Gwaith 20: Leaving Stiwdio Maelor

Last week I finished my third residency at Stiwdio Maelor. My first was eight weeks in 2015 and my second was the five weeks I spent there in September and October last year before I went travelling for five weeks. The third residency was for 11 weeks, broken only by the six days spent in Germany catching up with Jo. So, I’ve spent almost 24 weeks at Stiwdio Maelor, to the point that, as a friend said at the Corris Institute café one Tuesday morning, Corris is my second home.

Clouds over Corris

I do feel I have set down some roots, however small, in the village and I was saddened to pack my bags, say goodbye to all the friends I made, many of whom came to The Slaters the night before for farewell drinks, and jump in a car to be taken to Machynlleth Station for my train to Birmingham International and the start of my trip home.

Now that I staying in the USA with one of my sons for two weeks, visiting another son, and enjoying the snow, which hasn’t fallen so heavily hereabouts for several years, I want to check my achievements during my residencies against the targets I set myself before I left.

Writing

The main target, naturally enough, related to my novel. I had hoped to complete the third draft before I left. This wasn’t the case. I only completed around 75% of the draft, around 150k words. However, as can be seen from below, I wasn’t exactly relaxing. I managed to write a number of other things.

New scene cards for the novel

 Novel:                      75% (150k)—approximately 7k words/wk, 18 hrs/wk

                                  (counting my five weeks of travelling)

Interdraft Work:        39,771 words

Short Story:               One (unexpected)

Poem drafts:              11

Haiku drafts:             36

Blogs:                       18

I also ran a poetry workshop at Canterbury Christ Church University, gave a reading at Stiwdio Maelor during the Christmas Open Day in November, and gave a talk to creative-practise PhD students at Aberystwyth University. Even though I didn’t reach my target, I’m happy with what I achieved.

Night photo of Aberystwyth, taken from Veronica's PhD studio at Aberystwyth University

Language Immersion

I have been learning Welsh on and off for a number of years on a Tuesday night at The Celtic Club in Melbourne. My level of skill wasn’t too great when I left for Wales, mainly because teaching and writing commitments had meant I hadn’t spent as much time as I would have liked on Welsh practice. During my first residency, I attended some classes and groups and I intended to do the same this time around. I knew I didn’t have a hope of achieving fluency, as I knew others had done by virtually devoting all their time when in Wales to finding opportunities to practice their Welsh, but I did hope to improve in some small way.

Mist and snow at Llyn Tegid (Lake Bala), during my two-day Welsh course nearby

Every Monday I attended a class in Dolgellau and every Tuesday morning I joined in Welsh discussion at the Corris Institute café. I also attended several one- and two-day courses, as well as three Noson Siarads, dinners where only Welsh was supposed to be spoken. Although I can’t claim fluency yet, I did find myself holding conversations longer than one or two exchanges and at times felt myself responding automatically in Welsh. I also was complimented on both my accent and my vocab, so I must be doing something right.

Sky and a dash of sun-stain on the trees

Landscape Immersion

As with my hope that learning the language will somehow help me with the writing of the book (and connect me with my ancestral roots), I also hoped that experiencing the landscape of Britain would help me create authentic settings for the novel. I visited a number of sites I am using, both in Wales and Scotland, and was in the country long enough to experience late autumn and winter. While in Corris itself, I went for numerous walks and right up to the last week I was discovering new tracks, one of which took me on a three and a half hour ramble. I have learnt about trees, seen red deer, red squirrels and badgers, seen and heard red kites and numerous other birds, climbed mountains, sat next to rivers, walked through snow, wandered around megalithic circles and sat in tombs. I have probably absorbed more than I realise and can only hope the experiences came out in my words at some point.

Mist over the war memorial of Corris, from the sun melting snow 

Photo of Llyn Mwngll or Llyn Myngul, more commonly known as Tal-y-llyn

Finally, there are the people I have met, from the people in the village of Corris to the residents at Maelor I have spent time with. I want to thank them all for being welcoming, friendly, inspirational, supportive, and encouraging. My thanks to the previous manager at The Slaters, Brian, and the current manager, Mike. To Andy and Adam at their café for the great food and coffee and their wifi. To Eleanor, Chris and the other volunteers at the Corris Institute café. To Jan at the post office for her help with my packages to be sent home. To Ellie, Diane, Inge, Beryl and others in the Welsh conversation group. To Bethan Gwanas, my Welsh teacher in the class at Dolgellau, and Mike H, Mike K, Dee, Sue, Laura, David and other fellow students. To Martin for discussions about Cadair Idris legends and Welsh language and poetry. To Hickey, Jane and Kevin, and the other regulars at The Slaters. To Eileen and Arthur, for their lifts into Aberystwyth and conversations about poetry and geology. To Simon and Andrew for conversations about landscape writing. To Lez, for his blacksmith course and his help with my many questions about the craft. To all those residents I met during my residencies—including Freya, Yuki, Chloe, Linda, Beth, Bronwen, Christina, Gwen and Chris, John, and Brett—for the discussions, the pints at the pub, the shared meals, the trips to various sites, and the inspiration and encouragement.

