June 2015 – Day 3
After a lovely breakfast and final chat with Glyn and Rose about bees and other things; they are part of bee friendly Monmouth, admiring their meadow lawn so similar to my own, and hearing of one of their transition group who knows everything about bees and has learnt to become fluent in Welsh too since his arrival in Monmouth shire, I set out in the drizzle to see Chepstow castle.
It startles me with its size. It must have been an impressive sight when it was first built. The Norman invaders surely made their presence felt, it must have felt quite terrifying to the locals.
It is also the start of the Wye valley walk. A boulder from Plinlimon has been brought down as the official marker. I set out, the way couldn’t be easier to start with but I am not lulled into any false sense of security, I have pre warned about the challenges of this first stretch of the walk. For a mile or two all is well, and the stick Glyn has told me to look out for to help me turns up perfectly strewn amongst a heap if broken branches it has a smooth forked top and is stout and the exact height for me. I feel as if I have been given my Merlin’s staff.
The famous picturesque views of Valentine’s Piercefield are totally obscured by the strong summer leaf growth in the tree covered gorge . The path takes me high above it by hundreds of feet and I am glad I cannot see the sheer drop so close to my right side. I keep left and use my stick to stop me from slipping in the newly muddy path after the previous day and night of rain, and the continuing mizzle.
As I amble along, very slowly, I think about what Glyn said about those young children not so many years ago that were sent to school by their parents only to discover that everything that came naturally to them was wrong. We have in common fathers who began their education left handed and left ambidextrous after having been forced to write with their right hands. Then there were the Welsh children, like his mother, who on arrival at school had a sign hung around their necks saying No Welsh ‘dim cymru’ and forbidden to communicate in their native language.
The image of the horror and cruelty of these recent times stays with me. How many unheard stories must there be buried deep in our psyches just awaiting release? For how long have we considered education as a wholly good thing and neglected to pay attention to the unhappy consequences of misguided rules that served no one.
My reveries are soon broken by the realisation that I am now on the part of the route that Rose has told me about. Fortunately the trees summer growth masks the worst of it but what they cannot do is provide protection from paths that muddily slope downwards so that a walker needs only slip slightly once to be at the bottom of a precipice and in the river far far below.
There then follows what is quite possibly one of the most frightening episodes of my life. For maybe half an hour possibly more I walk mindfully one step at a time, poking ahead with my faithful staff for roots and stones my feet can get more purchase on, breathing deeply and totally focussed on making it to the upward footpath that will take me off this most hazardous of trails. It is a lesson in kindness to myself. I promise the little one inside me that we will never risk such a trail again, that we are finished with so called pleasure trails and shall henceforth stick to the favoured back lanes and village hop as is our preference.
When I finally spot the upward footpath my mouth is dry and I realise just how scared I have been. Alone and in potential danger from one wrong foot or a second taking my concentration away from the present moment I have learnt how much love I have for this my body and my life. Kindness begins with ones self.we can only extend as much love as we can feel for ourselves. I feel this lesson I have learnt this day.
As I climb the steep footpath away from the perilous trail a high wind blows and I hide behind broad trees as I go, aware that had this wind begun when I was still on the treacherous trail it would have amplified the chances of a slip. I shout into the wind, daring it to confront me in this way when I am full of the energy of self preservation. In that moment I feel the strength of my fierceness and it fuels my swift ascent to the top of the woods and out to temple door. This old entrance to the Piercefield estate is now in ruins and gives out to the main road. I sit at it and drink from my drink bottle.
Then I cross the road and stride purposefully down the hill to the little lane leading away from the main road. Lanes again. I let relief filter through my system as water flowing over smooth stones and walk with bright sunshine energy on the inside. I become aware of my faithful staff. It is cumbersome now I don’t need it anymore, I am aware of its weight and the way my gait is different when walking with a stick. My thumb and fore finger feel chaffed from grasping it and I know I cannot carry it on with me. I leave it leaning against a hawthorn and Rowan grown together at the lane side. I can hear it begging not to be left behind, it has become embued with my protector energy and feels somewhat alive. I stay some minutes with it, then kiss it goodbye with thanks and walk on, telling it it may join me in the future if it is needed and that it may, in the meantime, be needed by some other walker.
I feel as if I have left a good friend behind.
The lanes are wonderful now. I amble to my hearts content. I pass a solitary chapel and still onward I go headed for Tintern, the long way round.
