Bont Glan Tanat

Bont Glan Tanat

On the train to Gobowen tiny Willow seeds float in through the window by the 100's along with the golden afternoon light. It looks like it's snowing. I'm not the only one to notice these gently floating fairy stowaways. Chattering voices slow to a hush and people are smiling and looking all around taken by the ingenuity of these immigrants- hoping to take-root. Hedges, canals, men fishing, bright yellow fields, bright green fields, woods, electric posts, stone bridge, stone wall, church yard, cemetery, land sloping this way and that, all around us summers' creeping in. Eventually the train brakes squeak and we're back in Wales to meet Francine and Steve our hosts at Bont Glan Tanat.

"That's Welch for Bridge over the Tanat River" Francine tells us once we're in the van heading to her Smallholding. It's a hot Saturday afternoon and her five-year-old boy Lindon is passed out in his car seat with red cheeks and sweat collecting on his brow. His big sister Tanath is at a friend's house swimming the afternoon away. As we bumped along the road Francine told us all about the cosmology of her homestead; from it's humble beginnings to its present state of perpetual work-in-progress. We felt instantly comfortable and glad to once again be in good hands. As she talked I wondered if she was describing our own journey- a balance of hard work, helping hands, and fortuitous twists in the road?

We stayed in a little bow-toped gypsy wagon by a creek that sang us to sleep for the 5 nights we were at Bont. During the day we put on our armor and pulled Nettles, using straw we mulched heavily as much exposed soil as we could, we adorned the Gypsy wagon with a fresh coat of very green paint, Ryan built new compost bins, and of course we weeded. All this in exchange for good home cooked meals, our afternoons off, two bicycles, and one fishing pole. We rode those bike a lot. Way out to a magical waterfall and down to the pub in the evening. On the way we passes a 17' standing stone out in a newly sprouted cornfield. Clearly Wales is the birthplace of Gnomes and Fairies- there is no other way to describe it.

The time to bid farewell to our new friends came quickly. Steve drove us back to the train station all the while pointing out Iron Age burial mounds of Welsh Kings and Dragon Slayers telling us stories about "families with Influence" and how the landscape has changed as it's changed hands. Steve and Ryan communed in the age-old language of Fishing. On the train to Bath I wondered, "is that a burial mound, fort, standing stone?"

With just a little bit of history this new place became so much more familiar. "To name something is to imbue it with sole". -?