StoryWeaving

 

14th June
There couldn’t be a better place from which to write about restorative places than my chalet at Mellowcroft.
I sit in my comfortable double bed with a view of a rather splendid Welsh dragon on a perch outside one window, carved by an Eisteddffodd winning artist and woodland filled with singing birds on the other. Beyond the little wood the inevitable sheep baa.
Mellowcroft is an oasis in the centre of endless sheep farms. I have been frightened away from one such farm on my walk here by angry dog barking made even more terrifying by an angry farmer shouting, to walk the verge of the main road for the last three miles of my walk too scared to continue my amble through quiet country lanes if it means walking through the farm that straddles the lane and has spilt out across it. Such a blatant overstepping of public space meets no objection in these lands, nor apparently does keeping a territorial dog that can get out to chase passers by, but if you create a sustainable natural holistic retreat centre where any in need of respite can come and be members for just £10 a year, then in Powys at least that is sufficient to be served an enforcement order to bull doze down your wooden bridges over ditches, and perfectly beautifully formed wooden structures where people, as I , can spend a night.
There is nothing wrong with the environment of Mellowcroft which has been going for nine years, from its restored drainage ditches to its track everything here has been done to restore the small holding that once stood here. It has the support of the local community and the farmers, and has given one field of its 12 acres up to community allotments. One local farmer who helped Eddie, the dynamic, charismatic, sincere custodian of this land to raise the roof of the classroom space, has a real connection to this place. When it was still a farm it belonged to his grandparents.
The classroom space would be better called temple, shrine or church. It has tiny stain glass windows from the Yemen, a delightful carved wooden stairway leading to its round space and a false back wall that when Eddie was creating this chapel to life, singlehandedly building an act of worship for the beauty and symmetry of all that is right, he thought of wheelchair access but the divine was at work and the wonderful drawbridge of a wall weighted by two great boulders wrapped in rope swings down to provide an open air stage for performance or a woodland wall for what is happening within the classroom, be it local tai chi lessons or workshops of all kinds, even weddings have taken place here.
When an event such as this occurs guests take advantage of all the local infrastructure staying in local hotels and guest houses and eating in the nearby village, reviving the local economy.
Beside the classroom is a perfectly aligned teaching tool; a 13 stone calendar of the 13 times a full moon appears in our night skies each year.
Behind Mellowcroft stand what Eddie describes as Joe Botton’s rocks. Here are some of the ancient formations he and Lucy have been telling me about, the ones where all the fossils of the international importance are being found and identified. Joe and Lucy left academia though they are PhD doctors for they realised that they will never be able to do the research that they know is of international import in a university setting because there the professors are required to teach and do so much beaurocracy their own work has no hours left in the day. I know this work of academia, my ex partner was such a person, having already spent years researching his book whilst attempting and succeeding in making the course he ran financially viable, only to be made redundant, has still not published.
It is wonderful to meet the likes of Joe and Lucy, who are doing the work they believe in and have let go of the prevalent belief system that keeps so many of our most brilliant minds locked into a system that prevents them from exploring the areas they are passionate about.
On the rocks above Mellowcroft once stood a settlement; these are ancient lands indeed. In more recent times this region of Wales was dotted with smallholdings and farms. People began to abandon them when they couldn’t make money, heading east, seduced Dick Whittington like, to the streets of cities.
Now that the move back to the land is a clearly marked trend it is heartbreaking that pioneers like Eddie, who still lives in his motorhome with wife Kim and little daughter Ellie, paying council tax for it, whilst he develops his land to be viable, are threatened with the destruction of all they worked for, put all of their money into, and all that of beauty that has come into being through their stewardship of the land.
I am inspired by the parenting skills I am witnessing on this my journey, both Eddie and Kim, and visiting volunteers James and Nicky take care of their pre school age children in exemplary fashion. Healthy boundaries, kind and loving teaching lots of love and cuddles, real communication the like of which was rarely if ever seen when I was growing up. Here are the people of the future, transition folk, the ones who live their integrity knowing the system we live within is out dated and unhealthy they are prepared to strike out and live life the way they know to be intrinsically right.
