Month: April 2017

9th June
The walking simply flows all day long without a cow or a territorial dog or an impatient car driver in sight. I find quiet back lanes all the way west on my journey to Dorstone.
I am pleasantly surprised. I had felt anxious about the early part of the journey where there was a stretch of main road and a stretch of footpath across farmland but the road is pavemented and when I reach the footpath I meet a farmer in his garden and am able to check there are no cows in the field and that the way is clearly marked. He reassures me it is and details the way to go, adding;
You have to be assertive about your power, its the way of nature, the way of farming.
I am interested at the nature of advice I am receiving from the male guides I meet. They respond to my admissions of fear with gentle challenges to stand in my power and as I walk my sense of a right to be here is increasing.
People in these parts are good hearted. A woman in a car at the main road edge stops to check if I am on the wye valley walk, eager to give me directions. I am in Bridge Sollers having come down off the Roman road that leads west to cross the river.
I explain, as I have to many now, that though in a sense I am following the course of the Wye, I am not particularly following the marked walkway but rather my penchant for village hopping and set off again past the church at the start of the next lane. I am about to walk away n by when a statue at its corner beckons me in. I hesitate, its a longer walk today, 14miles with some steep hills to climb, but the statue gets the better of me. He may be called St Andrew but he is for sure modelled on Merlin, complete with oaken staff and he stares out in a gesture of vulnerable acquisence for what is.
The church porch looks ancient with oaken nails holding together oaken panels and roof arches and in the corner a yew with massive girth stands besides her more slender two daughters. My next village is Preston on Wye. I have noticed it on maps close since the beginning of planning for this trip for no particular reason. I go into the village to find the pub. It is lunchtime and I am ready for both a sit down and food.
It is called the Yew Tree and there I am given a warm welcome. Roy is an ex sailor complete with golden earring. He tells me the tales of this place whilst Nicole brings out delicious food made by Johan.
This is a town full of scruffy houses and kind people
He says and proceeds to tell me that when his wife died three years ago on the day of the funeral the pub changed hands and changed his life. The landlady and her staff took him under their wing and he has eaten his lunch there ever since. They even consult him when they change the menu to add some of his favourites.
I’m their chief food taster
He says and he and Nicole talk about the great live music nights they have and of how weddings and funerals are held in the marquees on the green outside. The food is excellent and half the price I have eaten anywhere on this journey. I recall the fat chef and the skinny chef who boasted their average food was gourmet as I eat the best minted pea soup I have ever tasted for a price I haven’t paid for soup in several years.
This is a pub I can recommend wholeheartedly. They are an intrinsic part of the community playing their part fully and welcoming and interested in passing travellers. Relief courses through my veins. It is still alive then, the spirit of hospitality that is the raison d’etre of inns, though many nowadays would struggle to truly understand this.
Roy wants to tell me a story once he hears what I am doing. When his wife was dying he met a woman who was a lay preacher at the hospital who helped to make things more comfortable for them. One day she saw them at home and saw a photo if Roy’s children. She said they must be related for the likeness. It turned out that they were distant cousins and gave traced their family back to the 1609s and are now in touch with relations in Australia too.
When my wife died God gave me a new family
Says Roy who was orphaned young and sent from London to Devon in the war as a refugee.
When I take my leave of the Yew Tree Roy stands up to shake my hand and give me the onward blessing of these parts
Stay safe
And I look at this old man who has made my stay memorable. I stare in amazement, close to he looks almost my age…
I’m 85
He says. Its meeting people like you that keeps me young. Clearly an open mind and a receptive attitude is what keeps us young. Roy has told me of the Canadian who walked through for charity and wrote to Roy to let him know how much money he’d raised. I think of how well placed this inn and its incumbent welcomer is to receive pilgrims of all sorts and delight that I have chosen this route. I resolve to write to Roy too and make sure I have the pubs details before I leave. Nicole tells me she is having six weeks off to go to Pennsylvania to work on a summer camp where children can receive counselling. She is going to teach them to cook. She says the landlady is keeping her job for her and we both agree this is how it should be.
As she hands over the pubs card she says we do accommodation too, in the bunk house, about £10 a night Roy it is. If ever there was a pilgrims pub this is one!
