Today we spent the afternoon up at our local vineyard with a bunch of other mums and lots and lots of small children. (Yes, we do live in Wales. Yes, it rains a lot. Yes, there is a vineyard here.)

I actually packed my computer and notebook, intending to get on with some work (I’m desperately trying to finish off a novella that’s tied in to my forthcoming book, Secrets of the Dragon Tomb, and I have a freelance project due at the end of next week), but the weather was so nice and the kids were having so much fun that I left it all in the car.

Somehow, we seem to forget that this vineyard is nearby and that it’s absolutely great for kids (there’s a stream and plenty of places to play) and of course for adults, and then we remember and absolutely swear that we’ll come back. The Easter holidays are just beginning, and my brother Martin is bringing his kids down to stay for a couple of days, so if we get some nice weather (not guaranteed here!) we’ll have to bring them all up for an afternoon.

In the meantime, we’re not planning to go away anywhere over the break, so we’ll be trying to do some day trips with the kids. I’m going to take them to the aquarium in Bristol, and their grandma will be taking MrD to the science centre in Cardiff (his little brother, MrX, is too young for that), and then we’ll see. We’re thinking about the Wales National Showcaves, which look absolutely awesome but may need a few days rather than a day trip.

In between all of that, I’ll have to try to get some work in.

Still, it’s spring and it’s been warm, and I’m feeling happy. It’s funny how that can make everything seem much more possible.

The photo of the Sugarloaf Vineyard is by Shakespearesmonkey on Flickr and is used with thanks under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny Sunday here in Wales today. This doesn’t happen very often. Mr. Darcy, Baby X and I decided to take a long walk, first along the nearby canal, then up into the hills. We went up to Keeper’s Pond, in Blaenavon.

This whole area is absolutely fascinating. The Welsh valleys were big mining and industrial areas, so parts of the hills look like scenes from Mordor, with great heaps of old slag. Keeper’s Pond was actually the pond that supplied water to an enormous forge that produced hundreds of tons of iron. This is what it looked like in the nineteenth century:

Now that entire forge and the village that came along with it are completely gone.

We sat and had our sandwiches looking out over the pond to the bleak moors beyond. There was hardly any breeze but plenty of haze, and the sunlight intermittently breaking through. Mr. D. searched for predators, checking for footprints and investigating ‘scat’ (thankfully just lumps of soil…), while Baby X stared around with wide blue eyes from the safety of his buggy.

It was Mothers’ day over here in the UK, too, and the boys did a fantastic job of choosing a Mothers’ day present (a lovely heart necklace).

We’re all worn out, but it was a fantastic day.