The Hills of Home.

Just looking through some portfolios

 I came across this watercolour sketch of the valley "back home"
 in South Wales, 

as glimpsed between

 the bare branches of the trees 

that line one of my favourite walks.

I think if you have ever

 lived among hills

 you will always miss them.

 

Where else can you get

 so many changing vistas
 and horizons
 than on even the shortest walk among hills?

Then again living amongst hills

 lends distance and perspective to your life 

because it's so easy to literally look down on the small corner

 that usually hems you in.

One of my delights from a youngster was

 to watch the progress of a storm of rain

 as it swept down the valley,

 or made it's sudden dash from the hills opposite 

to directly overhead

 in the matter of moments.

Sometimes I would
watch a small shower move along

 for all the world as though an invisible watering can

 was plotting a route
 specifically over selected patches,

 leaving all else dry.
 

 A handful of rain 

just thrown about for mischief's sake.

At other times 

there's the beauty of the hills
when frosted or snowed over. 
 

Stretches of leafless trees, 

overlaid with their tracery of white;

 giant lace shawls

 flung over the curvaceous shoulders of the hills.

Ribbons of cold air hold the white mantel in place,

 while warm currents of air,

 or flashes of sun may fall,

 leaching the glory
 to a dismal black and grey.

Similarly the frost line can be seen

 receding up the hills
 as the warming progress of the day

creeps in a dark tidemark 

up the valley sides.

Most of all
there's the cosiness of the houses

 tucked in their serried ranks along the hillsides.
 

 Sometimes the hills can accommodate 

whole streets of houses
 strung along the steep banks,

 tier upon tier. 

Here and there folds and bowls

hold just a single dwelling, 

or a few cheek-by-jowl homes, 

peeping, surprised, from their green setting.

Living on a hillside means
 you are either on the sunny,
 or shady side of the valley.
 

Whichever side of the hill you are on,

 you know that to be perched above the valley floor

 is infinitely superior to
 living in the narrow valley bottom 

where the sun disappears early,

 if it gets to you at all. 

Walking the valley from one end to the other 

you track the course of the sun,

seeing where it lingers , 

or where the shadows are most wont to fall early.

Driving around the valley is a different ball game entirely.
 

 The roads are perforce usually narrow and winding,

 often steep,

 Scary to those unfamiliar with valley life.

On one particular road carrying loads of visitors to

 a well known beauty spot in season,

 there is a tight hairpin bend on a very steep gradient.

 Locals know just when to change gear to negotiate it,

 but "townies," having no such skill 

often miss the moment, 

stall,
 slithering ignominiously backwards

 as their tyres fail to gain purchase
on the drifts of gravel
 washed down over the road surface
 by the rain.
 

Now, returning for a visit 

it is I who am nervous,
 as I drive the narrow twists and turns,
 expecting one of my compatriots

 to fling their vehicle nonchalantly around a blind bend 

straight at me

much as I used to do myself

so many years ago.