Johan comes out if the kitchen as his shift does to an end and I am readying myself to leave, our final discussion is on tattoos, all but me have them and I tell of the dragon I always intended but never did. I muse as I leave on our ancestors who would hav e tattooed their skin and how times change in terms of what is the norm. I find it somewhat refreshing to be the odd one out for not having a tattoo.
The friendly trio have told me the best way to Dorstone is through Moccas but I have penchant to visit Peter Church and follow the back lanes onwards. I spy on the map there is a well and I want to see it. I find the lane and search a little but soon give up wondering if the curved stones at the bottom of the lane over a brook might be it. I am just starting to walk on when a couple call me back
Are you looking for the well?
They direct me over a style and across a field and behind a shed.
When I get there I see the well is owned and managed by the waterboard. I look through the barbed wire topped fence, then I look again and I am under the fence in an instant. There in the mossy bank is an ancient holy head carved from stone a bearded green man, St peter no doubt, but without a doubt this is Merlin too.
I clamber down to the issuing stream to drink from the well that still supplies peter church with its water as it runs fresh, rainwater from the mountains.
The waterboard info sign explains that it has recently reinstated the head where it is supposed to be having been cemented into a wall for years but of course originally was the drinking fountains spout. It goes on to say that though it was known in christian times it was clearly of much older pagan origins and that these holy heads were everywhere where a holy well was found.
As I walk on I feel truly blessed at the synchronisities that are creating this walk of mine as I walk by ancient relic acre ancient re!ic without plan or design but a determination to follow my nose along the map and follow my bliss rather than marked tourist ways.
The climb up Stockly hill to gain this place is steep and goes on for a mile or more. This was the Anita had recommended over our shared garden breakfast of soaked chia seeds and fresh fruit walnut toast and tahini. It is perfect, it means I do t have the final steep climb I have been warned about in Dorstone. I am already up high. Anita’s Peruvian grain has served me well. It was given to the warriors who would run over mountaibs to keep them going being rich in nutrients, a super food.
I am now on the final stretch and arrived at Dorstone village hall, past the pub and Dorstones front room – its excellent community centre, in plenty of time for tonights event – its a fundraiser for Nepal that Looby’s partner Chris is putting on. Its a slide show of images from Nepal and the Himilayan Permaculture centre he founded there in the 80s after having originally gone out there as a VSO volunteer.
As the audience settles itself I meet the kindly couple who made sure I didn’t miss St peters head well. I feel amongst friends at this event of international import high in the hills of the Welsh – English borderlands.
The ensuing talk has my total attention the whole time, a very unusual experience for me. Within five minutes talking heads have usually sent me off into a reverie if my own whilst they ramble on. Not so with Chris Evans. If you want to truly appreciate understand permaculturec as a design system, and of how it works to create sustainable resilient communities able to produce their own food and build , and, as it turns out, earthquake proof buildings then look out for one of his events or come to Applewood his Dorstone Permaculture centre for a course run by him and Looby and you will not be disappointed.
Chris began creating perma culture design centres in Nepal and the slides we see of the work that has been done are truly inspiring.
At the end of the talk, when locals begin to ask questions about Permaculture locally I get to meet Flora, who has just started working to raise awareness of how important it is to spend time with the dead and dying and not to let their bodies be taken without at least a three day wake. We share experiences. I talk of the wake of a lovely friend and communard at bowden housecommunity where I used to live and how healing that was for me not having had the opportunity to do that with my own father when he died in a hospital bed. Flora talks of the death of her husband in kenya and of how their five year old daughter was able to say
That body was just a house for daddy’s soul, wasn’t it?
I recall later my good friend Lisa Anderson telling of how it was to sit and play music and sing to a dying then dead woman and her family. It feels good that we are beginning to remember how important the dying process is, every bit as important as the being born process.
Looby and I walk out of Dorstone and up to Applewood. She is only the second person to walk with me on the warriors way. We climb the hill slowly admiring the sunset as dusk begins to fall.
