A peaceful Saturday, with no clock watching or appointments. Andrew had a long lie in this morning. This afternoon, we went for a bimble around, as we are still finding our way around the area. The sky was beautiful in a wintry way, very low and grey with red bits, and the temperature has been falling this afternoon. Apparently the UK is due for heavy snow from tomorrow night onwards. Tomorrow Andrew is running in the Welsh cross country championships just down the road at the Royal Welsh Showground. This will be the first time he has run wearing his new club vest and he is nervous. I'm hoping he won't have to run in a blizzard. This evening, he will be eating plenty of carbs to stoke up, and he usually foregoes alcohol the night before the race. More wine for me then.

Was looking at Twitter earlier and LA posted about a fabulous photography website. I went there to have a look and it is wonderful, with lots of pics of LA in training and another set of amazing pics of triathletes. Check out www.elizabethkreutz.com - on the index go to Lance's Comeback and take a look at the pictures. Amazing.

We called in the local Co-op on the way home - the nearest thing we have to a supermarket. Got some free range chicken for this evening and was having a look at the pork labelling, following the programme earlier in the week. Fair play, the fresh pork was very well labelled and they even had a good offer on outdoor reared British sausages which was good news. Some of the processed hams and so on were less transparent. There is obviously a way to go on this issue. Now off to cosy up with a gin and the paper.

Well, I am beginning to get into my stride on Twitter. My "tweets" (how cute) are coming thick and fast. They won't win any prizes for being earth shattering but they draw a picture of my life. I am slowly picking up more people to follow too, which is good and very interesting. Naturally, my first stop was Lance Armstrong but I have subsequently added George Hincapie and Floyd Landis. Floyd was busted out of the Tour a couple of years back after doing one of those amazing rides that only the Tour produces where you watch levels of suffering that ought to be illegal under the Geneva Convention. He made up an awesome amount of time and shortly after, tested positive for testosterone at absurdly high levels. So out he went, various appeals (lost) later and he has served his ban and is coming back into the pro sport. So this year is shaping up to be most interesting, bikewise. I may add more people as I think of them. I am open to suggestions, and of course if you tweet, please let me know - alternatively you may want to "follow" my tweets (if you were really desperate for news!).

This evening, we watched a programme taped from last night - featuring Jamie Oliver on pork production. Basically, it was an expose of the appalling lack of welfare in the rest of Europe, a plea for us to buy British but an exploration of how labelling makes that difficult and some encouragement to eat a wider variety of pork cuts. Along the way, we saw pigs being born, being castrated (currently done without anaesthetic), AI for pigs (both harvesting and insertion), being killed and a variety of living regimes. The recent furore over carcinogens in Irish pork revealed the difficulty in singling out British meat. Generally, we buy only British pork for us and I look for "outdoor reared" and the red tractor sign in shops or better still buy at the farmers market from the producer. However, we do occasionally buy Continental cooked meats such as Parma ham or German salami, and I regularly buy cheap processed ham for the dogs. We buy very little processed food these days but will review as we go. Fortunately our local butcher does excellent home cured bacon from local farms, and we get Porkinsons sausages (outdoor reared) or again ones from the farmers market. It was however quite depressing viewing at times to see intelligent inquisitive animals confined in horrible stalls without being able to turn round or see daylight or express any natural behaviour. Jamie made the point that the public sector in the UK should be leading the way in buying and supporting British pork and bacon. He highlighted the Treasury and the Met police. I would be very interested to know what DEFRA does and also the Welsh Assembly. I wish local Councils would do more on this issue. think of the number of staff canteens and restaurants that local Councils operate.

Afterwards, continued stitching a snowdrop sampler I am working on. Off to bed shortly. I am still feeling tired and under the weather after having this cold although I am much better than earlier in the week.