One night at The Slaters, with Gwen, Chris, Yuki and Bronwen

Most of all I want to thank Veronica Calarco, the founder and coordinator of Stiwdio Maelor, for her vision, her persistence (even in trying situations), and her hard work, in creating such a wonderful place for artists and writers to take time out from their normal lives and explore their ‘craft or sullen art’, as Dylan Thomas put it. Most of all, I want to thank her and her partner Mary for their friendship.

In my last days in Corris, many people asked if I’d be back, then said before I could answer, ‘I’m sure you will’. True. I will be back, for I have made many friendships and I find the village and the landscape around it inspirational. I also want Jo to meet everyone and see the sights I love.

Thanks again, Stiwdio Maelor and Corris.

Corris from near the summit of Mynydd Fron Felen (Mountain of the brown/yellow hillside)

I hope you enjoyed this post. As always, I welcome your comments.

Flying over the pole to Seattle

Cofion Cynnes

Earl

Gwaith 7: Leaving Corris (8 Oct 2016)

Helo Pawb (Everyone)

Today I finished the first part of my residency. Last night, the Stiwdio Maelor crew, Veronica and her partner Mary and the three visiting artists, Catherine, Zoe and I, went to the Tafarn Dwynant (Dwynant = Welsh for 'two streams') for a farewell dinner. We forgot to take photos, but below is one of me from earlier in the week, taken at The Royal Ship (known locally as The Ship) in Dolgellau. Not all those glasses in front of me were mine.

Drinking at The Royal Ship

Given that it’s been three weeks since the last update about my progress, I thought this is an ideal moment

to sum up my experiences of my time in Corris.

Writing

Below are my writing achievements since leaving Australia:

Draft 3 of the novel: 30,556 words

Interdraft work (structural editing and conceptual re-jigging): 26,604 words

Blog posts and other writing: 4,217 words

Blog posts (including this one): 5

Haiku drafts: 20

Poem drafts: 3

Short story drafts: 1

Given my daily writing time is 3.9 hours and my average word count is 1589, I’m reasonably happy with my efforts, though I am hoping to do much more than this when I return for another 11 weeks at Stiwdio Maelor.

Language

Since arriving in Corris I have attended five Tuesday Welsh Discussion Group meetings at the Corris Institute and three formal classes with Bethan Gwanas at Coleg Meirio-Dwyfor in Dolgellau. I’ve had the occasional conversation in Welsh with shopkeepers, though usually I have had to resort to English after a couple of exchanges. There have been moments when my mind and tongue has responded with Welsh without my thinking about it, which is obviously a result of the immersion I am experiencing over here. Some people have actually noted how good my accent was, which has been pleasing to hear. I’m looking forward to continuing my Welsh practice when I return in November.

Landscape

After my lack of fitness was exposed in the first week when Freya, Yuki and I climbed Cadair Idris, I have been out walking two to three times a week. My muscles and lungs are slowly increasing in capacity, though I won’t know how well I’ve progressed till I climb something equally difficult during my travels in the next few weeks. As for my appreciation of the landscape, I have taken lots of photos and made plenty of notes about the colours and sounds of water, the textures of moss and grass, the colours of the trees as they start turning to autumn splendour, from dull brown to wild yellow to rust red.

Below are some photos of tree, river, mist and cloud.

Some of the woods near Dolgellau

The Afon Dulas, near Aberllefenni

View of the Corris valley, from high on the ridge behind the village

Clouds above the Corris valley

For those of you curious about the village of Corris, I’ve included some photos.

View of part of the surroundings of the village

Andy and Adam's store

Stiwdio Maelor during Helfa Gelf, with Freya out the front doing some writing.
(This was before the new paint job.)

The Slaters Arms and Stiwdio Maelor in purple.
(I'll post a better photo of the new paint job when I return to Corris.)

I left Corris late morning and, after a leisurely drive, with one wrong turn, I arrived at Ty Dderw Country Inn, my home for the next three nights.

Ty Dderw, showing the hedge lining the one side of the long path from the road

After settling in, I went for a walk, but more about this in my next post.