If you want to learn more about Permaculture you can get Looby’s books here:
www.spiralsofabundance.com

Today for the first time I notice I am tired as I wake up at my usual 5.3o am to begin writing. I sleep another hour. My legs are tired. Yet the sun is shining and I am on a journey. This is part of it. I consider taking a bus for a few miles, an act of kindness to my self, and perhaps I will. I allow myself not to know till its time to set out.
Today is market day in the ancient town of Hay on Wye. I arrived yesterday after an easy walk of 8 or so miles from Dorstone via Arthur’s Stone. I had set out from Applewood Permaculture Centre late morning after a lovely time spent helping to create new veggie beds as part of Working Wednesday, a volunteer day.
The previous night I had been the guest of Shanti, Centre owner Looby Macnamara’s daughter, in her little green caravan. Looby provided me with a hot waterbottle and I snuggled down in the tiny haven on a meadow in the silence of Dorstone hill. I am less than a mile from Arthur’s stone, as the crow flies, site of prehistoric ritual.
In the morning I awaken early but it is too cold yet to write, wall to wall blue skies haven’t heated up the day yet, the sun is still below the horizon line. After another hour it is shining through the window and I can see my solar charger is being filled with energy.
Once my blog is written I go outside to join Chris and Ben who have already started work. Chris is scything an area outside the garden enclosure, it’s protected by a wooden deer fence. I tell him much I en joyed his talk on bringing per a culture to Nepal in the 80s. The talk was a fund raiser for the earthquake survivors. Contact the Himalayan Permaculture centre if you would like to contribute.
Next I meet Ben and we enjoy a chat about walking and consciousness and about raising children the natural way. He and his partner have three young children and do not want to see them cooped up inside all day in big classes.
Then Looby is with us and we learn of the first job of the day. We are to remove the tape and large staples from huge flattened cardboard boxes they have been collecting for a while. These are to be laid flat on the newly scythed area ready to be covered in manure and fresh compost ready to plant the next layer of garden, going around in a bigger circle the central enclosure.
I sit in the meadow and set to work on the tape whilst Ben goes for the wheelbarrow. The staples are hard to remove and I go in search of a tool to help me. The claw hammer is to clumsy, the secateurs blade too delicate and could get damaged, then I find the bean planter. Looby tells me this marvellous piece of equipment came from Tools for Self Reliance, near Abergavenney. They save and restore old tools and have some made for them copying tools made in Tanzania. They are simply wonderful, sturdy, strong, easy to use and really effective. Looby displays her root pulleruper and demo Strate’s pulling up a dock root and all in one go.
The beanpuller is like a small diamond d shaped trowel with a strong thin pointy end and is perfect for taking out the copper staples. As I drop them into the plant pot bin so they won’t end up on the grass to injure bare footed children I wonder what could be made out of them.
I am joined by Looby and Ben’s partner Noda in the tape and staple removing work whilst Chris helps Ben to shovel wheelbarrows of muck onto the cardboard that is gradually getting put into place. It is a delight to watch the new beds gradually appear due to our shared effort of reusing so called waste products. I dislike that term, there is no such thing as waste except for when it is used in the phrase
Wasted opportunity
As far as I am concerned. Its all down to the level of our creativity. The more we throw away the less we are using our imaginations.
The work is fun. We women talk as we do it. We talk of transition education, about home education and something called collaborative education which Ben and Nora are considering for their children where a collective of like minded parents get together to home educate.
Nodas son is currently asleep on her back as she works. We talk too of the Hedge, her new publication to share stories poems and articles about the new story. There is a real thread starting to form now in these past few months of women who talk to me about producing or who are thinking of doing so, positive journalism.
It is exciting and a real development towards an empowered society when women begin to take up this baton. The Hedge is produced to raise money for important things that either need protecting or supporting. Issue one proceeds went to help support the move to protect camp hill centres from being taken over and changed from their incredible residential work with the mentally instable. Issue two is raising money to support the Nepalese earthquake survivors.
We realise I could contribute to this little magazine and I promise to hunt it out in Hay. After our new beds are made we stop for cups of fresh peppermint tea and then I take my leave if this inspiring little group.
