August

For most of this month, it’s been around 75 degrees in Wales.

Well, all right, in our garden it’s been around 75 degrees.

Well, all right, in our polytunnel it’s been around 75 degrees.

Yes, the polytunnel, bravely erected by Jim and Joe, has taken on a life of its own. The tomato plants went in first, and immediately started to fruit up. The sweetcorn seedlings, which looked very sad in their pot, have shot up to twice their size. A row of radish seeds came up and leafed within 48 hours of sewing. On the other side of the tunnel, there are large areas of onion, leek and beetroot seedlings, bought as tiny seedlings and now already looking established.

And, in its own little pot, a lemon plant is just beginning to sprout from the pips Sue and I brought home from Italy; they’re Amalfi Lemons, massive and so sweet they are edible...the Italians love them sprinkled with olive oil and salt.

Truth is, the plants think they are in Italy...and when I enter the tunnel, it feels as if I am, too!

We’re hoping to use the tunnel to extend our growing season – planting summer foods early in spring and later for autumn/winter consumption – and for extending our growing range. We’re trying melon seeds (from a melon we first ate) for a start. We plan to use the suspended rails that run along the polytunnel to support the melons. Chilli peppers are also in, although they may not do well, planted now, even in the warmth.

We’re hoping to dedicate one smaller bed to strawberries, but there’s a dilemma; the gardening books recommend that you don’t plant straws in the warm until they’ve experienced some frost. We were planning to buy an outer of around 30 plants this autumn, but now we’re wondering if there is any point in buying early if we have to leave them outside...and if we do, should we transplant into soil or leave in their pots? Has anyone got any answers?

I was watching telly last night. Claire Balding was trying to overcome her fear of bats on Countryfile. I was watching the bats, when I thought...what am I doing? I went outside. There was a fantastic golden sunset in the east of our land; the sun would be going down over the Cardigan coast. The barley opposite our house has been cut now, but the stalks glowed like a field of gold leaf in the low sunlight. And there, dashing and flitting in and out of the trees across our field, were the bats! Two tiny pipistrelles, their wings flapping like hummingbirds, and swooping close enough for me to see the fur and their plump little bodies. I could hear an owl hoot in the distance, and the dogs had started their ‘starlight barking’ towards Rhydlewis. There was a tranquillity around me that made my heart feel at ease.

And, to put the gold hat on it, by the time I got back in, Claire Baldwin had disappeared for the evening.

First week in August

As our removal men (you remember Dumb and even Dumber...)were unloading the garden stuff from the van packed with our every worldly artifact, they came upon eight canvas shopping bags; each one holding a single stone.

‘Bringing the Mendips with you?’ they said, pointedly, hefting them across the grass.

I just nodded. I didn’t think they’d appreciate knowing that they were actually carrying a sacred stone circle from our house in Bristol to our new country cottage.

Ancient history tells us that thousands of years ago, stones were taken from the Preseli hills in west Wales to southern England to form a sacred circle. But now, for the first time in history, we claim to have reversed the process...almost.

Each stone, no higher than our knees, was careful loosened from the soil and marked in felt tip with the position it had held. The area was smudged and cleared and suddenly, that little circle of lawn felt quite empty and ordinary.

All the magic was in those eight Tesco bags - the most important item of our house packing. We’d had worked in this circle for ten years, and we wanted to take that energy with us, if we possible could. We had squeezed groups of up to twenty druids into our little stone ring to celebrate the wheel of the year. My favourite memory, I think, was a Beltaine ritual which invoked the Lady of Elphame, who beckoned us into fairyland. Some of the rituals we’d held were solely for Ovates, summoning some powerful energies. We’d worked in groups of three or four, sometimes concentrating on a single aspect of a person’s inner life. One ritual I remember well, was for a friend who needed to give up smoking. But most often, we’d worked as a pair of Ovates, or alone, spontaneously when the need arose.

Now we have moved from a city suburb to a country cottage and swapped a small town garden for half an acre. We are already eating our own potatoes, salad and broad beans...but the stones waited patiently inside their canvas bags.

The magic of west Wales feels all around us, as if we’ve arrived inside a year-long ceremony to the Earth. Our morning devotion is to watch the sun burn the mist off the valley, and our evening mediation is to sit while pipistrelles dodge around us. We honour this land with the eerie cry of a red kite, and the spiralling song of the lark in the field next to us. And we greet the goddess every time we go out to work on our garden, touching the growing plants and separating the stones from the dug tilth. 

We’re exploring the locality. I’ve talked to the committed people who resurrected Castell Henllys and walked the country paths with Claire and Branwen, and noting the flowers and trees that grow most happily in this soil. While Branwen was staying, we found Pentre Ivan in the Preseli hills, a huge dolmen that stirred our spirit. We’ve walked our own boundaries and - independently and on the same night - dreamed of the god and goddess of the land. But we still have not re-erected the stone circle. 

Finally, we’ve chosen its site...a triangle of land enclosed by high beeches, where any passing walker cannot view us. It’s dim and cool between the trees and the ground is shaded, perfect for bluebells, snowdrops, aconites, lily of the valley, trefoils, violets, foxgloves and other wild plants. Two fairy statues now guard the entrance; placed there to attract the more etherial variety. A verdigris hare stands at the far point to welcome our own power animals. Between these, the firepit is ready for action. But the stones are sleeping...waiting, I think, to be woken into new life.

Branwen found a young badger on the road by our house, moments after it had bounced off a car bumper. It lies in the first grave we’ve dug on our land, planted up with sweet smelling herbs, under the big slab of slate that the last owners erected in the paddock. We hope its soul rests peacefully. 
           We moved a step further when Simon and Hen came to stay. The evening before they left, we gathered some of the stones from digging the garden and built a fire pit. We lit a fire as dusk fell, and sat in front of it with our drinks, telling stories and singing songs and generally sharing our lives with each other. We've known Simon for some time, but this was the first time I'd met Hen properly, having missed her wedding because I was with Bill for the last time. She is (look away, Henrietta) a deeply lovely person, full of calm intelligence and bursting with fun. 

        Eventually, the fire had burnt into a bright ring and we were able to start cooking our BBQ. It was at that point it came on to rain. But the beeches above us formed such a thick arch that we didn't really get very wet, and the fire continued to cook our food. Even so, I'm rather glad we were surrounded by the trees because the local might have thought us very odd indeed, eating burnt sausage by torchlight in a downpour. 

          So the firepit that forms the central space of any modern sacred circle worth its salt, is now in place. But the stones are still in their bags! Maybe they lie fallow among the bursting life of our garden because, while we badly needed them in Bristol, we don't yet need them here. In Hengrove, every neighbour had bricked and concreted over almost all their outdoor space, people rushed past without nodding the time of day, and the bird song had to battle to be heard against a constant roar of traffic, . When we stool within our circle, we could block all that out, allow our minds to be drawn into the spirit places. Here in Ceredigion, our minds are naturally close to those places.

I think we will know when it is time to begin. It will be when we are drawn to start our ritual work in this place. Then the powers of the quarters will be called and the  lady and lord of the land, who we dreamed of on our arrival, will be invoked. 

When the time is perfect, our tiny ritual stone circle will be re-born into the magical realm of Wales. But at this moment, it is the land that calls to us, rather than our own recreation of it.