Not a huge amount to report this evening. I am no longer responsible for the EU snot lake, which is good. Not so good - I look like I'm about to audition for a zombie film. Picture white face, shadows under red rimmed eyes, bulbous nose with sore nostrils and a general look of the undead. Just be grateful there's no picture.

Booty decided to contribute to my convalescence by giving me some work to do. She thoughtfully brought in an incredible amount of mud and assorted other organic matter and has spread it liberally through the house. A particularly impressive finishing touch was to hop onto the bed. I had turned back the duvet to air the bed as I do every morning before making it, so the sheet was an inviting canvas for a selection of muddy pawprints and deposits of what can only be described as organic material or possibly humus. You'll probably agree that this was a particularly special thing to do, and ensured that I didn't spend too much time on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. Instead I spent a long time stripping beds, hoovering and mopping, while feeling sorry for myself.

Just watched CSI Vegas and off to bed shortly.

Not a lot of what you might call "hard" news. It's been a fairly quiet week. Unfortunately, I've succumbed to Andrew's cold - am just feeling so miserable at the moment. Not as miserable as Jonathan - see link to his blog on the sidebar - he's gone down with adult chickenpox - horrible. As he points out, when you have cancer, they give you lovely morphine so you sail through it in a delightful haze, but no morphine for the insane itching. You keep reading that heroin is widely available at cheap rates, someone could make a killing making a sort of heroin-lite for just these sorts of occasions. It would probably be cheaper than Lemsip. To make matters worse, he also says he has an ingrowing toenail - I'm afraid I actually laughed at that although I am sympathetic really. There's a kind of mad inevitability about that type of thing - one sort of illness often seems to lead to another, unrelated, non life threatening, but the sort of thing that is painful and annoying on a daily basis. So is the dignity of man compromised.

On a marginally more positive note, I joined Twitter today. I wanted to keep up with Lance Armstrong's progress down under and had read that he was on it, along with millions of other people. Unfortunately, my posts are considerably less glamourous than Lance's, but I'm sure I'll get into my stride, particularly when I'm feeling a bit better. Lance would probably be very cross with both Jonathan and myself, saying we were letting the side down, and that pain is part of life, and is character building. I just feel terribly British about this and quite like feeling sorry for myself at the moment,and will now go and make myself a hot drink before bed.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Regular readers and anyone who knows me (or indeed us) knows we both love cooking. Tonight is a salutary tale to remind you all that disasters happen to all of us. My plan (and it was a good one) was to cook some pork chops and serve them on a bed of basmati rice, with a sauce of tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic and a few spices. I made up the sauce around the chops which were browning merrily in the pan. I added onion and garlic, chopped in my new little mini-chopper (what a genius invention, and a brilliant Christmas present), chopped mushrooms and simmered. All good so far. Then I added some Worcestershire sauce, some tomato puree, a tin of chopped tomatoes and the seasoning. This included a teaspoon of dark brown sugar, white pepper, paprika and cayenne pepper. It smelled good after simmering for a while so I served it up and we sat down to eat. Well - we tried. Andrew gave up before me but I didn't last very long. I had added far too much cayenne paper, confusing it with paprika which is quite mild and sweet. Accordingly, my eyes have watered all evening, I've blown my nose about eight times, my tongue is still tingling and my stomach feels as though a chemical experiment is taking place in there. Needless to say, leftovers were not fed to the woofs. The bin is now glowing gently in the darkened utility room. Tomorrow I am going to make something reassuringly bland. I am dithering between macaroni cheese and home made pizza.

Over the weekend, things have been quite quiet as Andrew has had a cold. Thankfully, he seems to have escaped the terrible viruses that are circulating at the moment, but he needed his rest. On Sunday afternoon, I went down to see the newly 18 year old daughter of my friend Liz. It seems like only yesterday that Liz was pregnant with her. For her birthday, I made her a special scrapbook of photos of her going back to when she was a baby, plus a photo collage. She loved it, and I was thrilled to bits. Her grandparents, Liz's parents were there, which was a nice bonus - I've known them all my life, and of course they were very interested in the photos especially as they were in several. All in all, a very happy afternoon.