Ben and Noda’s son is now fast asleep in the meadow under blankets. It brings tears to my eyes to see him in this natural state rather than sitting in a row in a square box listening to some adult telling him how the world is rather than letting him ex perience how the world is.
I walk on to Arthur’s stone. It is about a mile by the lanes. When I arrive a couple are there taking pictures. They soon move on then it is my turn to enjoy the stones. I bump into them later in a book shop in Hay and they tell me how they had picnicked there before I arrived. I smile
That’s what I did when you’d left
Another couple did it before us they reply. It is very satisfying to know we all had our bit of peace up there in the prehistoric remains of a once earth mound with a tunnel leading to an inner chamber which us up and n high overlooking the distant hills. The sun up there is hot and for a few minutes I can strip down to my vest and let the sun penetrate my skin and replenish me. We need this energy in the darker months. Now is our opportunity to s tore it in our bodies.

Soon i am on my way to Hay again. It is easy quiet back lane walking all the way there on a lane that runs south of the mainroad …the old way into town. I get puzzled at exactky tge same crossraods as i did five years ago on my first storywalk. The lane looks like it is to crumble into jyst a track and makes me think i have misread my map. It is right though and strange to realise i am walking in my footsteps now.
I am soon to n Cusop and go the long way round to finally go and visit the church and castle site that I missed seeing last time. Transition Hay didn’t reply to any of my emails and I wonder what happened to them all. It is nice though to be here under my own autonomy and visit different things. The castle site us just that ,a raised grassy plateau but the church, now dedicated to St Mary but once dedicated to the welsh saint of the rain, Cewydd,has a round churchyard. The church information informs that this was once a pagan site later built on by the Normans it was they who rededicated the church. The current church us dar heavy and feels like it is acting like a block to the spirit if the place though it is clear the locals are working hard to change that. The main stain glass window is a millennium window commissioned from a female artist and shows a rather beautiful Lilly type design in very pleasing purple greens and yellows.
The yew outside is over 2000 years old and has helped to date the site as pre christian.
The unusual round churchyard reminds me if the recurring theme of my walk that is full if straight Roman lines and circular ancient ways. In Breinton Susana has told of the table round, which was offered to the cathedral who wouldn’t take it and then to all saints a very progressive seeming church with a cafe functioning in its main area. The vicar accepted it but the congregation was in uproar, they couldn’t have this pagan symbol in their midst. Susana has given me the number of its keeper to find out where it now resides. It seems so sad and yet so true to form that is is ever the common folk who reject the coming of change more than anyone else. Taught so well by their oppressors they uphold behaviours and belief systems way beyond their period of power maintaining its hold when it need no longer bind.
When the lords of alien cultures subjugated the indigenous peoples of this our island they brought straight lines law and order as if these were good and the circular patterns of life that mimicked nature bad. With it went our freedom to be here as the full humans we came here to be. With it we lost our connection to the reality if the natural order to which we are an integral part. A round table represents equality in difference just as in the skies the planets rotate and revolve one no better than the other in their qualities and their challenging aspects.
Imprisoned by centuries of subjugation we uphold their values even when they hurt us and long after their masters are gone. The key to change us the releasing of these false laws from the inside. When we no longer believe them they will relinquish their power over us.
Anita has told me I should meet Sid in Builth Wells. She points me to his website
Facts about faith

Where I read with a huge settling relief that All faiths were founded upon the truths of Astronomy and the ancients knowledge of it that was so sophisticated that they were able to develop a complete science based upon it, the knowledge of which is passed down to us in Astrology.interesting how we have been taught to believe it’s mumbo jumbo. Interesting how the very basis for all thought has been debased and left to be dismissed.
I begin to see that the Merlin archetype I am walking with, exploring, that I have suspected represents an old god, a weather god, a father god, a wielder of old powers, is no doubt a planetary archetype and one that plays out strongly in my own psyche and visible in a strong position in my birth chart. Saturn. Facts about Faith relates this planet to amuch maligned character; Satan.
