NEW SKILLS - Feb 2015

Supposedly, one never stops learning. 

With an already overloaded brain close to saturation, I was ready to argue this point. I had no more room for any new facts, figures or knowledge. 

However, since moving to Wales, my brain seems to have expanded and created room for a whole load more! Maybe it's the fresh air, or maybe, it's because I have left behind my hectic life of speed and congestion, and no longer need to cram my brain with things now deemed stupid and unnecessary. Like how to choose which shop to buy from in a large complex, housing more tie shops than necks walking past; or which washing powder to buy from an unnecessarily huge assortment on a supermarket shelf, holding more washing products than the whole of the contents stocked by our local village shop. 

Now, if the local shop doesn't stock it, I don't buy it. Done, dusted, forgotten. Brain free to learn about useful things.

I am learning to understand the antics of gold-crests, the feeding habits of nuthatches and sparrow hawks, and the behaviours of woodpeckers and buzzards. I know the difference between crows, ravens, jackdaws and rooks as they fly overhead silhouetted against the sky (ok, I lied about the rooks and crows). I know where to find quiet beaches with seas bluer than the Med. I have learnt how to build dry stone walls. I can hold a conversation in Welsh. I can reverse my car for 'miles' along narrow high-sided single track lanes with threatening oncoming tractors holding smirking farmers behind the wheel. 


Restoring an old property has allowed me to learn about the benefits of using lime putty instead of cement. I have learnt how to point up old stone walls and where to buy clay paint and natural insulation. 

Receiving water from a mountain spring which eventually drains into a septic tank means I have had to learn about water sources, springs, tanks, filters, drains and the benefits of throwing a dead sheep in the septic tank to restore the healthy level of natural bacteria. We have recently dug a 50 metre trench across a field in order to lay a new pipe from the spring to our tank. It took forever and lies high on my list of 'most boring jobs'.

I am becoming familiar with the farming calendar and have herded and sheared sheep and held new born wild goats. I now know the difference between rams, lambs, yearlings and Texels but I can honestly say that I'll never reach the abilities of our local farmer who can pick out individual sheep in flocks of 100+ all of the same breed! 



Next blog - New skills continue