…  before we moved!

1. Just how beautiful it is.  Skies are bluer, clearer, it is x degrees warmer because of no pollution.  Food tastes better.  Standing in Tesco car park and you look out at hills with sheep grazing.
2. Just how wonderful a Rayburn is (and Sandie who has learned how to pilot it).  The most illogical invention can produce such unhurried and wonderfully cooked food.  And just how tender Welsh Lamb is!
3. Just how poor local Openreach is and just how incompetent Plusnet is.  Moved in on 27/9 and Broadband and phone line finally fitted yesterday (which explains how and why there has been silence from this end).  Also, just how wonderful the coffee is at the Metropole Hotel in Llandod (local short hand for Llandrindod Wells) whilst we use their Wi-Fi every morning downloading emails and try to have a normal life.  Which brings us on to …
4. Radnorshire time.  As you will have heard before, manana is too hurried a word.  “The skip is on its way to you…”  Yes but when?  No reply!
5. Nobody told the RAF that we are all on the same side.  Doing a bit of idle gardening, and whoooosh and rooooar and a friendly wave from a Tornado jet doing 600 mph or so and pruning the roses for you as they pass.
6. Just how incompetent I am at lighting a wood burner.  There are two reception rooms one with a stove and we knocked through to have a double sided one fitted.  It made a huge difference, and its large with an enormous appetite for oxygen, so we are learning how to make it work.
7. Just how friendly the locals are – mainly because they are not local.  Brummies abound mostly without the accent which is all good, and there is almost a nose tap, need to know, ssshhh, don’t tell anyone else just how wonderful it is here.
8. Just how much the local economy is dependent on Sheep.  They are everywhere including the fields surrounding us, everyone seems to run a few, and every other vehicle on the roads has a trailer with sheep on it.  Sheep markets are the local news and the crime wave is led by a red and white cycle helmet stolen in Builth.  If you see one can you ring Dyfed Powys police please?
9. We didn’t know we would be addicted to water.  Yes, tap water.  It is crystal clear, and it tastes of something (no, not sheep poo), and it is very soft for bathing in.
10. This is one of the most underpopulated areas of GB.  So how many butchers can a person have a choice of?  Mr Williams in Llandod, Mr Morgan in Builth and Brecon and we have yet to try the ones in Rhayerda, Abergavenny, Crickhowell and Knighton.