'It's not solitude I want but to be calm.'

My friend Margareth (about age 70) on wanting to spend christmas alone. I spent the first day of December hiking and visiting her. She find that it is better for her inner self to be alone at christmas, but have trouble making up her mind.

She had spent the day making a bonfire in the garden, getting rid of dry leaves and branches. Then she did laundry. When I got there (around 3pm) she had already cooked dinner.

She offeres coffee and great advice.

'Surely you want sugar?'
 
'When you are as old as I am, and let's hope you are not left on your own like me, always cook yourself a meal. It makes you feel better.'

At the end of an incredibly straight road leading up from the coastal path of Wales lies her 300 year old cottage. The house has a big garden in which she found a tiny ceramic vase. Both the vase and the road are remainders from the Roman invasion of Britain, 43 - 410 AD. Like all houses in Wales her house has a name: Tŷ-mawr-y-Llan (The Big House by the Church). She is considering moving somewhere else because there is a lot to take care of in the house. However, she is in doubt, having lived there for 17 years and

'I am not as nimble as I was but I'm not sure I will find something quite so quaint as this.'