Who is Satan but the old green god, the God of the woodlands, the God that recognised the forces of nature, the goatlike character with a fish tail, capricorn, the seriousness till we are fullgrown and understand our true place in the world, then the playfulness that is our our true nature, the one who tried to stop just one god god from reigning supreme, Jupiter, the God on whom our grey bearded man on a
cloud image is derived, the God of thunder, the one who took woman as a wife then cheated on her, the one who was jealous of all other gods. The one who son like usurped the father, just as Saturn usurped Chronus before him. Time moving on, change.
Who followed on from Merlin in the myth but Nimue, the goddess of spring surely, following on from Saturn’s wintery role, Brigit, the feminine taking her power once more, as she begins to do now, in our times, awakening as if from a long sleep. The God the Jews took as the lord of all gods, emcompassing all gods, was just another manifestation of Jupiter. A truly encompassing divinity would include all the archetypal figures not just one aspect and extol it above the rest .
In Hay I look for a place to stay, food to eat, and a rest. First I buy a copy of the Hedge, yet another symbol of the awakening feminine energy that has been missing in all of us, man and woman alike, for far too long.
Its been a good day, spent in the company of men and women on the land with children, embodying both their masculine and their feminine aspects seamlessly. Both honouring the qualities of both. Noda lies her child down to sleep on a jacket in the meadow in the warm sun. Ben comes along and gently lays a blanket over his sleeping son. The golden headed boy sleeps in innocence as safe as only one in the hands of nature can be.
Noda speaks of her publishing company, Ben of his music. Both promote the goodness in the others work, their contributuon in the world. Both work the land of others, selflessly, for pleasure and to be of service. They have their own land too. When they need support to be sure their friends will be there to support them.
Simple, effective, as near to god like as we can be. To do gods work we must embody the qualities of a full pantheon of archetypes.

11th June
It is strange to think that for several days now I have been walking in England, but the Wye valley has long been borderlands and often what is now England was once Wales and sometimes vice versa. As Ben said at Applewood, the fertile edges, where the magic happens. Once I arrived in Hay though I had definitively reentered Wales for the rest of the journey. Hay, although it feels Welsh, also feels English too, and manages to be the both.
Waking up there, having breakfast in a Welsh B&B, then perambulating the town for its market day, I realise that my long held romantic view of the ancient market town has dissolved.
Maybe it became romantic when first being taken there while still a child, and a book worm, after all, Hay is the town of books , with more than 20 independent book shops mostly selling second hand and or rare out of print volumes including children’s books, according to the leaflet I pick up, or maybe its because I came here with a long lost lover, sat in the streets outside the lovely vegetarian cafe on a sleepy Sunday and watched the world go by, or maybe its because when I last walked a storywalk this was the furthest west I walked and like Tolkien I came from the Midlands to it, escaping the people filled industry to drink in its clean air and tranquility, remnant of how life the island over would have felt before the industrial revolution. Whatever the roots if that romantic longing, certainly the air felt alive around it as I walked in and out of the town in 2010.
Today though, it has all gone. I can still appreciate the windy narrow medieval streets and look longingly into a few book shops, though i can’t spend time browsing today, let alone carry a book, I can still enjoy the excellent deli, and peruse the fresh local produce brought in on the market stalls, but the magic has gone. It could be the characters that serve in the shops and stalls, the almost Dickensian caricatures, the larger than life figures, some with noses pushed with arrogance high into their air, the impatient give me your money and move on attitudes, or the full of self importance puffed up egoic conversations that issue loudly through the thronging market days streets, but I feel as if I am walking through the characters of Canterbury tales. Its as if by the act if becoming famed throughout the land for books the inhabitants have begun to resemble characters from within the books pages, caricatures of themselves. I search in vain for an authentically present person and fail. My overtures of friendly enquiry, smiles and interest are not taken up;they do not care that I am here, they just want my money and get out.
I feel sad that the renowned book festival that takes over the town at the end of May has obviously had such an effect on the townsfolk. My desire to become a famous author dissipates in an instant. If this is the effect of having famous writers, the BBC, and prestigious journals here, then it is cannot be a good thing. I renew my resolve to give away all of my books and trust I will be shown a way to pay off my book debt.
My desire to come here and speak at the festival one day has gone. My desire to engage with the rich and famous literary world vanishes. I am cured of my ego’s penchant for fame. An hour or two walking the streets of a town this infused with that energy makes me want to run. These are not my people, not my tribe. These are about as far away as you can get from the type of world I wish to inhabit.