Today has been quiet with snow this afternoon, cold temperatures and lots of mud. Housework seems to be a losing battle at the moment. No sooner have I cleaned the floor then muddy little footprints seem to appear. Ho hum.

Well, the weather has turned, and how! The temperature has risen, the wind has got up and the rain - well, it's making up for lost time. No more ice. Welcome back to mud, glorious mud. Watching the river is fascinating. The flow has picked up enormously and it's racing down, a torrent of muddy brown water from the hills.

Another visit from the physio yesterday. We've reached the painful conclusion that I need to do some serious work on my flexibility - so I have a long list of exercises to work on. It'll be good to see some results though.

I write this, in my pyjamas and dressing gown, in a state of thaw. We've had a lovely but cold day today. We met up with some friends who also have a greyhound, another black boy called Paco, who looks strikingly like Andy. Our friends live in Cardiff so we decided to meet approximately halfway, along the A470, at Garwnant, a Forestry Commission area within the Brecon Beacons National Park, adjacent to the Llwynonn reservoir.

We had a wonderful walk and Paco and Andy in particular got on famously. I have to say though the weather was bitterly cold. To our astonishment, the reservoir was frozen completely, with no visible signs of water anywhere. The views were wonderful, and we scrambled down off the main track to a path by the side of the lake. We seemed to have the place virtually to ourselves and it was gorgeous. We had a slight problem getting back on to the main track - there was a stile but no dog gate, so we had a difficult and rather undignified game of "Pass the Greyhound" to get them over the stile. Eventually stopped and had a coffee and some chocolate traybake that I made yesterday, which was very welcome in the cold air.

Then it was off to Cardiff to visit the house to pick up some photo albums and photo CDs for Sarah's scrapbook. We went over to a friend's house who has been laid low by the flu that has been going around. As she lives by herself, she has not been able to walk her greyhounds much. I'd been intending to accompany Andrew as we took her greys over to Tredegar, but unfortunately my heel had by now gone into a major sulk after its first proper walk in ages. So I waited in the house while Andrew did the good deed. Then it was time to bundle our two back into the car and back up north on the A470, admiring the wonderful moon that was visible for most of the journey. Now we're thawing out and I suspect an early night is due, as we're both very tired as are the dogs.

Hello all, and a happy new year to all my readers. We are enjoying some of the coldest weather I can recall for a long time, with temperatures yesterday at -6 and today I woke up to find the river had FROZEN in large places. I felt very sorry for the heron. Outside it is snowing, very lightly and inside I am cursing the poor insulation, draughty windows and generally dodgy heating in the bungalow. At least bed will be toasty as we've got the winter weight duvet on the bed, and are frequently joined by greyhounds seeking a bit of warmth, who themselves act as giant hot water bottles. They don't generally leak and they arguably smell nicer, but have more boney bits.

For the new year, Rita and Roger joined us and we had a very pleasant few days, although incredibly cold. On Friday we went over to the Felin Fach Griffin to celebrate Rita's birthday - I strongly recommend. We booked via Toptable - a very useful website for restaurant booking and reviews. On arrival at our table, nicely positioned by the Aga, so very toasty, glasses of bubbly were waiting for us, courtesy of the website - what a lovely touch! Had a truly gorgeous meal, with excellent service, fantastic wine and very reasonable prices considering the superb quality. Definately one to revisit.

Today's been quiet, allowing us to have a rest and catch up. Snow has been gently falling in the garden and all the little birds are fluffed up against the cold.

Finally, one last thing. Following the success of my Christmas card offer I am repeating the offer on my other blog. If you would like a handmade birthday card this year, please email me with your address and the relevant date (and age, if appropriate) and I will oblige. Enough notice for postage and creativity much appreciated. I'd love to see what continents my cards can visit this year.