Little Miss Witch Hazel has amazing magical powers! Her young branches are pliable and bendy, but the magic is in her spidery flowers that release a spicy fragrance. These spidery flowers of yellow, reds, orange and sometimes purple, have the power to change the winter blues

     Now little Miss Witch Hazel, (Hamamelis virginiana..hooked fruit) was a great friend of the American Indians. She taught them how to make a ‘magic potion’ from her bark, her stems and her leaves. This, she told them, would be good for, sores, bruises and swelling. She also showed them how to find water by using her twigs as divining rods.

      Unlike many of her so called friends, little Miss Witch Hazel flourishes almost anywhere she is put. She is hardy, and will put up with the sun on her face and her feet (roots) in poor and polluted soil. She is not one to complain however, but she is not so keen on the wind. This, she says, can interfere with her magic! And foot rot! Oh she shivers at the thought, so a wee bit of drainage can solve that problem. Oh, and a little bit of feeding from time to time.      

‘I’m going to keep a record,’ I said to my kind and unassuming husband, as he hurried off to work this morning, ‘of all the time I waste!’

      He just frowned and nodded his head, then a peck on the cheek and a ruffle of my already untidy hair before he disapeared through the kitchen door. After all the years I have known him, that meant ‘stop worrying and have a nice day!’ But I would worry because I know I must hold the top award for being the world’s biggest procrastinator!

     I work as hard as the next person but I often find there is never enough hours in a day. However, I do waste my time quite frequently and it’s got to stop!

     So to-day, I have decided to keep a diary of what I actually do. This, I’ve been told, can leave a person feeling half scared to death. But now I only see it as a challenge, especially because it could possibly benefit my writing. This is the only thing I need extra time for. So this diary holds the key to my future prospects!

     It is already 11am on the first day, and already I have wasted all morning so far! But is it wasted? I ask myself that question before having to rush off to the ward myself. I was up at 6.30am, fed the cats, fed the 1000 or more wild birds (no exaggeration) opened up the hen houses, fed the hens, mixed up the medication for old and dear Featherpin, cleaned out the chicken huts, collected eggs already laid, hung the washing out (yes, they still do that in Wales!) and changed my picture on Twitter! Now we are talking!!

     I have never felt so exposed as I did when I saw myself on Twitter! Oh I have been writing on Twitter for six months now but I hid behind dark glasses and a hat! Now the glasses have gone and the hat too and I’m sitting up a tree staring at my kind an unassuming husband who has no idea why I’m up a tree.

     So the day so far has been quite interesting but I haven’t done any writing as yet, well not proper writing like editing a book that’s crying out to be sent off.....Oh if only I had more time!

As a child I always wanted to live in a lighthouse, a lighthouse on an island with a small boat and plenty of food. I used to imagine my father as the lighthouse keeper and I would paint all day and cook and clean. There would be no need for school, as my father knew everything.

     By the time I was ten, I still hadn't seen an island, let alone a lighthouse, but I was ever hopeful. When I asked my father if we could leave grandmother’s house to live on our own island, he nodded his head thoughtfully, with his pipe in his mouth. The pipe he probably had made himself.

     ‘You had an island when you were a little boy!’ I said to him. ‘Could we live there?'

     ‘That was a long time ago,’ he said to me. ‘The old house with its lake and its island belongs to someone else now.’

      I never asked my father about living in a lighthouse for another whole year. Then on my eleventh birthday, he took me for my first ever, proper restaurant meal, and as I sat by the window looking out at the sea...I saw it! A magical island with a lighthouse!

      ‘Look daddy!’ I was so excited, more excited than being in a proper restaurant. ‘There’s my island!’

      The summer after my first meal in a proper restaurant, my father took me to that island to see the lighthouse. In some ways it spoilt my illusion of living in a lighthouse on an island with a boat and plenty of food. But I will always have the memory of what it felt like to have a father who understood me.

       Just recently, my kind and unassuming husband took me for a meal in the highest restaurant in Wales. As I sat looking out across the bay, I saw in the distance the island of my dreams, the same island I saw on my eleventh birthday. I reached for my camera and once again I relived the memory.

Lavender (or it scientific name lavandula) is probably one of the most versatile herbs you can grow. It is also one of the most fragrant and certainly one of my favourites.

      Nicknamed ‘first aid in a bottle’ lavender does not only have a soothing sort of smell and an enchanting look, but this mint family plant, has been used medicinally, for over 2,500 years.

      The scent of this plant seems to distract mice and mosquitoes and yet it is commonly used in potpourris, strange! It is just as well we’re not all the same!

       Bees love the lavender plant, especially its nectar which produces high quality honey. We shall talk about this another time.

       The oil from the lavender helps to soothe aching muscles and has been found to reduce stress and anxiety and aid sleep. When I had my own herb farm, some years ago, I made and sold lavender bags to many an insomniac!

       In Elizabethan times, lavender was used to perfume bed linen as baths weren’t a common practice then. The mind boggles, does it not? And during the great plague which hit London, bunches of lavender were often seen tied to people’s wrists to fight off infection and bacteria.

       And there is such a thing as the language of flowers. For example, some people believe that lavender can mean devotion, happiness, success and luck. I’m not quite sure I believe all that. But I do know that lavender is a plant that I’m happy to have growing in our garden for waifs and strays. I also use it in cooking on occasions.

Our home for waifs and strays sits comfortably in a small but perfectly formed village in Gower. This is an area of outstanding natural beauty and offers the visitor more than breathtaking views.

     From sandy beaches to hidden coves, from wild moors to green valleys, our Gower home has it all. There are castles and caves to explore and King Arthur’s Stone stands on the Bryn, where it landed all those years ago! Well, supposedly! So, it is no wonder that I never run short of things to write about.

      I travelled the world over and lived many lives in search of a place where I thought I would settle. I fished the Pacific Ocean and bartered with the Indians, but I was young and life was different then.  

      To sail in seas where the great Orcas swam along side of us, was one of my greatest (wild living) memories. Although these social animals are referred to as ‘killer whales’ they are not really a threat to humans. Only when they’ve been captured and placed in themed parks do you hear of them killing or harming anyone.

       And as many of you know, the Adirondack Mountains, Up State New York, is where I almost lost my heart, but always, always, Wales called me back home.

       Do I regret it? No, I don’t! For me, there is nowhere I would rather be than here in our home for waifs and strays, with my kind and unassuming husband, in Gower!