One word? When seven would do…

Saturday morning we got up and packed up. It always takes longer than you expect and it was no exception. We said goodbye to Lisa and Carina who were heading into town and then John came to say Eric had rung to ask if we were going to visit him or not. We’d decided as it was now no longer morning we should probably get going and give it a miss but on a whim I changed my mind and decided we should go after all – opportunities like this don’t come up often and I was still very excited about having met him. A quick search of my blog for his name shows how often I mentioned his books over the years, plus John was very enthusiastic about what an amazing place he lived in and how worth a visit it was. So I rang Eric to check it was still okay to go and he said it was and he was looking forward to seeing us again.

We headed over to say goodbye to John who was next door with Ian the neighbour and then got talking to him and had the ’10 minute guided tour’ of Ian’s which lasted more like 45 minutes but was fascinating and very entertaining. is a right character, 63 years old, he used to squat on the site of Pen Y Bonc some 40 years ago with a load of other hippies. They got chucked off the land and he drifted abroad for a long time, spending time as a lumberjack in Canada and learning about trees, having a couple of kids and bumming around living in campervans. He returned having made a fair bit of cash and bought some land, found an old book about traditional Welsh apple trees and managed to track down one that had all but died out. He’s pretty famous in the apple world 😉 and is even on wikipedia (that measure of notoriety!)

He was most interested in us, what we’re doing, where we think we’ll end up and then said we’d be welcome to come and stay any time and could park up the van on his land whenever we liked, no need to do any work in exchange and he’d happily teach us about apple trees if we were interested. Wow, an apprentiship with Ian the Apple Man! 🙂 I so think we need to go round again!

Running very late now we said a final goodbye to Lisa and John, who presented us with a bottle of mead, a jar of honey and invitation to come back any time. Sob and sniff.

Then, on to Eric’s. Ady was muttering about it being a silly idea, the van not being up to it, us running too late and other such dark murmurings but I was adamant and I am so glad I was :).

We arrived – stunning views of Snowdonia, Llanberis lake, the Menai straits and gorgeous Welsh countryside. We decided to leave Willow at the top of his lane as it was very steep and narrow and she was overheating rather with the warm day and the need to drive up and down hills slowly. On the walk down we discovered a baby shrew scuttling about and desperately trying to get up the leg of my jeans 😆 We rescued it from that fate and put it somewhere safe before carrying on walking down the hill. Amazing sights and sounds at every turn

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and just a feeling of real peace, calm and wellbeing. We stumbled across various people, all smiling but silent until we found a couple who were chatting to each other so we felt able to ask where we might find Eric. They were all attending a meditation course so we were right not to disturb the silent ones, but these had broken to eat and were able to point us to Eric’s own dwelling.

We were greeted with real enthusiasm, Eric made us coffee, ginger beer and cakes which we sat in the sunshine and enjoyed before getting a guided tour of the place. We were not able to go inside any of the buildings as they were all being used for the course but what an amazing place. There are a whole host of buildings made from all sorts of materials including straw bales, cob, cordwood, timber and thatch. Round houses, hobbit holes, octagonal dwellings, fairy castles – you name it.

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It was truly magical. I can totally see how Eric is inspired to write such beautiful stories and songs living there. You can’t help but see glimpses of fairies playing in the flowers, see shadows of dragons flying over the mountains and hear magical laughter in the waterfall and stream that runs alongside the path ending in a gorgeous natural pool at the foot of the land where people were bathing.

Eric showed us the growing space which has been let go to seed and brambles but has so much potential and the latest building addition – a cedarwood longhouse with vast windows in the roof so you can see the sky and the stars at night and a porch almost as big as the cabin to sit out on and look down on the lake and up at the mountains. He is looking for the right people to come and live there, grow fruit and veg, help keep the place running and be part of his small team. He asked if we’d be interested in WWOOFing there, possibly next spring? I have no idea where we’ll be or what we’ll be doing but we’re certainly racking up a whole host of opportunities and invitations to keep us going and mean we may never even have to make a decision to do anything other than keep saying yes to all the offers we get!

We sat back down and Eric asked us loads about ourselves, what we had done before, why we were doing this, where we thought we might end up. He loved the idea of Home Ed, of our WW adventure and we left with two signed books, a promise to email him with the blog address so he can follow us, information about his autobiography which he is halfway through writing and huge hugs for both children who he seemed very taken with. As we walked away he put an arm round me and said ‘well done, you are doing something amazing…’ 🙂 Meeting heroes should always go just like that!

We walked back up the lane and then drove along the gorgeous Welsh coastline and across to Manchester to Lynda and Stuart’s, arriving just before 7pm to hugs and kisses, a glass of wine put into my hand, a glass of Guinness put into Ady’s and the smell of sausages and chicken wafting from the kitchen to greet us 🙂

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We ate, we chatted, the children played, we caught up on each others news and finally we all went to bed. In real beds with duvets and soft pillows and everything 🙂

Sunday we breakfasted on croissants outside in the garden – the perfect way to start any morning really :). Ady, the kids and I had a wander down the road to post my Mum’s birthday card while Lynda and Stuart got lunch going and they suggested a walk to a nearby lake if we wanted to walk our breakfast off so we did. Through a park – it would have been rude not to check out the play equipment 😉
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and then to the lake which was just lovely, people fishing and walking around it, filled with ducks and ducklings, geese and goslings, coots and chicks, moorhens, a solitary swan and a heron nesting on an island in the middle of the lake. We walked all around it, laughed heartily at Scarlett who spotted a pair of drakes and said to me ‘I think they might be gay. Duck gay’ and then spotted a pair of ducks coming towards the drakes and said ‘oh no, here come their real partners’ 😆 Love the idea of ‘duck gay’ 😆
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We walked back and enjoyed sitting around in the garden. Lunch was delicious – roast beef and all the trimmings followed by apple pie or trifle. We always get so well looked after here :). My Mum’s competition sensor must have gone off as she rang me to ask where we were and was most huffy when I raved about how well we were being treated 😉

Ady and I played badminton, Scarlett and I played skittles, both kids and I did some drawing, the kids played on the swing, helped Stuart water the veg patch and made pirate ships out of the toy blocks and lego. We helped tidy up and just enjoyed a lazy afternoon all together in the sunshine. It was lovely 🙂

We eventually moved inside and had sandwiches for tea with leftover meat, then we all had baths (oh the bliss!)
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and now I’m sitting in bed with the laptop having fully caught up everywhere about to enjoy another nights sleep in a bed before meeting up with a friend tomorrow in Manchester for the day.