Having just been on a trip to my homeland which didn’t go quite as planned…
1. I am adventurous but I have my limits, and I reached them. I hired a vintage 1973 campervan and had no idea they were so difficult to drive until I got stuck, seven miles in, on my first hill. I climbed what seemed to be a relatively low mountain but the weather came in and I couldn’t see my way down a scree slope off the summit. I turned around and found another, safer, way down the mountain.
2. I love tiny living. I already live in a very small flat and I love the challenge of finding a place for everything and finding uses for every hook, nook and cranny in a small space. The one rainy day I had, I did my laundry and was completely cosy inside my van all day. I loved it.
3. I love rain. I do. I’m Welsh and it’s what makes Wales beautiful (and Ireland, Scotland and the Lake District). The more it rained, the more the land shone in the ensuing sunshine and the more the lakes, rivers, streams and waterfalls sparkled.
4. I learned not to believe everything people say. Often, when you go on an adventure, people warn you that you won’t be able to do things or get essential items, usually based on experience from ten or twenty years ago. I will trust my gut next time because it was right. Ironically, the one thing these people didn’t fancy telling me was how difficult the van was to drive. They ‘didn’t want to say’. Sigh.
5. I have an actual family. I have constructed a highly independent life because I am an orphan with no familial safety net. When I found myself in trouble, my cousin and his family were there for me and I felt a sense of love and belonging in Wales I haven’t felt in decades. Watching the build-up to the Queen’s funeral with my lovely aunty (my mum’s sister) was a precious time – in the ‘80s, I used to go to her house to watch ballet videos (we didn’t have a video player).
6. I love my homeland. Hiraeth – the longing for the place your spirit lives – is present in me. When I am in the rolling fields, surrounded by the mountains, with the sparkling sea in the distance, I feel truly at home. I realised that I have found versions of this landscape around the world but they’re nothing like the real thing. Wales, I’m sorry I ever doubted you.
7. I am a people person. Yes, I’m an introvert, but I thrive on transitory contact with people. On one hike I didn’t see a soul for five hours and it was horrible. I need people. I love Welsh people, like the man at the information centre who saw me passing and ran out with his hand-drawn directions to a mountain I’d enquired about.
8. I flow like water. Like a Welsh river, I can change my course when there is an obstacle in my way. I switched from a coastal driving holiday to a mountain camping one in a day. This sort of curveball happens to me a lot on holidays – like my injuries in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Georgia – each time my adventure turned into something even more amazing because I had to work around the original aim. This time, I knew exactly what to do, and the mountains were calling me to them. It turns out that my spirit lives in them.
9. I love Arthurian legend and my homeland is filled with it. I grew up reading the stories but wasn’t aware of their inherent Welshness until now. I wasn’t aware that the lake below Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) is Glaslyn, into which the sword Excalibur is said to have been thrown.
10. I can climb mountains. Yes, I get scared when the weather comes in, and no, I won’t climb an edge with a steep drop on each side for the ‘thrill’ but boy, I can climb a mountain. Being on my own gives me the freedom to go at my own pace, start and finish whenever I like, or change my course if I want to.
There is no freedom like it.
Because You Can 