Pen Y Fan
I’m writing from Coffi Lab in Monmouth, with a massive coffee for me and a massive biscuit for Robin. I’m writing about the last time we were here, the first time I visited the Brecon Beacons, floored by this breathtaking landscape I’d never seen before. But I’m not going to write too much. Mainly let the pictures tell a little part of how beautiful this place was, the air and land that filled my heart as I walked.
The day started in Tintern, parked up below the Abbey. Everywhere was low cloud, hanging in the fields as I drove away, and cobwebs hung with dew.
Stopped here to make coffee and have breakfast…
… then began, the reservoir quickly falling below us.
A steep climb most of the way…
…with plenty of pauses for snacks and snoozes.
And then this. The way up had been beautiful, layers and layers of misty land, far off hills, clean grass and clumps of reeds, little streams, begrudging sheep. But then this. Suddenly it seemed at least half of Wales stretched before us. Suddenly we were on the edge of slopes that dropped away and away and away, rich and green and raw and beautifully terrifying and somehow kind.
Just before the top, a little monument, and steps to something we couldn’t yet see.
You might laugh, it might be my imagination, but there is something about this land that seems to reach under my skin, right into my heart, something the Welsh part of me can feel, just as the Cumbrian part can in the Lake District. As we found a spot above all this, I breathed deep, and gave thanks.
We had quite a few failed selfie attempts…
…and a tasty lunch in the wind, even if my hot chocolate was barely lukewarm.
Despite the cloud, everything was overwhelmingly beautiful…
…full of paths and ridges I wanted to come back and walk one day.
“And the sabbath rang slowly…
…In the pebbles of the holy streams.” *
It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God was there made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
RS Thomas
(*and Dylan Thomas)