My good friend Marion is waiting as I finally descend from the upper ridge where once the main thoroughfare would have led into the little roadside settlement of Tintern. Unbelievably as I have walked the rain has stopped and it has begun to warm up. It is mid afternoon. We walk slowly to a grassy field before the abbey and sit ourselves down facing it on a conveniently situated picnic table.
The sun has come out.
Marion removed cloth placemats and proceeded to lay the table. This is your birthday picnic she says, reminding me that one of the reasons for this walk is to commemorate being 50.
“Thats your birthday present” she adds I smooth down the place at with its stone age aboriginal images, “I brought it you from Santa Fe.” I resolve to look up the meaning of the images when I get the chance.
Marion though has begun to remove other items from her small rucksack; a proper mug for me to drink from. A flask of delicious hot blackcurrant cordial, two types of local cheeses, a chutney, two kinds of speciality crackers, stuffed vegetarian rolls and two kinds of cake. The picnic plates are decorative with a tasteful Morrisesque floral design, matching paper napkins and there is cutlery.
As we tuck into my birthday feast Marion regales me with her latest projects. As ever her enthusiasm is infectious. Although Marion has been I’ll as last ng as I have known her and walks with a stick she is quite the most positive person I know. Why waste time being miserable she wants to know.
Her ongoing project, dream the future, to travel round the festivals collecting the positive visions of the people she meets there continues. More than ten years older than me Marion is now k nown at Glastonbury where she has a stall each year collecting positive stories.
“its such fun” she says, with the delightful school girl grin I know so well
There are other projects afoot; a funder to pay for a really good translator tool so we can all understand one another, no matter our native language, an improvement on google. Let me know if you know of such a person. Then there is a project that is enabling young city folk to start up their own eco build project which she is supporting.
Marion wants 1001 positive visions of the future. Look up Marion MacCartney and Dream the Future to give her yours. We need more people to remember this essential truth. Life becomes what we imagine it will.
We walk onwards, the sun has gone in, staying just long enough to warm our picnic, and for us to share what needed sharing. Marion reads me Wordsworth’s famous musings on the Wye a few miles on from Tintern and I read her the poem I have written for this walk.
We walk along the pavement by the busy main road that zooms alongside the river till we gain Marion’s guest house and where I take my leave. Both Marion and I have Transition to thank for our friendship and our positive future projects. No longer so focussed on what the group may do but widened out into the world, seeding hope, being the change. Living Transition has become who we are, each in our own un ique way.
The lanes i now follow to Llandogo are easy walking. I am pleased I have walked by the Wye finally, seen its calm waters flow on by, but given human intervention it is not so far proving so pleasant to walk so closely beside. I thrill at the sheer exhilarating wow factor of the views up on the ridge and recall a time from my first storywalk, around England,in 2010, when I travelled a couple of miles inland from the famed coastal path in Dorset to follow the original track high up and on a ridge, to find better views, a safer walk and know I was following in the footsteps of ancient ancestors. This fad of recent peoples to want to be so close to waters edge takes no account of the most natural, most harmonious ways to go. When will we realise that we are u nlikely to improve on what the first peoples discovered long ago? That certain truths have been known for all time.
The final episode of this my first day following the way of the Wye is an encounter with the Disorientating Woods.
The map is clear, the land doubles back on itself and the lane is fairly straight forward leading down into Llandogo where I will spend the night. I would not like to be off the road in those woods. The road curves in ways that the map does not show, the way goes on and till I become convinced I have taken the wrong route, but that is not possible, there is no other route to have taken. I quell feelings if panic that arise, its evening and I want to be settled for the night, and walk on. The road leads somewhere, I tell myself. I will worry myself about where when I get there.
Finally houses come into view between the trees though it still takes time before it becomes obvious a settlement has been reached. With relief I send my way down and not the small town, looking back up to see it is Swiss like, perched on the steep hillside amongst the trees. It is clearly Llandogo and now the river is visible again. I take quite a little while to find my host, Jennifer has a guest house on the way out of the village headed onwards following the river source wards where I am going.
My room is at the back of the house overlooking the densely wooded gorge side at the other side of the Wye. Too tired to go back out in search of dinner I say I will take a bath and retire early and am presented with biscuits and fruit.
It is a simple act of kindness, a fitting way to end my day. I lay in the bath for an hour, simply sitting, simply being, no hurry to get anywhere at all. Today I have learnt that kindness begins with taking good care of yourself first. We can only offer others what we are capable of offering to ourselves.
Month: April 2017
A Little Bit of Heaven
June 2015
I awaken to clear blue skies framing the deeply wooded verdant gorge at the other side of the river and absolute silence.