Eddie grew up in a care home, travelled the world over from St Tropez to the States in search of himself, learning his skills doing every type of work, including being the butler of a wealthy man, to finally renovate an old house sell it and make the money that was to be put into renovating another derelict building, making it habitable and beautiful once more when he drive past a for sale sign on a Welsh road through the middle of nowhere and fell in love with the abandoned smallholding that has become Mellowcroft. For the first time in his life he has found home. His family came to him by Kim attending a Shamans circle held here, and staying. Then along came Ellie and Eddie now had a family too.
The story is one of those feel good tales of timeless quality we all know to be right. This is how life should unfold as we face the challenges life presents us with as a child and find our way through it to our full selves and then with our hard work following our bliss we can watch the magic of life flow along side us.
There is a reason I am here, visiting this visionary who admits the challenge of having all of this that he has created through his own belief in what is integrally right threatened with destruction and being branded criminal has brought out the warrior energy in him, three people asked me to come, off route, to hear his story, to help publicise his cause, share his story and support the projects continuation. Partly because this is exactly the kind of place I sincerely hoped existed along this pilgrims way I am creating as I walk, partly because my skill as a storyteller must be put to use in service of all that I believe is good and right in the world, to provide those places where those in need of respite can begin to access their purpose in life, is for me quite possibly one the most important functions anyone who has land can be offering, more than food do we need to be able to reconnect with our reason for being here.then we shan’t need the patriarchal system of large scale farming and supermarkets to feed us, we will grow our own food and feed ourselves just as people always did before our land was taken from us.
Our evening of storytelling continues when the children are tucked up in bed and the adults can unwind and take a little space for themselves. As well as the tale of Mellowcroft and its challenge, which you can help support by signing their petition and or writing letters of support, I also hear from transition Bristol as volunteer James has been very involved; helping set up community assisted agriculture. He talks about their very inspirational local currency that was modelled on the totnes pound but then wen t so much further, so that council tax can be paid with it, and payments be made by mobile phone, so much so that it inspired Totnes to go digital too.
It is interesting that in these times of innovative change bureaucratic systems can be so out of step that they can actually work against land based projects. Mellowcroft though have a sound strategy; they have asked for a public inquiry that will be streamed live on the internet. Look out for it in October.
In Llanrindod there are some folkloric characters called the Llandogos. They are apparently a modern tale, developed by a local sculptor and dotted about the town to be followed on a numbered trail. The one that catches my attention is down by the Victorian boating pool. He is a creature that could have come straight from the pages of Lord of the Rings, holding a large book in his hands. Lucy and Joe tell me a series of storybooks exist too. I ask if the figures are eco conscious and Lucy replies that their values and the exploits are in harmony with nature.
The same could be said for my wonderful hosts, both in Llanrindod and in nearby Mellowcroft. Joe makes tea from fresh birch leaves that really is most refreshing and when its time for me to walk on he goes to the garden to pick a handful of assorted leaves and herbs for my sandwich. I recognise dandelion thyme and rosemary but the others are all the sorts of things only an excellent forager like Joe would know. The bap is delicious.
We set off across the town to pay Nick the sharpening expert from the previous days repair cafe a visit. He has built a passiv haus based on Permaculture principles. The other Nick, who runs a Shakespearean theatre built out of willow and based on the Globe theatre is there too. He is about to go and perform there and I wish I had several lives to be able to go and visit several things a day. If you are curious you can check out the Willow Globe at www.Shakespeare link.co.uk.
We go and explore the passive house. It feels different from other houses. It is completely insulated and so though it is a large house it needs only one wood burner in the lounge to heat the whole building to 23 degrees in winter. Properly insulated and aerated homes have no draughts, are practically sound proof, or so it seems, and are comfortable to be in in a way that us hard to define.
This house has a sheilas maid at the top of the stairs where all the clothes drying can happen and indoors if need be and dries perfectly without the need for heat because of the even distribution of air. Clothes can also be dried on the tropical south facing balcony beside the indoor greenhouse area where banana plants can thrive.
