iron out a few wrinkles, they don’t address the real problem within, which is how our essential self reacts to this latest change in our cycle of life. And rather than celebrate what we are, and what we have yet to be, we fight against it.

‘Nobody wants to listen to us,’ we tell ourselves (and maybe others tell us the same thing, too.) But maybe that’s our fault. If all we’ve done over the past few years is plonk ourselves in front of the TV and watch soaps, what exactly do we have to say anyway? No amount of plastic surgery is going to make us interesting people. The saddest thing of all, I feel, is that many people – young and old - are quite literally boring themselves to death.

Some people will tell you there is no respect for the elderly in our society. And they’re quite right. Nor is there much respect for the young, who need discipline and guidance yet often receive neither, nor is there much respect for the middle aged who have much to offer the workplace but all too often face redundancy instead. Nothing is respected. Nothing is loved. Everything is an easy target for the vicious, the snide, the sarcastic and the downright malevolent.

Well, I’m not playing this game. Like the moon, I have grown to maturity, and like her I will wane towards whatever end lies in store. I will pass on the knowledge of my years, which is why I write books on paganism. And most of all I will pass on something I have held dear for most of this life:

Nothing's ever really lost, and love goes on forever.

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info please watch this space!

There was a lot of psychic activity in the house yesterday. It began with my necklace. I always put it back in its box, even if I’m not all that tidy about it. But today I went to wear it only to find the chain (and it’s a thick, flat one) had been knotted near the hasp. Not loosely knotted, either, but pulled quite tight, so I had a job to undo it. An impossibility if all you’re doing is putting the chain back in its box. I know – I tried it several times to see if I could even come close to achieving it.

So why and how did this happen. I mentioned in this blog back on the 2nd August that I am pretty certain we have a house brownie, and I’ve noticed sometimes my jewellery goes missing from its box. In other words, I’ll wear a pair of earrings, put them away at night, only to find one is missing a few days later. Since Mr Penry doesn’t wear long dangly earrings (I think I’d notice if he did) and since the box I put them in is shut up tight, I don’t understand how one of them will go missing.

I know there’s probably a correlation here with missing socks in the laundry, but earrings are usually harder to lose (at least in my experience) and it’s only happened to me since moving here.

The other bit of psychic activity was also in the bedroom yesterday, later in the afternoon. I often hang glass ‘crystal’ type ornaments in my window to catch the colours of the rainbow when the sun shines on them. My bedroom window was open yesterday, and we were down in the garden when I heard this loud, persistent knocking sound – the crystal was banging on the window. There was nobody in the bedroom at the time.

Now the obvious first thought to spring to mind is that (a) it was the wind from outside or (b) because some other open window in the house had created a draught within the house. But the objection to it being the wind outside was that there was no wind. I had a line of washing out and it wasn’t moving. As for the second option, if there had been a draught in the house, the curtains in my bedroom would have moved, if only a little. They were closed behind the crystal anyway, which would have lessened any draught, but there was no sign of the curtains moving.

Another thing was that once the crystal stopped banging the window, it began rotating quite quickly, something I’ve not noticed before. Later on in the day, I looked up to check what the crystal was doing and it was just swaying very gently, as it usually does.

I’m not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking here, just telling what happened. They were odd little events, and I suspect they may have had a psychic explanation, although I'll always keep checking for more natural ways to reproduce these things.

It looks like being another hot day. The garden isn’t going to cope by itself, I shall have to do some watering I think, especially since I sowed grass seed a few days ago.

Then I shall find any excuse possible to sit in the garden for much of the day. I firmly believe that although it’s important to keep busy and active, it’s also important not to fear being still. Making time for stillness is one of the most important things we can do in a day, and yet all too often I find myself making excuses not to: I’ve got meals to cook, washing to do, research for my book, writing up notes, blogging…. Oh, you name it and I’ve probably used it at least once for an excuse!

Yet these ‘quiet times’ are vital to preserve our sanity. Everything moves so quickly, people (even in my neck of the woods) are always in a hurry. And of course modern life contrives to make a bad situation worse. Gadgets, gismos, noise – I can guarantee that no hour in the garden passes without someone getting out their Black and Decker and getting stuck into their latest DIY project.