I receive my next wonderful breakfast, and when I ask about ways onwards am told I’ll be alright on the back road and in fact a previous lady guest walked that way through White Brook to stay at the convent at Tyr Mawr. Of course I am instantly all ears, locate the place on my map, and although apparently its a closed order my lovely host Jennie thinks there’d be no harm in asking.
My evening’s struggle about whether to risk the muddy river path is over. More than that Jennie tells me the countryside there is beautiful. I am resolved and can pick up the river later at the foot bridge to Redbrook; I enjoy the thought of seeing both the red and the white.
As I sit at the round table waiting for my toast I see the following on a little occasional table by the window:
Heaven
Some say we are in England
And others say in Wales
Maybe both are jealous of
Our glorious hills and vales!
We’re neither wales nor England
As far as can be seen
We only just that little bit
Of heaven in between
Anon
Is is simply perfect.
Having establish I write about the stories I collect Jennie proceeds to tell me about
Brockweir, the settlement across the river from Tintern. I have missed seeing there is a
crossing there. They have a Moravian church, she says, hearing of my interest in inner journeys and I resolve to look it up when I get a chance.
According to a local historian at the time when the Wye was the only form of
transport in these parts Brockweir had 4 pubs ,16 ale houses and as many brothels serving
the boatmen who plied the river. It was a rough and ready place and Llandogo would not have been very different. The tracks at that time ran along the ridge between Chepstow and Monmouth and the river settlements quite isolated.
I have followed those lanes, veering off to descend into Llandogo for the night. The woods that so confused me the evening before confused the last lady guest to stay here too; she had to be rescued. Jennie herself has never walked that way.
Jennie gives me clear directions and I am off on my way again. First the road, skirting the Wye. Then a lane to take me on up to the ridge again but first a little way beyond to stand at the bridge and gaze at the Wye just as my dad would have done.
Once I am on the lane everything about the way I have chosen feels right. Just as a brook followed me into Tintern so the white brook accompanies me out of Llandogo, its delightful burbling a constant presence with glimpses of its crystalline waters at every interval. This is my kind of country. The lane continues in this fashion all the way to Tyr mawr.
I pause at the gates, uncertain. If it is a closed order I do not want to intrude. The sign says the chapel is open to visitors during the day and this is enough, I enter the grounds. I meet Father Keith, just leaving after giving a service who tells me all about the sisters and how though he never has some of them have stayed on Bardsey.
He says to go right in, I may not see anyone but that is the nature of convents, and that though they are silent at night in the daytime hospitality comes first. They keep a guest wing and visitors are welcome to stay. The place is a delight. First, as I approach the steps, Mela the ginger cat comes to greet me. Then out comes the chef, looking out for a guest who is about to arrive.
I leave my pack and my flip flops by the visitors book and go up to the chapel. Its sense of deep peace is relaxing. When I cone back down I take a peek in the library and then peruse the cards on sale. There is an honesty system and money can be put in the tin in the drawer. I am not looking to buy but then I see the peace mala.
A double set of glass beads make up a very pretty bracelet in rainbow colours, the colours if the eight chakras, including the missing eighth one I have only recently learnt about from my cat sitter, turquoise for the thymus gland, turquoise, the colour I have chosen to wear for this journey, turquoise the colour of my dragonfly emblem. The beads represent one colour for each if the religions of the world, including the ancient earth religion tradition to which I suspect Merlin belongs.
The wearer of a peace mala is making a statement, that he or she honours, respects and values the diversity of all beliefs and faiths. I put my coins in the tin and fasten the mala around my right wrist, where it has remained, a fitting symbol of my walk. in 2010 I made one solitary purchase, a pair of rainbow socks. It seems this us my purchase of this journey.
I have walked to the convent with thoughts in my head about the place of hostelry I have decided I wish to offer all comers, a place of respite, with a payment system that recognises all pockets. A third of a persons hourly rate for a nights stay plus an hour of their time to help prepare and clear up from a meal.
As I leave the convent where a pilgrim or respite seeker may stay I recall my new contact on the Llyn peninsula, pete and his pilgrim pods, where a pilgrim may stay for one night for free. I know thus is what I want to offer too, thanks for all the hospitality so generously given to me. As I walk on, visualising the environs of this special place, I find the first of Merlin’s treasures. There before me on the lane is a hollow horn. The horn of plenty.
