How to relax the Cattrall way

Hopefully, one day, Plas y Nant will be up and running as a hotel with the result that weekends will be very busy. Therefore, at the moment we try and make sure that weekends now are spent relaxing quietly here or popping out and about enjoying Snowdonia. When I say "relaxing" you might conjure up images of being curled up in front of the fire with a good book after a long walk or maybe watching a DVD or simply just sitting and chatting about nothing in particular. That's not how we do relaxing here!

The day starts off on a very relaxing note, David usually gets up before me and brings me a cup of coffee in bed. Isn't he lovely - you're probably thinking - and he is but there is an ulterior motive. Whilst I'm still tucked up in bed with my coffee he reads the paper in the living room - in peace, apparently he wouldn't be able to do this if I was up and about as I have a tendency to chat. In the meantime I lie in bed watching the landscape of Mynydd Mawr change with the developing light of dawn. There's no danger of me lying in bed too long, though, with three hungry boxers exuberantly nudging me in case I'd forgotten they were there.

Sometime during the morning we have a meeting with ourselves to discuss where we're at with tenders, plans etc and this usually produces a long "To Do" list for me for the following week, just in case I find myself at a loose end with nothing to do. After this we then turn our attention to the great outdoors, don our gardening gear and set off determined to complete one major task before nightfall. In recent weeks we've been working on the drive reducing the height of the laurel bushes which had grown to well over  8'.  We're really pleased with the result because the view from the drive now, as you can see, is just spectacular.

It also gives an unobstructed view across to Plas y Nant halt on the Welsh Highland Railway - have I mentioned before that we have our very own halt?

Now that Autumn is here we're turning our attention to logs. Last year we had to have a few trees felled and a few also fell down of their own accord. These were cut into lengths and left to season ready for turning into firewood for this winter so now we're chopping them down in size and splitting them ready for the woodburner. David doesn't trust me anywhere near the chainsaw after an incident last summer when I decided to clean my secateurs with my gardening gloves. Unfortunately I was still wearing them at the time so not only did I need new gloves I also needed stitches in my thumb - goodness knows what I could do with a chainsaw! However, he does trust me with the log splitter and I have to say I love this particular job - I could spend hours doing it. Surprisingly it's very relaxing transforming a huge pile of big logs relatively effortlessly into firewood.

What's even more relaxing is curling up in front of the wood burner with a good book, a glass of wine and a sleeping Smidge.