Reflections on the puddle of life

Well, we've just got back from a very relaxing week's camping in Wales. I think it was just the break I needed. I've been feeling a bit meh recently which I think is really due to a couple of things: tiredness and stress. I hate to say that, but I think it's true. Work is pretty stressful this year and I think it's been getting to me a bit. Plus it turns out I have a few gynaecological issues which are now being addressed (no, I'm not hormonal ) so in general I feel relaxed and back on the way to getting healthy, which is good.

Of course, after spending a week in Wales how could I be anything other than healthy? There's a tradition in Britain. The Welsh 'hate' the English and the English make fun of the Welsh. In the main it's all good natured. The truth is, Wales is beautiful, the Welsh are a wonderful race of people and I love them and love their country, however much I might joke otherwise.

So we spent our week in a campsite on the banks of Llyn Tegid, which is the largest lake in Wales, a few miles out from a small town called Bala. The campsite is very beautiful. There's a stream running alongside the site, the pitches are flat and the grass very green. And then there is the lake (with my kids in it!):



The campsite is situated right next to the lake, with a little pebbly beach, so it's very accessible. Pretty much as soon as we arrived the kids were splashing around in the water. Later in the week we bought a dinghy, and then two kayaks and both the kids spent some time boating. We're hoping to carry this on with future camping trips to the Lake District.

One thing Wales is notorious for is its inclement weather. With all those beautiful hills you can't really expect anything else, and it's one of the reasons Wales always seems so green and wholesome. We struck pretty lucky on our trip. The first day was absolutely baking - a great day for splashing around in the cooling waters of the lake. The next day was pretty overcast so we tripped off and spent the day in Caernarfon. Caernarfon is the seat of the Welsh crown and houses the most wonderful, perfect and probably the absolute best castle in the world. Caernarfon castle was built in the 12th Century, and is the place where the coronation of the Prince of Wales takes place. It is incredibly well preserved - after Caernarfon there is no other castle you need to visit. Here's what I'm talking about:




You're able to climb the towers (there are lots and lots of very steep steps. Not for the faint hearted!) and the views are spectacular with the sea to one side and the hills to the other.

We were lucky on this trip to have some company. My brother in law and his girlfriend (who also happens to be my best friend from college who I don't see nearly enough of) also camped with us for some of the trip. On account of their being there I was able to fulfil a lifelong and, bizarrely, literary goal of mine which was to climb Cadair Idris. This is Cadair Idris:



Shrouded in the breath of the grey king, oh my. You might well ask how climbing a big hill fulfils a literary goal, so here's the story. When I was a kid, about 12 or so, I read a series of books called The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper. This is a fantastic series of books, steeped in Arthurian legend and pagan mythology, (there's even a movie called The Seeker based on the book The Dark is Rising but really, don't watch it. It's an abomination and nowhere close to representative of the sheer magic of the books) and my favourite of these books, which was also the first I read, is called The Grey King and it is set in this area of Wales. The protagonist of the story, Will, is one of the 'Old Ones' who are people with special powers of Light who protect the world from the rise of the Dark. In this book, Will has been sent to Wales to his Aunt's farm to recouperate from a serious illness. He has forgotten his life as an Old One. But he also has a mission, which is to wake the sleepers of the lake Tal-y-Llyn which sits at the foot of Cadair Idris, and in the book the mountain, The Grey King, is kind of menacing. It's all very atmospheric. So as soon as I knew we would be camping nearby, I was desperate to go up there. It puts the book into context. And we did. It was hard, but a beautiful climb. My husband and son bottled out about 1/3 of the way up and went back. Myself, my brother in law and his girlfriend and my 7 year old daughter carried on. Unfortunately, I didn't get to summit as my daughter had had enough when we reached this point:

which is not far from the summit (the summit is just shrouded by cloud on the right of the picture) but at 7 year's old I think she did pretty fantastic, especially as she's got little tiny matchstick legs with hardly an ounce of flesh on them! Here are some of the great views:






After the exhertion of the walk, we went on to the seaside town of Barmouth. Barmouth is a great place, a sandy little sun trap and the weather was fantastic there. We bathed our tired feet in the sea, and ate fish and chips from a tiny little chippy by the harbour. It was wonderful.





The best day ever.

Aside from that we spent a lot of time at the campsite, enjoying the Welsh rain, the occasional jet fighter flying overhead (it's quite common to have airforce bases in hilly areas), the company, the fires, the pizza (yes, we had camping pizza) and the stars. One night it was so clear you could see the Milky Way and on that same night I saw 6 shooting stars over the course of about 20 minutes. Here's a picture my brother in law took of the Milky Way:

The Milky Way always makes me think of a poem by Mark Strand called My Mother on an Evening in Late Summer, specifically this part:

Soon the house, with its shades drawn closed, will send
small carpets of lampglow
into the haze and the bay
will begin its loud heaving
and the pines, frayed finials
climbing the hill, will seem to graze
the dim cinders of heaven.
And my mother will stare into the starlanes,
the endless tunnels of nothing,
and as she gazes,
under the hour's spell,
she will think how we yield each night
to the soundless storms of decay
that tear at the folding flesh,
and she will not know
why she is here
or what she is a prisoner of
if not the conditions of love that brought her to this.

And here's an amazing double rainbow. Practically everyone on the campsite stopped what they were doing and watched it until it was gone. So strange.



And it also reminded me of another me of Mark Strand's poems, Luminism which is about a sunset but also strikes a chord here (extract only):

And though it was brief, and slight, and nothing
To have been held onto so long, I remember it,
As if it had come from within, one of the scenes
The mind sets for itself, night after night, only
To part from, quickly and without warning. Sunlight
Flooded the valley floor and blazed on the town's
Westward facing windows. The streets shimmered like rivers,
And trees, bushes, and clouds were caught in the spill,
And nothing was spared, not the couch we sat on,
Nor the rugs, nor our friends, staring off into space.
Everything drowned in the golden fire. Then Phillip
Put down his glass and said: 'This hand is just one
In an infinite series of hands. Imagine.'
And that was it. The evening dimmed and darkened
Until the western rim of the sky took on
The purple look of a bruise, and everyone stood
And said what a great sunset it had been. This was a while ago,
And it was remarkable, but something else happened then -

and here's the amazing Welsh light that created the rainbow:



It really was beautiful. I was sad to come home. Sad because we'd had such a wonderful time, and sad because coming back meant facing the terrible events over the past week, the riots, the chaos. We were protected from all of that out there. It's a simpler life, but a better one I think.

The best thing is that following the trip I am writing again. The best gift a holiday can give.

I would love to go back there some time. Maybe next time I'll summit Cadair Idris, maybe I'll wake the sleepers from Tal-y-Llyn, who knows? One can always dream