We need to learn to screen these distractions out. Some people do it better than others. Some learn at an early age that maybe everything isn’t perfect, but if you get six out of ten things right in any given situation it’s probably bearable (depending on the nature and intensity of the remaining four.) Some however seem to think that having everything perfect is their right – they must have ten out of ten things right, even if that means imposing restrictions on others so that their quality of life flies out of the window.

When my children were small I brought them up to enjoy quiet times. Life wasn’t a long merry go round of entertainment. Sometimes the summer holidays could seem boring. One year I got an allotment and they spent weeks just digging holes. We didn’t get to grow much but the other gardeners were such a kind hearted bunch I think they felt sorry for a woman with a bunch of children and gave us loads of their own produce.

Another year we each made a club. One daughter ran ‘The Comic Strip Club’ where everyone had to read comics, talk about them and try to draw comic strips. I ran a Folklore Club which involved talking them on long walks and talking about plants and legends. Mr Penry ran a Moonlight Walk club – on hot summer nights they were allowed to stay up late and we all (including the dogs) went out walking in the fields, looking out for the moon, stars, bats, bunnies and poachers (only we took care to keep a safe distance from them!)

Where I live, children are still mostly children. You see groups of them with a sleeping bag and a bottle of pop going off to the park to sleep out under the night sky. But more and more they are changing – girls of about six routinely wearing high heels (where do they get them that size?), fancy hairstyles and expensive designer clothes don’t fare well by sleeping in the open. And once that changes, they’ll lose the magic to pass on to their own children when the time comes.

It looks like being another lovely day today, but I shall have to discipline myself and get on with my writing at some point. When I’m feeling really lively I get up early to work, feeling that I can somehow ‘stretch’ the day by making a few more hours available.

I like to think I am pretty organised with my writing. At the moment I am in the process of researching my latest book and in spite of the fact that there are some great views from our house, I usually do this with my back to the window so I avoid unnecessary distraction. Or as Stephen King once described it, ‘Write with the door closed and edit with it open.’ In other words, until you have at least the first draft, it’s a lonely process. You shouldn’t show others your work until you at least have something substantial to show them.

You might think that writing books on paganism doesn’t require much by way of research. Just the occasional wave of my wand and a few magic words and all will be well. Oh, if only! I really don’t like making sweeping statement without any real effort to explain where the information has come from. I don’t mean writing a book with copious footnotes (although actually I quite enjoy these!) but at least a sentence or two of explanation sometimes wouldn’t come amiss! It’s what I wanted when I was setting out on my path.

If what I’m writing is largely based on personal experience, then the person reading it deserves to be told how you came to the conclusions you did. It’s no good writing ‘The colour of money is green’ for example if you’re not willing (or able) to explain why. Anyway, for those of us who remember ten shilling (50p) notes, the colour of money was usually brown!

It’s particularly bad with many of the pagan writers who target young people. Some seem to think that youngsters are an ‘easier’ audience who don’t deserve much consideration. The effect of this is that those who remain interested in paganism past their teens often come out with some very odd ideas which they proceed to quote as a ‘well known fact.’ It isn’t. It’s opinion. Just as this blog is an opinion. And so is much of what passes for newspaper journalism these days.

So I pride myself on my research. It takes time, it’s isolating, it’s also very interesting. Besides, it’s a matter of pride. There’s so much, magically speaking, that I’ve done and experienced that I want to pass it on in full, not as some gardbled version for others to decipher after me.

If I don’t, it’s going to be the pagans of tomorrow who will suffer!

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info, watch this space!

Well, I’m coming to the end of a lovely day. It’s been hot enough to work in the garden without needing a cardigan, and I’ve planted more bulbs and generally tidied and done my best to get the garden ready for the winter to come. Fantastic!

Truly Shakespeare must have been thinking of a day like today when he first wrote the line, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’

And on that note, the end of a perfect day, I am going to get some sleep... zzzzzzzzzz

Took photos of the moon last night… still haven’t got the moonphase to work on my website but live in hopes

The photos were a bit blurry (due to lack of tripod I suspect!) but quite magical in their own way. For me at least they caught the essence of what it feels like to be balanced half out of the window aiming a camera at the sky.

