I’ve returned (! perhaps). Three years wandering life, multiple experiences and lots to tell you. I’ll start with my birthday next week…only 86 years down the road {and 15 to go}. My life appears to trundle along each day at a time {As it were}. Yet from this point I can see groups [or I can organize concept groups} of my time into ‘lots’.  8 years in university; 15 years teaching in London; 40 + years farming in Wales; some 50 years living in the UK; a few years beyond 50 years of marriage; about 15 years leading book group meetings in West Wales; and 56 years of conjugal bliss {so far} with Carole!!

So, what have I been doing with my mind–you should ask. I tried to get a doctorate in my ‘worst subject ‘ English Literature’. The prospect of a further few years studying 16th century printing methods, plus getting married with a need to bring home the bacon changed my course {ha} of life.  My teaching was in the subject of Liberal Studies as spooned out in Twickenham College of Technology [as it was called in those days]. Lots of happenings there. However, the M25 compulsory purchased our comfortable bunlgalow –‘The Beeches–next to a safe woods [in those days]  for our children to play in unfettered. We moved because Allen had an inspiration one day on a farm holiday in Wales. I had often felt that a person could have several different jobs in life, but Allen  went extreme. As I sat on a stone wall on a farm viewing Snowdon Mountains I  dredged up the idea of ‘becoming a farmer!”‘ and I raced into breakfast excitedly shouting–‘We’re going to be farmers!’.’ Oh my god’, said Carole with her hands covering her face.  ‘You must get some training’  advised the farmer. At 45 I duly intered Hertfordshire College of Agriculture and Horticulture. All the students in the class were third or fourth generation family farmers. I  wrote down EVERY word the teacher said. I had massive ring binders full of ‘knowledge’. The day I finished the course I said good-by to one of the students. ‘What shall I do when I get to my farm?’ ‘First, he said ‘I was ditch all of those ring binders.’ Ouch.’ So, I went to the teacher who had poured information into me, — feed formulas, animal care, and business management as well as {weather activities that have become particularly important in Wales! He said  Well Allen when you get to your farm open the front door and if you hear a tractor going ion the neighbouring field you get out and get on your tractor as fast as possible and do the same. After all that academic masticating to learn farming — all I had to do was do like my neighbours did. His advice was excellent.  I have been trying to honour it ever since. During the farming time my brain was bursting with the challenges of living in a new world–Welsh Language  & how to milk a cow. Working outside is quite different from an inside classroom or office. Weather rules! The seasons have their own patterns and vague perdicabilities.  I loved the masculine roar of my diesel tractor on the hills of our farm, but I missed teaching. So, I started book discussion groups. Eventually, I had five meetings in different cities to which I drove each week {and now I can’t. Woe!} For twelve years I led these groups and Carole and I gathered many friends from these meetings. My mind stretched and added the operation of a tiny tour company wich I called–  the ARTS exclursion company. Our friends and their friends travelled to Cardiff to see operas and to the Stratford Shakespeare Theatre to enjoy stimulating productions. We also travelled to Liverpool to visit various Art museums. My brain arranged everything and Carole and I were rewarded by the pleasures everyone had. But they got older and fewer in numbers and so we stopped {Woe!} Since then we have book meetings in our home–Broniwan occasionally. The same friends come each time. The rest of my mental joys during my absent 3 years have in the research into  Jazz and its early Afro-American years.  I’ll reveal more in my unravelled with Jazz blog–soon. If you wish to read more about any of my experiences which  I’ve mentioned so far, please let me know.