It is now almost a fortnight since I got back from a truly wonderful few days in Wales with the participants from the Stories of Hope and Home project. Nearly everyone I have spoken to about it has said I should be "writing all this down" so I guess this is my attempt to do so, at least in part.
Perhaps I should have written something immediately when the impressions of the trip and all that it meant, to them and to me, were still fresh and raw. But at the point I was certainly too tired to string together a coherent sentence! I came home utterly exhausted ... and with zero regrets about a truly wonderful shared experience.
I was fairly tired even before we set off... after a few semi-sleepless nights worrying about ensuring everything was in place for it all to go as smoothly as possible and for everyone to have a wonderful time: expectations, mine and theirs, of this being a very special experience, were high, so I was desperately keen to ensure it lived up to the dream! But with the activities planned, the resources collated, the menus decided, the participant list finalised, what could possibly go wrong?
By departure day, it was fairly obvious that Storm Dennis was going to be wreaking havoc across the whole of South Wales. Red weather warnings are hardly an auspicious start to a few days away to enjoy the countryside! We were travelling as far as Cardiff by megabus (because it was cheap, but given the number of cancelled trains that weekend, it turned out to have been an excellent choice). By the time we were en route (with everyone having made it comfortably on time, thereby alleviating the first of my significant worries) it was clear the train we were due to get up to the village where we were staying was not running; but the local bus service wasn't showing any disruptions, so it looked like we weren't going to have to change our plans too much, and we enjoyed a couple of hours in the National Museum before locating a bus stop.
I think it's fair to say it was pretty obvious we weren't locals: the ethnic mix of the Stories of Hope and Home group is somewhat different to the general make up of the population in the Welsh valleys. It wasn't surprising we attracted a degree of interest. We were asked by interested locals where we were from and where we were going... When I said (with some trepidation about my pronunciation of Welsh place names), that we were en route to Troedyrhiw, the reply "but you can't be, the village was evacuated this morning" was not, if I'm entirely honest, what I wanted to hear. Not that anyone else understood what was going on ... this was one of several occasions when I had to identify that no, that wasn't welsh,just English with a strong welsh accent. So I spent the rest of the journey carrying out hasty google searches to try and work out whether the place where we were staying was outside the evacuation zone. 19 people including a toddler in self-contained accommodation with a clear plan of activities was quite stressful enough ... ending up in an evacuation centre with a lot of undoubtedly distressed locals was probably not my ideal scenario at this stage.
As we walked passed lots of houses with their sodden furniture and carpets out in their front yards; rarely have I been so grateful for the fact that we were walking uphill! Anyway, we arrived and if the downstairs kitchen floor showed some evidence that flood water had made its way in, it was not going to deter us from settling in and having a good time. And after that beginning, the only way was up, surely!? It was just as well Helena was joining us the next day and that, as well as bringing the food for the rest of our trip, could throw in a few extra essentials ... such as a mop and bucket!
By dinner time on the first evening it was fairly obvious that the timetable was going to have to be fairly flexible, ... and that was even before such complications as a stay in a local hospital for one of the participants were added to the mix the following day. Frequent adjustments to the timetable were probably inevitable, adapting to various complications and to the weather forecast; but having a timetable and a plan meant that we did fit a lot in to the time we had together. Helped, undoubtedly too, that everyone had come with a desire to get the most they could out of the trip.
While we may have come to the table late, come to the table we did: all of us. It was something of a squeeze to fit everyone into the dining room, but we managed it: this was to prove to be a significant and beautiful feature of the trip: to sit and eat together as family; with good food, conversation and laughter.
I'm not sure I slept at all the first night, a situation that improved slightly, but not hugely on the following nights. It meant I was already awake when I heard someone in the kitchen making falafel for breakfast ... at 4am! You'd think, after the early start (I gave up all pretense at sleeping and was in the kitchen myself, watching rather than being useful, by 5), that breakfast would be ready on time, but in a pattern that was to be repeated throughout, that didn't exactly come to pass.
The locals we met on the bus had suggested that Troedyrhiw was not a particularly attractive place, but I guess it depends on your points of comparison .. because no, this was not the Brecon Beacons, but nor was it inner city Birmingham, and to be able to step outside and be on a grass covered hillside within a few minutes walk from the front door was a much-appreciated novelty, even for those who were not particularly motivated by outdoor activity and opted for the shorter version of the walk each day. For those who were more adventurous, and continued for a longer walk, being caught on the hillside in a hailstorm was all part of the experience. For me, it feels like a feature of British holidays that if, when walking in the countryside you find yourself in a mix of sleet, rain and hail, you do up your coat a little tighter and carry on regardless, so I consider them now to be fully inculturated! The weather was kinder to us the following day (for February, anyway), and after a visit to Aberfan with the whole group, about half went on for what turned out to be about a five hour walk. Those who know me will be aware that the fact I was the one entrusted with an OS map was always going to be a bit of a risk, but we only had to climb over one (or was it two?) fences when we got slightly off track, and a good time was had by all! The rest of the group who had wandered back to the house to chill out also seemed to have had a nice time too, so everyone was satisfied.
In between and around all that, we did various activities back at the house: this was, after all, at least in theory, a residential trip not just a holiday! And so it proved to be. I continue to appreciate the enthusiasm with which this group of people throw themselves into the things I invite them to do: which this time included art, charades and drama as well as discussion. There was lots and lots of laughter, a healthy dose of competitiveness at times, but also some deep thoughtfulness and careful reflections shared. Some of the foundations for our summer play have certainly been laid and our community is a little, or maybe a lot, closer than it already was.
And so we arrived at the final evening, and if I hit a wall of utter exhaustion and slightly overwrought emotion by early evening, I think that's allowed! And I came out the other side to a lovely evening of good company, and expressions of gratitude and friendship.
By some minor miracle, we managed to leave the house not just on time, but early, for our return journey; which meant we had longer in Cardiff than I had dared to hope... although after a fascinating visit to the Senedd we did end up cutting it rather more fine than was good for anyone's blood pressure to make it back to the megabus stop. But we made it, and the rest is history. By early evening, as planned, we were back in Birmingham, and I suspect the suggestion of stopping for a cup of tea was as much because of an unspoken desire for the experience not to come to an end as for any other reason. I know, because despite my exhaustion, there was something of that in me, too. That said, when every did, finally, wend their way homeward, I appreciated an early night and a very good night's sleep!
So that was that, in the broadest of broad brushstrokes, our few days in Wales. Lots of joy, a few tears, and, as I mentioned more than once during the trip, "only manageable amounts of stress!" This blog post is already (more than) long enough but in fact, it is probably not the broad brushstrokes and sketched outlines that best tell the story of this trip. It is the endless little anecdotes of individual moments, the mundane as much as the noteworthy, which really tell the story. Or perhaps it is a story which can't really be told, and had to be lived. That too, probably.
There is also this post https://www.storiesofhome.org.uk/2020/02/wales.html which says something about what the trip meant to those who I accompanied.