The walk on to Monmouth is easy and pleasant until I hit the last couple if miles where the road curves down into the town with no verge or pavement. I crisscross the road as I walk down making a mental note not to recommend this bit of route to anyone. The drivers are respectful but there are blind bends and nowhere for a pedestrian to get out of the way.
In Monmouth I search and search for an independent cafe with WiFi. When I give up and enter a chain the only internet offered is with the Cloud which wants full personal details. I don’t use it and stick to writing up my notes. I am ready for a break I have not stopped for a break yet today and it is late afternoon.
I call my host the lovely Sue from Welsh Newton Common and walk on. I mention I will try Manson’s lane and am told it is lovely and it is, my kind of walking. Good views, safe walking, perfect for reveries. When I hit the road again and am about to start the last stretch Sue’s partner Paul comes to fetch me, its dinnertime.
It us good to see them and daughter Helen again. I first met them when I came to do transition storytelling in Monmouth. Sue has stopped growing veg for sale and is now working to raise awareness of recycling to families that don’t do it, it is a new job but she is pleased with the challenge. Paul is raising a green wood barn. Its hard work he says and hard to get apprentices these days but good to be out of doors and satisfying when its up. We talk about how finding the right young people.
Helen shows me the variety of moths they have identified in the garden and is full of enthusiasm for her recent school visit to Embercombe.
We are all up early the next morning, school, work, and the road call us. Life has moved on for us all. I am interested in the change of focus I am observing in myself and the people I am meeting. There is a reaching out to more and varied people, for me there is much more of a sense of recognising our place amongst the greater fabric of life, more acceptance, more flexibility, more comfort with my own stance and the confidence to stand for that.
As I look back to the title of this blog which I started yesterday I smile. Rather than the edge being an uncomfortable place as it was in my youth, rather than it be the fertile strip where more diverse ideas flourish that it has been in recent years, it has become that little bit of heaven in between, where I can stand for who I am and reach out from that place with growing compassion. The more I can allow my own qualities, face my challenges, and recognise my weaknesses, the more I am tolerant of different ways and different perspectives. I write this from my farmhouse bedroom on a large working dairy farm learning all the while of the value, the challenge, and of the weak points of all viewpoints.
Sunshine and Clouds
June 2015
I leave Benhall after another good breakfast. I know I keep mentioning this but I have never been a breakfast person. Now I am awake at 5.30 most mornings, write my blog, and am ready for a big feast before setting out walking again. I feel I have found such a good rhythm for my days. I am tucked up and asleep well before ten.
I feel I have been wasting my days staying on up until after it has gone dark. The early morning energy is strong and focusing. Its also very beautiful this time of year.
I compliment farmhouse bed and breakfast host Carol on her fabulous shortbread and set out. It has been cloudy but now its warm and sunny.
In Ross I explore as I walk into the centre. I have followed the river in. Walking barefoot on the grass in the park that forms its edge. Uncompromising metal sculptures of mallards on high metal columns are the only blot. I am reminded that only those who promote themselves are given such commissions. The soft lively mallards on the river along with the regal swans full of their own beauty give lie to the almost warlike structure the sculptor has given his birds.
I look for an independent cafe with WiFi where I can upload my next blog. Along the way I see many examples of Ross being a prime example if how things are changing. Although I have heard from the transition group they are no longer in action I see maintained wild flower gardens full of butterflies and bees, fresh local produce for sale on stalls under the collonades of the central town hall, a shop to parallel Totnes’ own Greenlife, an independent mini market full of healthy eco products, and overhear a conversation on a street corner about shop closures and what must happen next. In a town where the man of Ross, John Kyrlie did so much to make the place attractive and for the community, out tree planting with his spade, and giving over land to make a public community garden back in the 1700s surely transition would be most welcome. I wonder what clashes of personality or difficult personalities have stopped the group’s progress.
I am hot under the sunshine in my trousers and seek a cafe to get changed in now in earnest.
The cafe I find is locally run and excellent. The Eleganza leave me in peace for nearly two hours to complete writing up my blogs, though I still cannot upload anymore for the android tablet I am using to compose them on does not have any obvious method for cutting n pasting onto another place. It has been by luck I have managed so far.
When I leave the cafe, wearing my summer skirt and basking in the beautiful sunshine, I am trying to work out from my OS map the usual conundrum of which is the road out of a town when the woman from the tourist information office comes out of her hidden away office to the street to give me directions. I take the river path for a few more short minutes then head for my favoured back lanes, the original roads out of towns.