That’s it for now. As always, I welcome any comments.

Cofion Cynnes (Warm Regards)

Earl

Gwaith 2: A Simple Walk, or So I Thought

Helo Pawb

On Tuesday night (6 Sep), one of my fellow residents asked if I wanted to join her and the other resident on a long walk around a lake the following day. I immediately thought of Tal-y-llyn, a beautiful lake a few miles down the road.

Tal-y-llyn, taken during our descent. The surface looked like glittering tar.

She said the walk would take five and a half hours. This puzzled me, as the lake is small, but I thought the walk itself must take in some of the countryside as well and probably a waystop at a pub I knew was near the shoreline. Anyway, I agreed and set about organising my clothes and my pack.

The next morning I discovered the walk was in fact the Minffordd Track, a hike to the top of Cader Idris. It did involve going around a lake, Llyn Cau, which is at the centre of Cader Idris, but the walk is so much more.

Some of you might remember I attempted this track last year, though I made a little detour and ended up climbing from the lake up the inside of Cader Idris. By doing this, I actually missed the section of the walk that took in Craig Cau, which I would rectify with this walk.

Craig Cau

You might also remember that last year I attempted Cadair Idris in the final week of my eight-week residency at Stiwdio Maelor. During those weeks I did a number of local walks on a regular basis and so was reasonably fit. This week’s hike, however, took place after only one local walk and my fitness level barely coped. Luckily, my hiking companions, Freya and Yuki, made frequent ‘rock stops’, which helped me recover for the next stage and gave all of us time to appreciate the stunning landscape all around us.

The walk itself goes through a number of stages (*). Once you leave the Pay-as-You-Go car park (£5), you stroll through a lightly wooded area that includes some American redwoods, planted during the time of the Idris family estate.

Nant Cadair

On the early part of the walk

You then climb a steep ravine cut by a rushing stream, through a canopy of oak trees that provides cover for mosses, lichens and ferns.

Looking back down Nant Cadair

My hiking companions, Freya and Yuki

In the open mountain area beyond, you reach a fork in the path. You can go left, which takes you up the Minffordd Path, or go right, towards Llyn Cau, one of the deepest natural lakes in Wales. Last year I went right, then around the llyn and up the inside of the mountain. This time, we also went right, for a brief stay at the llyn before heading back to the Minffordd Path.

Llyn Cau, with Craig Cau on the left and the ascent to Penygadair on the right

The crystal clear water of Llyn Cau

Going past enormous rocks left behind the retreating glacier during the last Ice Age, you tackle another steep climb, which heads towards Craig Cau (rockwall). Every now and then you catch glimpses of Llyn Cau down sheer gullies.

A view of Llyn Cau down a gully

After resting at the top of Craig Cau, you descend down to a short flat section before the last climb along a slippery path through a rocky boulder field to Penygadair, the highest summit of Cadair Idris, which is marked by a pillar on top of a rocky knoll.

This is where I climbed out of the crater last year

During much of our climb, the summit was cloaked by cloud, but this cleared for our final ascent and our arrival.

View back towards Craig Cau

Although Cadair Idris is the 19th highest peak in Wales (893 m, 2,930 ft), it is the second most popular after Mount Snowdon. This is understandable given the magnificent views available on a clear day: west to the Barmouth estuary, east to the Cambrian Mountains, south to the Brecon Beacons, and north to the Rhinogs and the main Snowdonia massifs.

View to Barmouth

View west, with haze

View north

Video from Penygadair

After we rested at the knoll, enjoyed the far and wide vistas, and checked out the stone hut that proves useful in bad weather, we started our descent across a wide grassy ridge and then hugging the side of Mynydd Moel, which involved crossing a number of trickling streams and boggy areas.

Every now and then we stopped to take photos of the great views back to Craig Cau and Penygadair and marvel at how far we had come, how high we had climbed. The whole track is 4.4 kilometres (2.7 mi) long and involves two climbs of over 300 metres (980 ft), but the trip seemed so much longer and harder than this suggests (though this was probably more a reflection of my fitness ability than anything else).

Eventually, we came to a stile and began a steep descent on a loose, pebble-strewn path that after a while became welcoming slate steps.

View back, showing Llyn Cau, Craig Cau and the knoll of Penygadair. And we actually climbed that high!

Same view from even farther away!

After another stile, the path flattened out and we made our way to the stone bridge across the Nant Cadair, where we filled our water bottles with the brisk mountain water and cooled our heads.