In the kitchen is a pantry where Nick says he made a mistake so that although the room is cooler than the rest of the house it isn’t as cool as a fridge but he learnt afterwards it could have been had he used fridge parts to generate cold air. In the attic of the bungalow that has been completely retro fitted is the brain of the passive has; a mass of tubes leading from the central air controlling box which regulates temperature by recycling the warm air that comes back through it from warmer parts of the house to heat cooler air coming in from other parts of the house. Sufficient roof space and under floor room is required to make a passiv haus work as the several inches wide tubing has to snake around from room to room.
Outside the house, where Nicks wife gives shiatsu treatnent and tgey hold meditation sessions, is a Permaculture garden that was designed alongside the house so that all of the unused building rubble was reused to landscape the garden turning an unproductive north facing slope into a flat forest garden. The land which is quite wet has a pond on it into which a newt moved on the first day.
The elegance of Permaculture is that it is a design process that works with nature to produce the best possible return for all areas of a garden and this case a house too. Land is observed for a period of twelve months so that such things as knowing where the sun is at all times of the year can be utilised in where certain plants are put to where to situate a particular part of a garden, to where to put glass in a house to capture most heat.
All in all it is plain to see that when we begin to use our creativity alongside our skills and knowledge we can construct buildings that are elegant and efficient and with a sacred quality, as with the classroom at Mellowcroft. Good management of land comes too from applying these same principles and questions some of the practices that we call traditional, such as having sheep on land to the extent that it becomes overgrazed. Thistles growing on a field are a good indicator that it has been over used.
Time and time again my experiences teach me that when a system becomes entrenched, when a good idea becomes the norm then things will start to go awry. The quality of observation and responding to present time changes and challenges are surely the principles on which we should be basing our actions if we are to remain sustainable and resilient and preserve some quality of life for the future.

13th June
As I sit in my top room of the house in the heart of Llanrindod Wells perusing a fascinating hardback volume from 1931 “tramping through Wales in search of the red dragon” by John C Moore, I consider myself very lucky indeed. Less than 100 years ago this walking writer was refused hospitality even though he had a sprained ankle not once but three times, eventually having to creep into a hay barn and climb atop a haystack for a nights shelter.
When I read of the journey between Builth and Rhayder, my journey too, the directions he is given are
You’ll be a muddied oaf if you go by the river
He went by road, as I am, he says
“It was a happy walk,in spite of the customary drizzle, there were dog roses in the hedgerows…”
He walked in June, as I am, it is a lovely thing to know that some things have not changed a bit, not the things that really matter.
Moore seemed not though on the whole to think terribly well of the reception he received from the Welsh, and his walk along the Wye. He did find his red dragon though, in the skies on his final night:
“The sunset flushed with its last glow, the red dragon which Merlin saw springing out of the hills .”
The red dragon represents the Britons and was seen fighting with the white dragon, the invading tribes, by Merlin in his prophecy of Vortigen’s fall. Curious, I wonder about these two battling forces, no doubt they too represent something deep within each of us.
I cast my mind back to the previous evenings storytelling with the goodly folk of transition Llandrindid Wells. I feel sad I didn’t get to hear the tale of the birth of Talesin told by Jess. We have spoken earlier and been inspired. We are working towards the same vision:; to open up the old pilgrims ways and connect up all the centres of inspiration. She is soon to walk from St David’s to Bardsey island. It feels to me we could talk for a year and a day but we don’t get the opportunity to talk more for the tales of transition in these parts they are many and the folk enthusiastic and keen. It is mid night before we leave the famed herb garden where we have eaten well of the curries made for us and heard a whole treasure trove of positive tales.
Where to start with the tales of Llanrindod?
Could it be the annual May fair where likeminded projects can showcase their work, or the very popular repair cafe that takes place in the old pavilions once a month during the summer, or maybe the new Soup project, modelled on a Detroit scheme, where 4 local projects a month get to talk of their work at an evening where soup has been donated and all the comers pay £3 a head and get to vote for the most inspiring project who take home all of the proceeds to put into their venture?
All of these projects are dear to the heart of the founding team but perhaps the one that is dearest to the hearts of my hosts palaentologists Joe and Lucy, is the repair cafe.

