Hope

A view of Hope, and the hills beyond. A favourite place both in blipsville and the real world.

We went for a drive then a walk this evening, after tea, up and around Hope mountain which overlooks the surrounding villages of Hope and Caergwrle. My secondary school sits within 1/2 mile of the foot of this mountain and my current home is about 4 miles away, give or take another. There's an old saying round this neck of the woods that goes 'Live in Hope, die in Caergwrle' but in the case of my welsh grandparents it was kyndof the other way around.

My Nana & Taid lived up here when I was iccle in an old white stone cottage with their ginger corgi 'Rusty'. In fact my Dad grew up there too. After we watched the sun go down (that's lady sp33d in shot) we took the steep lane back down to find their once-home has now been modernised and extended, all it's charm removed to make way for extra bedrooms, en suites and a couple of 4x4s.

Still, the area will always be full of happy memories for me: Things like the smell of freshly cut grass from a proper pushalongy mower on a sunday morning, my Taid and his flat cap appearing up the steep lane bending from the village shops, the old shed at the end of the garden with corrugated tin roof and old tools kept just out of harms way. And me, stopping the night as their one and only grandchild, having the closest thing to a hot bath by getting scrubbed by old hands in the kitchen belfast sink :-D

It woulda been neat if lady sp33d could have met them but there were a couple of years in between them leaving this earth and me meeting my now wife. Think it's high time we paid a visit to their headestone spot and spruced it up a bit...