I resolve to give away all of my books and trust a way will come to pay off my book debts. Of this world I want nothing. From the bridge as i leave i gaze back at Y Gelli , the grove, in Welsh, and can see that it once must have been exactly that before invaders came and turned it into a parody of itself. An ancestral part of my psyche writhes in hatred for the Normans who came and held our people in thrall and imprinted their values upon the society that then grew up. I am surprised to find it there, hidden, yet it should really come as no surprise, is not that what we see in Palestine?
Deep down in our psyches, I begin to suspect, lie all the unprocessed feelings around times when our people’s way of life was destroyed or at least changed by an incoming people. For me it is grief for the land, for the vibrant aliveness that places untouched by this invasion still have. I can hear it singing in the hills around Y Gelli yet in the town values that are not founded in love for the land can be viscerally felt and I feel for those there that still follow the old ways.
I carry with me Hereford strawberries brought to market by one of the few friendly faces I have met and a salad in a granary gap made for me by the other friendly face, in the little local Londis store I remember buying my lunch from last time I was here. I have rejected freshly made pastries on the market for the woman I spoke was not open and friendly.
Down by the vegetarian cafe where the market has sprawled to sweet music streams from the CD stall and for a moment I stop, caught on the wings of a song.
Then I leave town. Over the bridge I see the entrance to the hayfield commu city garden and feel happy it is full of veg and thriving. I think of Phoebe my host last time I was here whose dream it was who stepped away between my visits, and am struck by a sense of pathos that it isn’t always the visionary that stays to reap the rewards of their dreams. I wander closer but the people there take no notice of me. I soy their new domed polytunnel and am happy the garden thrives though the place where I told stories no longer is my welcomer.
I take the Wye valley walk through fields noticing my anger and frustration that the town where once I received such a welcome by bards and poets has now shown me its other face. I shed a few of those tears when I reach the footbridge after a few minutes of stern private keep out signs and the way on is not immediately clear. I realise that a part of the story that often has me in its grip is that of angry landowners chasing me off their land with guns and dogs and as this has never actually happened to me I wonder if this too is an ancestral memory that has left its traces on my psyche.
Eventually I get out of the limiting belief system long enough to go back over the footbridge and read the little way markers a little more closely. Now I can see, a diversion has been made, I turn and follow the obviously private track till it gives at the river and a path begins that faithfully follows the course of tgexwater. It is the best bit if the river walk yet. It is flat, dry, grassy and looks directly onto the water. I need not be afraid of thge farm I am walking through having dogs or cows; they grow potatoes. I am aware though that their crop is a mono crop planted in regimented rows with not a weed in sight on the dried up furrows. I feel sorry for the potatoes to be growing in such an environment and feel thankful that a mile back the hayfield garden is lush in its diversity and the size and strength of its veggie plants cannot be compared. They are vibrant in their closeness to other species and not an amazing inch of dry ground is visible between the different plants. How could we ever have thought that expedience produced more and better food than the native Indian system of planting closely all higgedly piggedly so as to deter pests and prevent soil erosion.
I follow the river to the main road, aware that I am still cross at landowners, who I realise more often than not if they have been there any length of time, will be ancestors of the Normans. I am cross because they occupy prime land meaning others, even those simply walking on by, cannot enjoy it too.
I think as I trundle along the verge of a fast main road of how in a fair and just society that got the best out if everyone the needs of the young, old, poor and disenfranchised would be met first and then and only then would the wealthy be able to make their homes. It wouldn’t take long for things to stabalise into balance then. It is at that moment that it becomes clear to me that we have poor and disenfranchised exactly because we are the subjugated race, the ones who lost their land to the invaders. No wonder there is such mistrust between the two.
Soon I am in Llowes. I head straight for the church. I am drawn to them like a magnet. Once I stopped associating “god” with a jealous elder in the sky and started to allow my reverence for the land to feed my spirit churches lost their patriarchal edge and nowadays I see them as sanctuaries of peace and holders of ancient wisdom. This one is on the site of a very ancient pagan place of worship. It is dedicated to St Meilig and his ancient cross now standing inside the church was once a standing stone in the commons above.
