In Absolutely the Right Place 10-1-9

Fronhaul, Rhosycaerau, Cymru

I am having this strong feeling of being in absolutely the right place out of all the millions of options in the world I was given. It also seems absolutely right that I am here without anyone in attendance. It is the first time I have come here without someone in my company. It also seems so right to be disconnected from the cyber world for this season. The last thing I need to be doing here is pumping up e-mail all the time or running threads in Facebook. I would like to be posting to my blogs but this can simply be time shifted a few weeks. It is about a six-mile walk over mountainous terrain to get Internet access so my enthusiasm for daily posting is inconsistent.

There continues this amazing stillness, so rare for this part of the world. There has been no rain in my world since I left South Carolina. We are able to walk in deep grass in the fields without our shoes getting the least bit damp. Paper is not even getting limp.

During the morning Leon and I went out for a roll in his old 4-wheel Land Rover. Along the way we had a close encounter of the fourth kind and came to a very rapid stop when challenging a boulder for time and space. We eventually ended up in the funkiest house I have ever seen - a throw back to a munchkin house in the Land of Oz. I was able to get what will certainly be the most interesting pictures of this journey. An eccentric artist living in the place drives an amazing car that runs on old chippie oil he collects in town. This fellow has retreated into a strange inarticulate crusade against carbon consumption and environmental degradation. The complete chaos of his property did not suggest that his alternative thinking would lead to a serene and sustainable aesthetic life experience. Yet, he was rather hospitable and pleasant to talk with.

The climate continues surreal. I am in the eighteenth day of this journey and have not had a drop of rain impinge on my experience. There has been enough sunlight to allow for grand photos. I am told the weather here had been daunting for months, with dense rain and strong wind nearly daily for ninety days. It suddenly changed a week or so before I came over.

The late afternoon was given to driving to a fine castle about twenty miles south of here. This ruin must have been magnificent in its day. Enough mullioned window casings remain to give suggestion to the grand banqueting halls that existed at one time. Sited next to a small river with tidal pools, we dinked with cameras, getting a lot of interesting images. I wonder why such a grand structure was simply allowed to decay into the sand. In its day this castle was grander than most palaces.

It is like old times for me. I find I am never getting to bed before the next day, staying up running my mouth with good conversationalists. Some nights it has been past 2 AM.