Home from home

or a while in Wales

This week I am not in the flatlands of Norfolk, but nestled deep in the Welsh hills, in a tiny barn in a valley in the Brecon Beacons.

This is my other home, my spiritual home. I have been coming here for years, for a few days in a spring, and sometimes in autumn, and I have been thinking about why it is so special to me. While I love to travel, and explore new places, I come here as there is something about returning to a place of familiarity, of feeling the warmth and assurance that all will be the same. Perhaps this has been felt particularly keenly on this trip, when everything feels in flux and disarray in the world, and retreating to a such a place has felt especially needed, if just for a while.

In Welsh, there is a beautiful evocative word, hireath, which has no direct equivalent in English. It means more than just nostalgia, it is about a longing for a place, a pull, a feeling of missing something just out of reach. I love this valley, not simply because it contrasts so strongly to Norfolk, but because it is where I feel most content and connected. I love its wildness and enveloping greeness. Here I look around me and want to try to draw and capture something at every turn. I always take home treasure: larch twigs, or lichen encrusted sticks, but somehow their magic disappears on the way home, but the pull of the place remains strong.

I don’t venture far from the cottage, as there is really no need. I fill the car with food for the stay, books to read and enough art materials to satisfy any whim I feel like pursuing. I also bring along a selection of bird food, for although the owner always tops up a feeder of peanuts, I have come to know the residents well and bring along a smorgasbord of juicy delight.

The small garden is surrounded by a dry stone wall and has a stone table that I spread with sunflower hearts and wait and watch. From the hedge is the flitter - flutter of bluetits, great tits and the dinky coal tits who swoop in to snatch the seeds. The robin is more aloof and prefers to be fed his own private stash, pushing the other birds away to no great effect. But it the arrival of the pair of nuthatches, with their sharp beaks and peach flushed breasts, that are such a treat. I don’t see them at home, so hours are spent watching and trying to capture them on camera. Occasionally, a flash of scarlet appears as the woodpecker flies in, but he is so fleeting that a flash is often all I see.

A brief glimpse of the nut hatch!

And above these garden birds, there is the cronk of the raven, the one bird I would love to make a print of, but as yet have never quite found a way of capturing.

But it is another creature that is my greatest delight, because in the crevices of the wall live a family of bank voles. I carefully place seeds on their threshold and wait for their heads to pop out. They sniff the air and gratefully take my offerings. As the days go on, they become bolder and I like to think they say, “Oh, it is you again!”

But last night, they had a rival. As I sat in front of the fire, I saw a creature, not much bigger than a bumble bee, flit across the hearth and then withdraw. I lifted the log basket and shone my torch in the crevices, but not a sign of anything. As I lay in bed reading a while later, I saw it again, this time it was peeping out from under the chest of drawers, but it dashed off again. I looked behind and saw a weeny shrew looking up, who then shot under the floorboards. It seems that they sometimes seek refuge indoors in the winter and, while I am here, he is a welcome companion.

I had hoped this week to go out in the hills drawing, but the rain has been relentless. A few, precious windows of sunshine have been drowned by deluge after deluge. So, determined to draw nevertheless, I perched my drawing chair in front of the patio doors and I have made charcoal studies of the trees across the valley.

Now for a confession. In recent months, I have really struggled to escape from the comfortable confines of my sketchbook. My confidence has faltered on how to proceed, but on this trip I was resolved to break free and brought along a large board pinned with thick sheets of cartridge paper. I didn’t dwell, took a deep breath and just started drawing. Large sheets like this have always felt daunting, but I loved making these drawings, and want to keep mining this seam when I return to Norfolk. Charcoal has always felt messy and uncontrollable, but using chunky scene painters sticks, in combination with General pencils, felt much more manageable. I love its softness, how it splinters to leave unexpected marks and, of course, it has the bonus of being entirely natural.

Before I leave you with my usual bookish recommendations, I discovered this poem by the American poet, Mary Sarton, on The Marginalian. I love this poet’s work, having read and loved her sequence of journals many years ago. But this poem summed up my feelings about staying here, and the happiness it brings, and wanted to share it with you.

The Work of Happiness - by May Sarton

I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall —
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life’s span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
      Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

Something to listen to (and read)

As we become wrapped in darker days, Katherine May’s book “Wintering” is the perfect consolation. It helps us embrace and accept the fallow winter months and find strength in the natural world. There is an accompanying podcast,“The Wintering Sessions” which is wise and thought provoking. I especially enjoyed the episode with Josie George, who if you don’t follow her on Instagram, is a joyful discovery.

Something to read

Following my last post about oak gall ink, I discovered this by the award winning poet Jane Lovell, which I am delighted to share here. This poem was first published by Alchemy Spoon. Jane’s work focuses on our relationship with the planet and its wildlife and I hope you enjoy too.

Devil-black

A kettle of galls rumbles,

its jawed larvae frantic

in the rising heat.

Steam fills the room, veils

the glass.

We hold our breath,

add honey, hemlock, vitriol.

Swirl and simmer

and still.

In the cool of evening

we slip the ink from its stew.

Bottled and corked,

its devil-black s dense enough

to block the sun.

Hunched over centuries,

you scribe your words.

Each time you rest your pen,

ghosts appear behind the skin.

Thank you again for joining me here, your support and comments mean a great deal. I look forward to seeing you again on my return to home territory in a couple of weeks.