All my songs are love songs,
All my lyrics sigh,
All my dreams take flight now
Soaring in the sky.

Doggerel, maybe, but it’s my doggerel. And I felt it at the time, which was what mattered to me.

Painting (another of my hobbies) is a bit like that. Rather than reproduce a photographic likeness it’s nice sometimes to try and get the feel of something. Done properly it touches something deep inside, a primeval need and longing. And of course, that’s how magic should reach out to us too.

Magic isn’t about rhyming (though some spells can and do rhyme.) It isn’t poetry (although some spells can take the form of poems, not all poems are spells). Done properly it touches something at our very core, making something stir and dance within. This is the same whether you are doing a spell for a good or bad intention. Of course the ‘something’ at our core will be quite different according to intention, but the overall effect will be very similar.

Sometimes the greatest spells can be done just by sitting still and breathing. You literally breathe life into your magic. Sounds incredible I know, but it’s true. And some of the spells are really wacky – there’s no other word – including things like glamour and even invisibility spells.

The sceptics out there will shake their heads and write me off as a nutter. If I hadn’t experienced the things I have, I would probably be inclined to agree with them. I might be a nutter anyway, albeit one who has witnessed some pretty amazing things. It’s the old conflict between proof and evidence. When does evidence become accepted as proof? I don’t know. Perhaps we each have different answers to that.

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info watch this space!

It’s surprising how cold it is at the moment. I could even see my breath out of doors yesterday morning. However I must admit I haven’t noticed any real anomalies in the way the plants and birds are behaving in my part of the world. Even if there were, these aberrations are far from unique, and folklore is full of references to it. An apple tree with both blossoms and fruit on the same branch, for example, foretold disaster. Exactly what type of disaster wasn’t always specified, but most ‘unlucky’ plants seem to have foretold death – presumably that being considered the most unlucky thing for most people.

Most people, as they get older, seem to hark back to the days of their childhood and remember only long, hot, glorious summers. Not me. Mine were always cold, wet and miserable. My mother always talked about the long hot glorious summers of her youth – she might as well have been describing a childhood spent on the far side of the planet, not fifty yards away in the same street.

Perception of Winters brought more of the same. My winters were cold and damp, there was ice inside the windows, and the season was marked by coughs, chilblains (oh, the pain of those bloody things, I can feel them still!). I remember snow but it was always an ‘event’ somehow… and even when it came the adults did nothing but moan about it. My parents’ generation however remembered all winters as cold and crisp, with fresh falls of snow every morning and icicles dripping off the rooftops. When the thaw came it was never wet and dirty, but seemed to melt away overnight.

I really cannot believe that the seasons changed so much in such a short time. Maybe their memories were selective – and maybe mine were too. Maybe the whole world is living in different realities, all chosen selectively.

This is a little (true) story I promised I would write up for Usksider. It’s not terribly spooky, but perhaps it illustrates how odd things can happen when you’re not expecting them, things you never really explain. It all happened a very long time ago, but I shall try and keep the details to bare minimum without embellishment.

Many years ago when I was young, my family went up to Ross on Wye for a day trip. I think we just went to see the place, we certainly didn’t have any relatives there or anything like that. There were about six of us altogether, although on this particular day I remember there was just my father, myself and one of my brothers walking down one of the narrow little streets in the town.

It was the afternoon, and I strongly remember that there was a small row of houses (I thought of them as cottages, and looking at pictures of Ross now I think they could have been the Rudhall Almshouses, but obviously I can’t swear to that.) My father always walked quickly, it was a job to keep up with him, and I was always a bit of a dawdler anyway (and truth be told, I still am.)

I remember noticing that the cottages had maroon coloured front doors, and that the paint was ‘flat’ or matt looking. I looked in at the tiny window of one and it was lit by candlelight. I’m not that old, so this was unusual even then! Also there was a dusty, cobwebby look to the place as though I was looking at it through net curtains.

Nobody else remarked on the house and I didn’t mention it. Even now I am prepared to accept that this may have been the house of some eccentric who dwelt by candlelight.

Then my father, who had slowed down his walk considerably suddenly said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s get out of here! This place feels like the plague!’ and he hurried us all away.

