Return to Wales

According to the date my digital camera attaches to my photos, it was the tenth of November, 2007 when I drove my rental car down the one-lane road between the hedges into the Llantony Valley in southeast Wales. That day I said to myself, “This is it. This is where Colin Hay is from.”

I was spending three weeks in Wales researching a sequel to my novel Glastonbury Tor. At the end of that book Colin goes home to Wales to reconcile with his drunken and abusive father. If I was going to write about what happened when he got there, I needed to know more about Wales. (See my blog entries for November 4, 9, and 18, 2007 for more about those weeks in Wales.)

A few weeks ago in September 2008 my husband, Steve, had meetings in England in the middle of a long trip to various places on that side of the Atlantic. To break up his trip, he suggested that I fly over and join him for a few days. “You can show me some of the things you researched last year.” How could I refuse?

There aren’t a lot of choices for accommodation in the Llantony Valley (or the Vale of Ewyas, as it is called on some maps). It was either the Abbey Hotel or the pub down the road. We chose the Abbey Hotel in the ruined 12th century priory. The prior’s quarters are still standing although roof lines indicate that they are partially rebuilt. The hotel has four rooms, one on top of another in the tower. We stayed in the bottom room, up a steep winding stair from the prior’s small, vaulted hall. Residents of the other rooms had to come down a similar stair to use the only bathroom—located on our floor. Dinner was traditional recipes served in front of the fire in the hall. (Sorry, no swan’s tongues.)

During the day we hiked the hills around Offa’s Dyke, explored tiny, ancient churches and drove up over the bluff to Hay, the town of books, with its streets lined with used book shops and other goodies—and an internet connection in the public library.

With a geological survey map and the guidance of locals, we found an ancient Celtic hill fort near the entrance to the valley and a mystical circle of stone slabs in a field below it. In the center of the hill fort were two raised places looking remarkably like burial mounds. I had an idea for something similar in the story, but dismissed it because forts were civic centers, not burial places, to the ancient Celts. Seeing these, it occurred to me that although the original residents would not have buried there, later inhabitants of the valley might have seen the ring of earth as a sacred place suitable for burying chieftains. So it may work in the story after all.

I have a wonderful husband, who traipsed through spring-soggy fields with me, sheep dung and all. He drove the car home from the next valley, freeing me to climb through the heather and gorse over the top, imagining what Colin would see, hear, feel and smell as he approached his home after a year away. I didn’t get much time to write on this trip, but I certainly enjoyed the ambiance.

(The priory was very photogenic. You can see more photos in my Picassa album.)