Greetings and good wishes to all our readers for 2013! After an extremely volatile and challenging year, we all enjoyed a peacefully deep and loving Solstice followed by a really quiet Christmas. But by the 27th December we were heading down on to the land with coloured candles and ribbons and bags of fresh evergreens with which to decorate the Hafod for New Year.
While I was wobbling about on stools, poking holly behind every plaque and mirror, weaving ivy around the beams and setting red and green candles in their brass and copper sticks, Dafydd was out beginning to plant the 450 trees (see Dafydd’s own post) which had recently been delivered and Holger was maintaining his various weather stations.
This was to be the first of several days we have spent down there in the past week, including New Year’s Eve. We would work around outside until the light began to fade and then gather around the little wood-burning stove, comforted by large thermal mugs full of hot tea and coffee, singing carols and playing our favourite children’s games. As twilight deepened, an increasing number of candles were lit, flares went up outside the Hafod door and more logs were piled on the stove. (At one stage we got so hot – nearly 23 degrees – that we were sitting in short sleeves with the door wide open!)
Every time we went down for the day/evening we took a sumptuous cold buffet supper to consume early in the evening; salads and dips, cheeses and cold meats (apologies to the vegetarians among you), cakes, stollens, biscuits and cheesecakes… cider and homemade wine was passed around freely… and there were only three of us there! Altogether we had some wonderful times! And on New Years Eve itself, we could see in the far distance the fireworks being let off – multicoloured flowers against the night sky. But nothing could rival the full moon sailing across blue velvet.
With all the rain that has fallen this last few months, our land is indescribably sodden and everywhere we walk we squelch into several inches of waterlogged grass or squelchy clay mud. So the evening I wandered out to find the outdoor loo and foolishly decided not to don my wellingtons to walk there… only to find myself well over my shoe tops in very cold water and very sticky mud… was not a very sensible idea! (Well I should have known better, shouldn’t I ???!!!)
Overall, our time at Cae Non this last few days has been absolutely magical. I hope that it is a foretaste of all the magical and wonderful times to come in this new year and wish you all a wonderful time of coming together, success, satisfaction and joy.
