@wotsup so great to hear you talk about your beautiful memories...

@wotsup so great to hear you talk about your beautiful memories and your mother-in-law. Human relations are not easy, and family relations even harder.
They make them tough 'in the country' -
in all countries: the salt of the earth are the people working with the soil and around it, farming, doing animal husbandry etc.
I had country relatives on both parents' side and was lucky enough to be 'sent' there for school holidays from the city'
Sometimes over Christmas too - into pine-forest country with my grand parents, that was always magic, with lots of snow and Christmas Eve service at midnight in the little church in the town proper, which was/is fortified by a wall, there is even a castle, (nowadays used for concerts and exhibitions, with people in flash clothes and equally flash cars taking up residence in the pubs around the village center. I have stayed in one of them, and the owner wanted to know if I know a school friend of his who had migrated to Australia - haha - turns out, I did check him out, but he had died, but his family are running a skiing hotel in Victoria's high country - he had built most of the ski lifts there - (I plan to visit one day, if I live long enough).

One Christmas Eve I remember looking out from my grandparents' upper floor window - and watching people carrying wind lights, torches to light their way during the night, and the white snow glistening - I have never forgotten it. There was always a boy cousin who took me under his wings and looked after me and we remained life-long friends. Alas, being older, they are no longer alive. But I am a big girl now -
Well, time to do some work - I own only one tiny stock atm, (HLX) have sold out, made a small profit.

Go well
Taurisk