Midsummer - Glorious June 2014

Merry Midsummer to all our friends and relations!

We had a great day, yesterday. We rose at 4.30 so that we could see the sun up. Jane, Jim and me walked to the ridge of the Gernos Mountain. If this sounds like a hard tramp, believe me it wasn't; we just went up to the top of the field behind our house, 200 m above sea level.  It was bitterly cold and we were wrapped up in gloves and hats, but steadily, this massive, red sun rose above the horizon. As it did so, the clouds moved and we could see the crescent moon, pale in the sky. We took strawberries with us. We're getting a pudding baisin of strawberries a day, at the moment - I've had to make jam. I'm hoping they'll last till Wimbledon! We also took some fizzy elderflower cordial that I'd made the day before. I'd popped round to see Mara and taken home 25 heads of elderflower (and 2 lemons) and make several bottles of cordial. Very lipsmacking, I have to say. 

It was a glorious June day and we worked solidly in the garden trying to catch up with both the flowerbeds and and the veg plot; nearly there, at last. It's great, watching the two mother hens, Henrietta and Ceredwen, proudly bring their chicks out for a constitutional, but there was a sparrowhawk hovering so they soon hotfooded it back to their enclosure. They're grand mums, and the two cocks are always in attendence...I get the feeling they both think they're the dad.

In the evening we over to Rob and Angie's for a Midsummer party, with a blazing fire and loads of yummy food. By the time the bats were swooping overhead, the guitars, squeezeboxes and drums were out and we had a grand old singsong. 
By the time we crawled into bed, we'd been up for 20 hours, but who cares. It's midsummer!

Glastonbury in Midsummer 2014

Blown away completely by my four day stay in Glastonbury!

THE OLD HOLY THORN

Friday; 

THE ABBEY HOLY THORN; WITH WALKING STICKS

Lots of lovely people around, to meet, chat, drink tea with. I took a walk up Wearyall Hill, to see the poor, desicrated Holy Thorn tree; the one that used to blossom at Christmas; a sprig was always sent to the Queen for Christmas Day. It now looks like an amputee, but a much loved one, covered by cloutie ribbonds. 
This attack was not spiritual, but all to do with money and a landowner's feud.

A wander around the Abbey grounds was so peaceful; a great place to relax. And there, of course are two living and healthy Holy Thorns. I met the lady (in blue costume in the photo of the Abbott's Kitchen) whose Great Grandfather planted this Thorn. Her Grandfather subsequently planted a thorn some years later.

Later, the first of two chanting sessions with JJ and Adrian; these blew the ceiling off. Amazing. Finally, dinner with Mara before going back to my B&B. 
I'm staying at Bliss Cottage; which is bliss! Such a fantastic place; the garden full of roses and the house full of warm welcome from Trish.

Saturday; A massive marquee in the Abbey grounds to take 400 druids from over the entire world. Mara and I particularly loved Ronald Hutton's talk; you may recall his erudition when he spoke at my book launch for In the Moors - here he was the funniest I've ever heard him. Caitlin Matthews and the Druid's Chosen Chief Philip Carr-Gomm also spoke well, and Liv Tork's new book of Tree (Ogham) poems was created live on stage (more or less with live trees!)

I AM IN MATCHING GREEN TABARD AS I WAS PART OF THE RITUAL;
A PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE AWEN GLYPH 

MARA FREENAN LOOKING HER USUAL STUNNING SELF
AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF THE LEVELS

In the afternoon we all went up the Tor for the Druid's ceremony -. It was a short ritual, but very moving. 

  
That evening we had our party, back in the Town Hall for food and the Marquee for the Eisteddfod; Liv Torc was wonderfully funny on being pregnant and having her baby, and there was even a soprana from Holland, singing from Tosca. The dancing went on until 11pm when the fireworks started.

Sunday; Weary travellers were returning from the two ceremonies that had taken place at 6am at Stonehenge and Avebury as Mara and I joined other writers in the town hall to  raise interest in our books. We were part of a massive Druid Extraviganza; the  town hall full of tables where druids could display their speciality interests - everything from how to form a Grove to the Anti-Fracking campaign.

In the afternoon Mara was interviewed about her new book; Grail Alchemy by Philip Carr-Gomm. In the foreground, is Gill, a shaman I enjoyed meeting and hope to link up to again. 




It was a hot, sunny day and a trip to the White Spring was in order; this wellhouse, beautifully decorated by the trustees and volunteers is the original Victorian wellhouse which tapped the white spring directly from its source, as it tumbles out of the Chalice Hill rockface at gallons per minute. Inside, it constantly fills small pools in which you can paddle. Candles and flowers and bowers of hazel twigs are everywhere. Drumming, and singing to guitar added to the atmosphere, while children made rockpools by adding shells and pretty stones. A  fantastic moment in time.

Monday; I chaired a panel of writers at the 'Meet the Writers' morning, where we chatted informally about writing and tried to answer people's questions about their own writing. It went so well we adjourned to the George and Pilgrims after it was over; thanks especially to Mara, Brendon, Penny for being on the panel, and for Philip and Steph Carr-Gomm for coming, and for everyone else for making it such a lively event.


In the early evening I walked out onto the Somerset Levels (which I know so well....) to Ham Walls. An amazing experience; nature in abundance. I heart Bitterns booming, a Cetti Warbler, a Reed Warbler and various other reed birds, including the one recorded here, plus a thrush, a wren, a chaffinch, a blackbird, a goldfinch and a cuckcoo! A fabulous ending to the weekend.

Gors Fawr; Now on the Channel Five Map!

We were having a wonderful time at the Gors Fawr stone circle in the Preseli Hills, Pembrokeshire. We had created a short ritual to ask the stones, and their spirits and ancestors to allow us to continue working at this sacred and ancient place, just as those who erected the stones had done, thousands of years ago. When all of a sudden, out of the blue, two boys in Lycra on bikes came by…Larry and George Lamb!

Of course it didn't quite happen like that. George Lamb had particularly asked to meet druids in Wales to find out more about this spiritual path, and we agree to be there on the day of filming. But we did create a lovely ritual, which we'd almost  completed by the time they came riding by, tinkling their bells to attract yet more fairies and joining in with smudge sticks to the ready…

You can watch us chat about Druidry to Larry and George Lamb on Britain by Bike, 
Channel Five 13^th October – Pembrokeshire – 8pm.