I arrive in Llanrindod in time to enjoy the last hour of this months. I am taken to meet the group one by one on their stalls where they are busy at work sharpening shears, mending old bits of machinery, sewing on a shirt cuff button, and Di, founding member of transition Llandrindod, is doing a raffle from her freegle stall where plenty of new people have signed up. This scheme has been going ten years up. I pick up an extraordinarily light packet of paper sweet cases, with making the Brazilian sweetmeat brigadeiros in mind. They are a national favourite and very easily made for parties and get togethers.

spring in Llandridod Wells gardens

Over a delicious curry supper provided by founding member Sally of the hugely acclaimed Herb Garden cafe who I have been hearing tales about all the way from Hereford, I hear more tales including the Powys Alliance which is the local version of what I saw in Hereford, bringing together all the different inspirational projects of the region to get together and support one another. This is clearly the way forward allowing for more things to happen and less people to suffer from burn out.
I hear too of the community garden running alongside the paved walkway outside the herb garden cafe and other businesses now planted up with edible plants. There wasnt a lot of light getting in so a local artist carved a willow tree there into a green man cutting back some of the growth that was preventing light reaching the garden prompting the goodly folk to want to name the walkway Green man lane but this has caused no end of resistance. From whence came this fear of the old things from our heritage?
I want to hear more from my hosts Lucy and Joe too. They are palaentologists and Llanrindod Wells the best place in the world for fossils. I hear that Wales used to be a series of volcanic islands and Llanrindod once an ocean. Hence the medicinal waters the Victorians built their spa for. I drink from the last remaining spring. The water tastes of iron and salts very strong. Volcanic eruption moved plates around trapping layers and the water escapes from fault lines.
Modern Llanrindrod, I hear, is a centre to which people with mental health problems and drug abusers are sent. As usual short sighted money driven decisions create a bigger problem than ever. These folk are now ghettoised in the fairytale turreted castle houses of the Victorians.
I cast my mind back to Builth and the scenes from legend painted on a house wall by the river bridge. A warrior for sure, perhaps the prince the town is said to have betrayed, the last welsh prince. The arts are strong in Builth. My host Alun started the what’s on wales website and he and partner Steph enjoy the famed arts centre just across the road from the mural painted house.
I hear from the transition group here that Builth are to become a transition town too and feel happy that this is so and look forward to the art that come from this.
When I remember the stories of the night I think of what I have been talking to my hosts about; how to support the vulnerable by story. I have learnt over the years I have been involved with community in various ways that a person is not emotionally available to see the bigger picture no matter the context if their personal story has not been heard.
I start to wonder if there were regular storytelling events that allowed for a lot of listening to one another’s stories it might begin to open up opportunities for new connections to be made.
By the time I settle down to sleep my head is buzzing with all the tales I have heard and just how much can be achieved by one small 4000 strong town.
I remember my new Welsh word of the day. As I walked into town I met a lady on a bike just beyond Diserth, an ancient chapel dating back to Arthurian times, but built on a far older site, in a round churchyard surrounded by ancient yews. The chapel is dedicated to St Cewydd patron saint of rain and i suspect with a far older past. Jan, as she introduces herself, stopped to talk and we soon found out we had transition in common. She had stopped going to meetings for a while because she found that many of the awareness raising activities were focusing on the challenges more than the positive stories that fill people with enthusiasm and needed to take a break to reconnect with what was important to her; connection to the nature around us. We exchange many tales including a love of learning the languages of the places where we are and I learn how to say thank you in Welsh:

Diolch yn fawr
Now, after this inspiring evening of hearing all the things that are happening in the town it is clear things are moving forwards rapidly in Llanrindod and the best word to say for it all is;
Diolch yn fawr
Thank you Transition Llanrindod.

16th June
Up until a few minutes ago,when I arrived at Cwmbiga Eco bed and breakfast, my day today has been just perfect.
I was awake bright and early at 5.30 to catch up with my blog and breakfasted and out of the very friendly and excellent value for money Bluebell inn by 9.
