A week to myself

This week I’m away from Liverpool, at Laugharne in South Wales. A week on my own, away from my work and my laptop. To walk, read, maybe write and on the whole do not much of anything. A retreat. I’ve brought some music, some poetry, some t-shirts and not much else.

As the week goes by I’ll add some words and photos to this blog of my week.

Before I leave some time with my family at Africa Oyé in Sefton Park. Then I finish packing, and leave home early Monday morning.

 

Monday

Well, I’m now here in Laugharne and pronouncing it ‘Larne’ like the locals do. And typing this on my phone on the balcony where I already know I’m going to spend a lot of this week.

 

So  then. At home here in South Wales.

Evening now and walking the streets and winding steps of the place. Finding Dylan Thomas nearly everywhere, as I thought I would. His Under Milkwood writing shed, the boathouse where they lived, his words.

‘Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black bandaged night.’

Now the herons cry all at once, the sun goes down and I read on in its afterglow.

Tuesday

A sleep late slow walk midsummer pilgrimage day. The boathouse, the long lane to his grave, their pubs, their township and finding shade enough to finish his biography.

In the afternoon I walk the high hill from his ‘Poem in October.’

“And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother through the parables of sunlight and the legends of the green chapels”

Along the woody path from the end of Dylan’s walk is this plaque. Meaningful or nonsensical? Or maybe Llareggub?

Evening now and Tuesday ending in perfect reflective peace.

Starless and bible black.

Now I will be quiet.

Saturday

The rest of the week has been for me. A quiet time of thinking, walking and being happily alone.

I stayed at Tre Bentir, Laugharne, a perfect place.