Later, he began asking around (he’d talk to anyone and everyone, my father – it’s probably where I get it from) and discovered the place he had taken exception to had at one time been known as the plague cottages. Now I can’t vouch for this last bit being true, but I’ve searched on the net and discovered that near to the Rudhall Almshouses is the Plague Cross which marks the burial site of over three hundred plague victims who died in 1637.

I can’t offer any explanation. If I’d been older I would have asked my father (and others!) a lot more questions and probably written up the account. Maybe he was just particularly sensitive and picked up on the sadness of those times.

Most amazing of all, I’ve found that almost everyone I’ve ever known can tell me a similar story…. Is it really paranormal – or just another facet of reality?

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann, for more details watch this space!

When I was young, I really, really didn’t like school. And few things put hell into me more than hearing some well meaning adult say that schooldays were the happiest days of one’s life. They weren’t – not for me, not for Mr Penry, and not for our children, by and large, either.

The only thing I really enjoyed about school was the learning. I really did like finding out things – and I still do. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realise how much I didn’t know in the first place. My father always said this was the true essence of education; only the ignorant think they know it all already.

Of course, school isn’t the only place where we learn things. Life teaches us a great deal. So does falling in love – for better or worse! My father had an excellent library of occult books which I found fascinating; some had previously belong to a defrocked priest. And I have been buying books on virtually any subject that interests me ever since I first had pocket money. Sometimes I have to find new homes for them (danger signs are when they are piled up on the floor in front of the bookcases) and then it’s like saying goodbye to an old friend. But it has to be done otherwise I’d go mad. I’ve always promised myself that if I ever win the lottery I will have a house with its own library!

It’s raining here today. So no gardening for the moment. On the other hand, the garden gets thirsty, so I can’t begrudge it. And Nature is still doing her gardening, regardless of the weather. If it eases off later I’ll pop out for a few minutes and see what’s been going on.

Meanwhile, I’ve always got plenty of books to read….

My first attempt at the 'new look' blog.... not quite as I intended it, but I've a little more confidence to play around now.
Have tried several times to insert the code for the moonphase but it doesn't seem to work.

Never mind, I'll keep trying!

I have been playing around with the design of my blog and think I have found something workable but I would very mch appreciate some advice....

1. I have now one 'activated' blog and one which isn't (but I would like to try.) Do I just press 'Activate' to use this new design?

2.Is there any way of previewing it?

3. Can I change back if I don't like it?

4. Will anything dire happen?

5. I have an html code I would like to use for moonphases - but how do I insert this?

Thanks in advance - I appreciate the help!

It's just gone 3 o'Clock and I have just got in from the garden. I had a bad fall a few years ago and today my knee feels as though it's caught fire. However, I've managed to plant up two hanging baskets, a load of autumn croci, narcissi and tulips. I've also cleared a large tub, planted up some geranium cuttings and reseeded the lawn. I still have some more to plant but to be honest I am just knackered. Old age comes at a bad time, as they say.

On a practical level gardening with nature, for me, involves a great deal of thinking. Just standing, looking, thinking, shifting over a bit, thinking, listening.... you get the picture. I've never been able to just dive into things and get on with it. I have to stand around waiting for something to come at me out of the ether and then I will get on with it.

It was like that today. A very slow start, wandering here and there, wondering which bulbs to plant in which spot - what would they like? Added to which, gardening while you have four dogs bounding around trying to help isn't easy.

Homer started it. He pitched into a rose bush and bit off a shoot. Thorns don't seem to bother him. Then he got himself on top of a staddle stone and got stuck and since he weighs a good 30kg (if not more) he's heavy to shift. Then Barney went and widdled all over my bag of compost. And Ben followed.

Yet I always feel the presence of Something in my garden. I try to explain that I'm sorry about cutting things back but it has to be done. Otherwise all that would grow in the garden is brambles and creeping buttercup. D Although I like a certain amount of wildness in a garden, gardening with nature isn't totally laissez faire - it's about trying to collaborate to bring out the best in the earth and the green.

I'm really tired now so I am going to rest and hopefully catch up with your blogs later. Please bear with me!

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info - watch this space!

I am off into the garden to do some bulb planting, grass sowing and general odd jobs while the weather is dry enough. Shall post more later!