In the village store and post office Mary the post mistress makes me a sandwich and helps me finally make a decision about the best way to go up to Cwmbiga, through Hafren forest or past the Clywedog reservoir.It’s 14 miles which ever way I choose. I have been puzzling about it for days; I have decided not to attempt the path to the source of the Wye as I am alone and have no compass but rather to follow back lanes to the bed n breakfast which is as close as you can get to the source by lane and very near to the source of the Severn. I have been told the forest way is better for walkers as it is not so hilly but I am a little apprehensive about more than three miles of walking through dense pine forest in a steep ravine. Mary tells me the views over the reservoir are well worth the extra climb. She, like me, feels that evergreen forests exude a sense of the land being dead. Today is also the first day that the sun is fully out and there is no wind; it promises to be a beautiful day, a shame to spend it in shade.
I am easily persuaded to brave the ups and downs of the reservoir way. Mary asks me to phone her when I reach Cwmbiga to tell her what I thought of her suggestion. She always recommends it and wants some feedback.
I set out from Llangurig at 10 and make swift progress. I am at the turn off for the lane to the reservoir, 5 miles from Llangurig, just outside Llandielos by 11.20. It’s the fastest I have walked in a long time. I have barely noticed the gradually steepening lane just the warm sun on my skin. I have yet another choice after a mile or two. I can already have views of the reservoir or I can walk west a couple more miles and come out close to the waters edge. I am nervous about open countryside on maps as cattle are not marked and I still haven’t got over my fear of being chased after several scary episodes on my walk around England when I was still not afraid to use public footpath. Still in the end I go for the western path and am rewarded by a totally empty lane just for me with well fenced in sheep at both sides of me, apart from the odd terrified escapee who run from me as though I were a killer though I speak softly to them.Its rather disconcerting. I walk for 11 miles without a single car passing me and not a dog or cow in sight. I fully appreciate how good life is in the absence of cars, cows and dogs. I spend a completely happy stress free 3 hours.
I get a little lost and head too far west too early when I come to a junction of lane track bridle path and footpaths. I am a mile along a bridle path I have mistaken for the lane due the the presence of a clump of pine that are not marked on the map and do not realise till I look to my right and identify the lane headed north that I should be on.
Even this doesn’t fase me this sunny afternoon. I muse as I return to the crossroads on how this might be a metaphor for life’s decisions, how we must sometimes head off in the wrong direction to become really sure, given the perspective from that angle, of the way we actually want to go. Sometimes we need that perspective to enable us to see clearly.
Once back on track I haven’t gone very far when some cattle in a field below me, separated by a fence and a stream from me gaze up at me in horror, dispelling the myth I have been believing that cows only see you if you are wearing red, before haring off at full speed as fast they can away from me! It is fascinating to be in the other position. Now it is cows who are afraid of me.
I remember that I need to check in with a host for a later night and take out my mobile but there is no signal. An email has come in though at some point since I last looked and I see to my delight that Ling, my lovely Chinese friend has published her book, she says, on my reccommendation. It is a special moment to be halfway up a Welsh mountainside and discover that the things we say to people really do have an impact.
Soon I join the reservoir lane. I have been climbing steeply and descending rapidly for the last couple of miles and now I meet a handful of cars on their way to or from the reservoir. The glimpses I get of the llyn are pretty spec ta cular but it isn’t until I reach the shore that I breathe in its full beauty. I am at first slightly disgruntled that two cars are parked on the headland. Soon however I can see why they picked this spot and find a patch of grass a little down from them where they are out of my line of vision and gaze out in delight at the panorama. Mary was right. This was a view not to be missed.
I eat my lunch. It is 2:30. I am almost there already. I spend a pleasant hour simply sitting in the warm sun as memories of my dad come in, he would have loved to have fished here, then of my partner, Ben, who would love to fish here too, and then of the other men I have loved, not with any sense of wanting any of them to be here, just a recognition that I am slowly integrating the best of each of them into my psyche, growing to understand the masculine aspects of myself, the parts I admire and like, no longer trying to find this quality on the outside but knowing that I have all I need within. The sense of deep peace I feel as I sit looking out at the few anglers in boats and one man fishing from the shore is just as I imagine men feel when they go off to a quiet place in nature to fish and be at one with the great outdoors. I stop even thinking and enjoy where I am for maybe the first time in this way since this journey began. There is something reassuring about being in the middle of nowhere by a large expanse of water yet not totally alone, with a handful of others equally content to be alone.
