August 1982
How easy, in the electric light inside the cottage, with the windows so small, to forget the distance to the next house. Actually no other buildings are visible from this one, and fields separate us from the one or two that are possibly somewhere near. Some shock in stepping outside the door, into the size of it. And surprise because - there is no wind at all. Clear blue night, some stars, a burst of crows cawing and moving out off the mountain, a bat or two, high or low, and an owl, very loud and close. Hard silhouette of the mountain. Small flies tickle. A drop falls in the water butt, which is now full. Small, pink clouds have left the sky to roll in the lap of Cader Idris. Stillness gets inside the holly. Here we are under the open Milky Way, under Vega, with the complete show, the Plough and Cassiopeia resting on the rim of our bowl, and one of the Perseids whipping silently to extinction towards the south east.

Pure postcard on Tuesday. Puffs of cloud overland, and thin cirrus over the sea. Hot enough in the wind to redden us all on Harlech beach. Into the dunes there, barefoot and careful for glass and harsh marram. A sudden glaucous blue patch, like litter, but it is cool sea-holly, tough and heavy. Rest harrow everywhere. Carline thistles, intricate, with glossy white-gold rays. Hollows floored with creeping willow, with ...