Because of our regular ‘stone stops’, the hike was taking longer than expected. However, I joked during the descent that the reason I was lagging behind was to make sure we arrived back at Corris after The Slaters Arms opened, which Yuki and Freya thought sounded about right.

Soon we were retracing our footsteps down the ravine and through the woodland to the car park, where we unhitched our packs, took a few minutes to cool down our muscles, then jumped in the car for the drive back.

I ended the day with sore hips, knees, calves and feet, some sunburn and also sore shoulders, because of the weight of my over-prepared pack. All this was forgotten, however, in the coolness of that first beer and the achievement of having climbed and enjoyed the mountain for a second time, in a different season, with convivial companions.

Cadair Idris, Again

Always the mountain teaches you—

In bee-touch and staccato caw of circling crows

In star-moss, toppled trunks and swelling rowan berries

In quartz-laced rocks, in quickening shadow, in loose footing

In gouges, in jagged crags, in matted bulges, grey, green, brown

In mist, sweat, sunburn, sheep-dung and dying heather

In slow wind-shimmer across the lake far below

And always in gaping silence, as it waits

That’s it for now. As always, I welcome any comments.

Cofion Cynnes

Earl

(*) Some of the material I used comes from the Cadair Idris information booklet (www.naturalresources.wales) and the following websites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadair_Idris

http://www.eryri-npa.gov.uk/visiting/walking/mountain-walks/minffordd-path

http://www.snowdoniaguide.com/cader_idris.html

http://www.trekkingbritain.com/cadairidristheminfforddpath.htm

http://www.visitsnowdonia.info/cadair_idris-204.aspx

Cyfaredd 2: First Days in Corris

Helo Bawb (Hello Everyone)

Two weeks ago I arrived at my residency in Corris. The weather here, being further north, is colder than it was in Bridge. On the second and third nights I froze so much I had to wear my thermals under my t-shirt and tracksuit, along with thick woollen bed socks. A day later, Veronica, who runs Stiwdio Maelor, told me about new snow on the mountains between here and Dolgellau, apparently a beautiful sight—no wonder I was so cold. The weather hasn’t been so bad since. We even had a few days of spring sunshine, so much so that people were sun-baking in bikinis, apparently, on the beach in Aberystwyth. From what I know of UK weather, I suppose the people here grab what sun they can get, even if the temperature is barely above ten degrees Celsius.

Anyway, just a little about the arrangement here. I have a bedroom and a writer’s studio, which has a desk, a comfortable office chair, a reading chair and footstool, and a small table on which I’ve stacked research books I’ve brought with me or have been borrowed from the local university for me. Also, three of Veronica's artworks for inspiration, if the landscape fails me. For your interest, here are some photos:

The view from my bed when I wake up.

The view from my desk. Forestry pine trees on the mountain.

My studio space

As for my routine, my days are filled mainly with ‘bum-on-seat’ as I try to nut out this next draft. I spent part of the first week on structural editing issues, prompted by my discovery of this editing framework a month or more ago: www.storygrid.com. However, I knew I had to get into the guts of the story eventually, so on the Friday of that week I started the actual re-writing/re-drafting. The going has been slow, because those issues I mentioned required me to go back to early chapters I had re-written back in Melbourne. I have also had to create some new chapters to fill in story holes I didn’t know I had till I started looking at structure. Only in the last day or so do I feel the work is picking up pace.

When I’m not in my studio, I go for walks, attend the Tuesday morning Beginning Welsh group I discovered in my first week, go shopping in the bigger towns nearby, or go to the pub next door, The Slaters Arms, to use the Wifi and chat with locals.

Some more photos, from some of my walks:

My first walk, up an old forestry track.
Bare trees, but tons of moss and fern further up the track.

Lower Corris, nestled in hills

View of Cader Idris. If you spend the night on the summit,
you come down either mad or a poet. Too late for some of us!

The only real annoyance here is that planes, helicopters and transports (from the RAF base on Ynys Mon, or Anglesey in English) roar low over the valley almost every day. The first time I heard one of these planes, I was shocked by the noise; by the end of the day, however, I became used to it. As someone fascinated from an early age by planes I have enjoyed watching the fighters bank and turn, plumes of engine exhaust trailing behind them, but generally I ignore the noise and get on with whatever I am doing.

Although I am concentrating on fiction during this residency, if poems come then I work on them. At the moment, though, I’ve only been gifted several haiku. Here’s one, prompted by a view out my studio window, after the sun came out for a while one morning, but the rest of the day was misty with a light rain:

mist drips

from beaks of jackdaws—

ticking water heaters

That’s about it till next time. As always, comments are welcome.

Hwyl (Bye)

Earl