All goes well till I take a little footpath which soon has me wondering around an industrial estate. I ask two people in the complex selling expensive cars and am shocked that they don’t know where they are. They travel in to work and mention of the next village means nothing to them. It is a travesty of our times that people should have so little sense of place that they don’t actually know where they are.
I manage to work out my bearings by asking where the road I am on leads and am told it goes to the roundabout and to the big main road, the opposite way to where I want to be. I backtrack return along the footpath and finally rejoin my lane. Now it is chilly and I pause to put on shorts beneath my skirt and cover my pack in its rain cover.
Off I go onwards and northwards, headed for Brockhampton. It is easy walking , quiet in mind and quiet in adventure. Then the clouds form and speckles of rain fall. I stop and put on my trousers once more and walk on with my raincoat on. I am constantly fascinated by how often weather actually changes when you walk all day.
In a tiny hamlet there are two benches and a grassy area designed for walkers to pause a while so I do. The only signs are to walkers, showing footpaths to neighbouring villages. I leave Foy behind and come to the gate house. It is old, derelict, and for sale. It stands in prime location on the river bank but there is no feeling of joy in this place. I wonder at that and walk on. It soon becomes obvious that this is a private estate and that once this may well have been a private driveway!
A mile or so back I met a farmer cutting the grass when I went of f the lane to enjoy the river from a footbridge. He is an amazing interesting man with a terrier that barks a lot but is friendly. He tells me it is fine to cross the bridge and explore to the left but not to go the right as the man is not friendly to walkers. I explain that I am taking no footpaths but following lanes, partly due to my fear of cows.
Don’t be scared
Is his advice. Never very helpful to be told this. It is not an emotion that can be commanded, but I know he means well.
Make yourself big, he says, and make a lot of noise . they are bovine, their nature is to flee. He himself apparently has frightened off both bulls and dogs in this way. I kn ow this advice works yet my voice doesn’t really carry that deep strong bellow a man is capable of.
We take leave of each other and the lane continues wending its way besides the river. Beyond the gatehouse there are signs telling walkers to keep to the designated route. I look on the map and see Perrystone house is up on the hill. Once over perhaps no one could enjoy this stretch of river. It is prime fishing country and I think of my dad. Still I do not like the feel of the place. It is imbued with unwelcome. Humans affect the landscape as much as every other creature and our emotional qualities are perhaps the strongest force we have, capable of rendering a place friendly or not.
I am almost at my destination now, a last few lanes to follow and the sun is coming back out. I am romanced by the name of the place I am to stay in; Ladyridge.I imagine grand views but there aren’t any. The farmhouse is hard to find and my host is not in when I ring her. Eventually I try a different lane and there it is. Three sandy coloured friendly goats come to greet me at the fence, I scratch their heads admiring their horns and soft noses.
Then I go into what would have been a farmyard, now it is home to birds, a peacock walks free, there is a large bathing pool for birds and several coops. I go round to the front door following visitor signs but no one is home.
I sit on the grass in the sun to wait, perusing my map for the onward journey. Then a loud barking tells me someone has arrived. A small terrier runs up to me, all eager to be friends . we get to know each other but no owner appears. The terrier seems as perplexed as me and we go together back to the door and I ring and knock. Inside I heard a woman and another dog. Still none one comes. I ring up and finally someone answers. Eventually she comes to the door and let’s me in.
The house smells of dog in every room. It is almost overpowering. A strange sensation for one like me with almost no sense of smell.
I have my husband in hospital
She says and I soften. This lady is slightly mad but a gentle friend my soul. She takes me to my room with a large double bed and asks what will I do for dinner. I look askance, she had said she would do dinner on the phone when I booked. She says there is a pub down the road. We look at the map and it two miles away up and down a steep hill. I say I will do without and have an early breakfast. She brings me a dish of fresh strawberries and I eat my picnic lunch provisions that I have accumalated over the days.
In an old book of poetry I find in my room I find the works, for children, of all the major poets. As ever they do not touch me,their emotions not felt fully enough for me. Only one, by a young girl, included as she won a competition, has power in it, the raw grace of true feeling for life; altar smoke by Rosalie grayer in Louis untermeyers golden treasury 1966. She writes with passion and humility, a rare combination.
In the final chapter words of wisdom “from the Persian”;
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a child teach him
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep wake him
He who knows and knows that he knows is wise follow him.
I wake in the morn ng to blue sky and look some more at the marvellous painting in my room. Painted upon a black background is a jar of three perfect dandelions with wild green heart shaped foliage. Perfect symbol of this my walk.