From Llowes I take the high road, coming away from the wye valley path and choosing my back lanes westwards towards Trericket mills my home to be for the night. It is quite possibly the best walk yet. The land takes me through community n land covered in ferns and untouched oak trees. The land our folk memories wax lyrical about exists still here. I see no one and three cars are all that pass me all the way to Boughrood where I feel tearful at the tale of the locals having their spire rebuilt just a few years before when we arc and tear had left with only a stump.
I light a candle for my father. Mum has texted to remind me he died three years today.
Then I walk on, the gushing Wye at my side and cross the one lane suspension bridge to Trericket mills. My father would have appreciated this walk and I feel sad that doctors fed him with drugs from pharmaceutical companies lists rather than listened to his story and let him free to rest, recuperate, and to refine his direction after a lifetime if slavery to a system that in the end was to kill him, victim of kidney failure, side effect of the drugs he’d been pumped with.
I strengthen my resolve to found a place of respite sanctuary for all those tired souls who could live their purpose fully if only they could rest from their fruitless labours long enough to rekindle their passion.
A place like Trericket mills. I walk into the garden to be greeted by Nicky, gardening. I am taken into the mill and my jaw drops. This is the most exquisitely reclaimed piece of history that I have ever seen . as I sit here now over a breakfast of homemade bread, home made jam, eggs from very free range poultry that live in a castle folly in the garden, homemade vegetarian sausage , perfcetlyvfried potatoes, grilles cherry tomatoes and fresh fruit salad whilst BobDylan gently serenades me I look around at the room I sit in. The workings of the old mill are all here still but so are the wooden tables are n which guests perfectly prepared food is laid, polished quarry tile floors and old wooden counter from a mans outfitters, memorabilia from a bygone age on the walls, including the old rules from the mill, who would fine workers for breaking tools or…wearing the sacking as clothing… I feel like I have been given a gift.
I am sad Nicky n Alistair want to sell up. They’ve been here 26 years so I can understand its time for a a change but it is heartbreaking to think that this place might not continue.
I live for the night in the little bunk room with its tiny ensuite and look out on my bit of the garden with its view of the gushing stream that once powered the mill.
Nicky tells me the tales of their free range ducks are including the one who imprinted on them and lived in the mill till it finally decided to move into the castle folly that had been built for the ducks by Nicky n Alistair from stone they’d quarried on the land to restore the mill that had stood derelict until some craftworkers took it in as workshops until Nicky n Alistair came and turned it would not the best eco accommodation I have ever visited.
Everything here is founded on good principles of sustainability and care for the environment. The food is superb, the best I have tasted, expertly prepared and served with those extra loving touches that make a place not just excellent but first class.
The music is eclectic, quietly background and yet loud enough to let the poets’ words sink in, the conversations are interesting and welcoming and I doubt this recipe for success could be bettered.
Dinner is served at a table in the window, with a clean jar of freshly picked buttercups and cowslips and a rose candle. The tea in the pot is fresh peppermint leaves and the simple supper I select is fresh wild garlic mashed potatoes spring greens and a Clive’s pie, perfect walkers fare. I could have chosen a three course home made meal but the supper is plenty for me.
I recommend you come here soon,whilst it is still here to be enjoyed. Or come and buy it and keep it going. Trericket mill is the jewel in the warriors way, the wye valkey way, the place that makes you realise there is nothing to stop life being all that we dream of. Nothing but our own lpself imposed limitations, and when we stop to thin k about those, and how our not following our purpose deprives all of humanity of our gifts , then we can begin to see that our believing self limiting stories is an act of supreme selfishness.
Trericket Mills is the anecdote for the puffed up egos that have taken over Y Gelli. Humility, good taste and love for doing the right thing, even in the face of disapproval, like the farmer who wouldn’t stay because the food is vegetarian, reign supreme here. It is a tonic for bruised souls, an inspiration for the spirit, and an example to be followed.
Now, I am going out to visit the very free range ducks and chickens including the broody duck about to lay 12 ducklings.