When I eventually walk on I find an information board that tells me that the reservoir is six miles long and 216 feet deep in places. It is the drowned river Cewydog mixed in with the river Severn, or Sabrina as she is known in legend. The information board suggests her gentle friendly presence can be felt here and I would have to agree.
I last met Sabrina on my 2010 storywalk as I walked south through Bridgnorth and Worcester and learnt of her myth from my host in Bewdley. I enjoy the weaving together of my two walks by the feminine river goddess. I have set out to walk the Wye and finished up closer to the source of the Severn.
I feel happy to have renewed my acquaintance with Sabrina and take my time to walk the last stretch of llyn before it dwindles into the ribbon like Avon Biga. I spot bilberries growing in the verge and for a moment wish it were later in the season so I could pick my favourite fruit.
I walk on and quickly gain what used to be the beginning of Hafren forest. Hafren is the Welsh for Sabrina’s river. I am both relieved and dismayed in equal measure by the bare topped hills. The forestry commission took on these poorly fertile hilltops midway through the last century. The climate in Wales in the bronze age had been such that the growing season lasted six weeks longer than it does now, but little by little over use over grazing and climate change had reduced this land to the sort that folk didn’t want anymore and the commission got it cheap. Now though the Welsh government, as the End!ish, are starting to see that huge plantations of pine are not much better for the land, and to cut them down and not replant.
The bare headed hills look worse than the areas that are still planted. I am reminded of what Eddie told me about the Romans throwing salt down over lands where they had routed the native tribes. It scorched the earth so that nothing would grow so that the people would not go back. I felt the pain of this viscerally when I heard it.
I find it hard to bear when I hear tales of how one people could so disregard the needs of another. All day I have wondered at the huge expanse of land where only sheep graze and images of the refugee children who have been drowning out of over crowded boats trying to come to Europe to beg for sanctuary. A part of me screams in horror at the injustices that the human race inflict on one another.
When I reach Cwmbiga, my home for Two nights, the sanctuary I have been looking forward to, the only two night stop in the journey till I reach Bardsey island I am shocked at the cold reception I receive. I can’t think what I have done to deserve it. I am asked to sit in the lounge and given a drink and some bara brith, Welsh cake,but the way in which my host doesn’t meet my gaze or welcome me is shocking to my system.
Eventually he returns and says he has to see to the other guests who have just arrived and then he’ll make up my room. When he finally does show me up to my room, that I have paid for in advance and ask for WiFi he says its not for guests use and when I say I had planned to stay in and write he says he is going to be out tomorrow.
When I come down for dinner he says I had better move on as this is clearly not the right place for me and that he’ll reimburse me the second night.
The other guests are lively and chummy with their host and he warms to them whilst continuing to treat me like I shouldn’t be there. It is the strangest feeling. I havent felt so rejected for who I am since I was at school. I continue to be polite and friendly to him and the other guests, who are interesting. They come from Macclesfield and talk of the community groups efforts there to make a difference. Our host serves up an excellent meal and allows me to use his laptop for 15minutes to try and contact my next host and the pub some six miles away where I might wait till my next host can pick me up. After a perfect day I feel like I have been slapped in the face and I still don’t know why my reception has been so cold. In the bed and breakfast folder I read that Peter is an ex police officer, and his wife, who I do not see, an ex tax inspector.
Cwmbiga is full of solar panels, the largest private array in Wales, I read, and wonder why that should be a good thing. It only suggests to me that here is someone with en ough land and money to have them. Clearly the ex farm has been retrofitted to the highest of specs but in terms of the real warm hospitality one expects from someone in this trade I have to say that unless you come from a certain class and income bracket; don’t bother.
The irony of the situation hits home when I notice that my bedroom has a name: Sabrina.