It seems appropriate that 10 years after our travels around Europe in Bertha, we once again have a van! Her purpose will very much be as a coppicer’s van, so she’s a little Ford Transit Connect but large enough to carry hazel products and coppicing tools. We went for the crew van variety, with a row of fold-up seats in the back, so that we can escape as a family in her too. Her name? Penny Van (as in Pen y Fan). So is this a blog post about our first time away in her? Ummm, well, it was meant to be but sadly it wasn’t to be. You see within a couple of weeks of buying her, the DPF (diesel particulate filter) wasn’t working… and it turned out she hadn’t got one… and then the fuel vaporiser needed to be replaced… and then… and then. The joys of purchasing an older vehicle! So rather than departing in the van, we departed with Penny in the hands of our friendly mechanics.

Van or no van, Wales was once again calling us for our biannual retreat, but before retreating we first had the matter of an Aussie Pink Floyd concert to attend. Having picked up our eldest from the first of likely many sleepovers, we packed up the car and headed to Kiri’s parents’ where armed with knives and spoons (not coppicing tools!), the children crafted a pumpkin before we tucked into the best cheese and onion pasty available (courtesy of Church Street Bakery).

After a quick nap in the afternoon we headed out to Cardiff Arena where our nephew was about to experience his first gig. This led to conversations about what our first gig was… I clearly had the coolest claim to fame. Anyone heard of the Barron Knights? Thought not! Anyhow, 50 years after Dark Side of the Moon came out, this evening was all about Pink Floyd… but Aussie style. The prism of the album cover was replaced by the shape of Australia, there was an inflatable kangaroo… but other than that, I’m told it’s as close to the real sound as you can get. The laser show and inflatables were impressive and the angry songs of revolution were brought up to date with modern imagery projected over the stage. A good measure of the demographic of the audience was ladies gloating in the interval that they didn’t have to queue for the toilet whilst a gentleman beside me grumbled “all I need is a good tree”. Alas, for there are no trees at Cardiff Arena.

After a very late night (for us… even though the clocks had gone back!), our youngest chose to wake at 04:30, but bacon sandwiches accompanied by a Rugby World Cup final set us up nicely for the day. Before Kiri and I escaped, we all headed out to the coast, wandering along the cliff tops to Dimhole Bay where we saw the huge fossil in the cliffs. As the tide was right out we then wandered along the shoreline back to Llantwit Major where my brother in law so very nearly caught a huge fish in a tidal pool.

Following an icecream in the bay, then risotto and pumpkin pie back at Kiri’s parents, we bade our children farewell and headed off for a long old journey to our place of retreat. Noddfa was booked up, so we journeyed even closer afield and ended up in Tresilian Wood and a little place called Hide at St Donats. Nestled beneath the trees our resting place was a caban (Welsh mining hut) with a separate private kitchen in a little outbuilding and a pot wash and bathroom in a shepherds hut. The caban had a bed, wood burning stove, little table and chairs and a sea view. Wonderful. Our hosts had apologised that there was a bit of an infestation of ladybirds hibernating in the windows, but we don’t mind – we like ladybirds.

It was all a bit quiet after the excitement of the day and previous night and we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves, so we spent some time praying, ate some crisps and then tucked into some bread, cheese, olives and wine for our tea. The electric heater was a bit too noisy, so we lit the stove (encouraged with the help of Kiri’s blow stick) and had a short game of crib before retiring for a very early night.

It wasn’t quite like sleeping under canvas, but we still were able to appreciate the gentle patter of rain in the night and even though we were up before 7, we’d still managed 11 hours of sleep. We stumbled outside to the kitchen (the one down side of the caban) where we rustled up a breakfast of eggs and rolls accompanied by Hide coffee. As we enjoyed our leisurely breakfast, it was great to watch a woodpecker on the grass outside. We then turned to the luxurious rhythm that we adopted on our travels of unhurriedly reading the bible together, reading the book of Philemon. The themes of forgiveness and reconciliation seemed at odds with the very fresh news of the Gaza attack on Israel and subsequent fighting, and news of a “mob” in Dagestan hunting for Jews. We believe in the power of prayer, but it feels like prayers only go so far with situations of this complexity and scale. However, we have to hold onto hope… we have to seek hope.

After an al fresco washing up session, we hopped into the car towards Mountain Ash. When we’d met Katie and Chris (of Coalfield Flower Farm fame) back in the spring they’d mentioned a couple who were bringing new light and life to a hillside farm near Mountain Ash – Bryn Gobaith. We’d listened to their story on a podcast, but wanting to know more had got in touch with Joy and Tim, who very kindly had invited us to visit. As we were fed warming soup and bread we heard more about their vision for reclaiming and refreshing the 300 acres of land they own – around a third of which is usable pasture and woodland. The light across the valley was incredibly stunning as we discussed what it means to be church and what it means to retreat. They are very much not setting up a retreat centre, but want the land to be a place of retreat, community, refreshment and hope… hence the name Bryn Gobaith “Hill of Hope”.

We received a text message from our eldest (they grow so fast!) as Tim went back to work and Joy set about giving us a tour of some of the space. The small flock of sheep in one patch came when they recognised Joy’s voice, we saw a patch where a local housing development project had been creating bio char, an area where pigs had been used to clear some of the land, a space that could be used for camping, woodland crying out to be restored, stone walls that are slowly being rebuilt (it’s not every day you hear someone referring to “our” dry stone waller!) and acres of land with so much potential. Joy was very clear that it will take longer than one generation to fully be restored, but also realistic about the challenges they face with such a large area to try to manage.

Before we left we bought some sausages made from said pigs and headed back towards Hide, taking a phone call en route from Paula at Hide asking for permission to clear ladybirds from our caban! Our dinner was posh hot dogs (the only ever time we shop in Waitrose is on retreat!) after which we spent some time in prayer… it’s not every day that a prayer ends with “…a chainsaw in my hand. Amen”, but I guess that’s preferable to “… a chainsaw in my leg. Amen”! More crib led to not quite such an early night as the previous one, but we still had lights out by 9.

The sausages from the hill of hope (does that make them sausages of hope?) were a beautiful accompaniment to the egg and mushroom rolls for breakfast. Washing up done, I prematurely took our waterproofs to the car before getting stuck in a torrential downpour whilst sheltering under the open boot. And then it was time to be reunited with the kids – out of the 20mph speed limit of retreat and back to the 70mph speed limit of parenting.

We just had time to drop our things off at Llantwit and then we were back out to Jump Jam near Bridgend. It’s not particularly easy to take things easy at a trampoline park with so many exciting things to do – many trampolines, a climbing wall, soft play, large inflatable obstacle course and a long run up to a foam pit… but we did our best to ease ourselves back into things. How do the kids have so much energy!? I’m not sure we managed to wear them out, but we all had fun and followed it with an afternoon of K-Nex and pudding at tea time of freshly-made banana bread.

The following day we managed to grab a wild and windy 5 minutes at the beach before the rain of Storm Ciaran made itself felt and we bade farewall to Wales once more. It was sunny as we unpacked the car back home, finding a stray ladybird in the boot. It’s interesting that in many cultures, ladybirds are seen as a symbol of newness. Or positivity. Some might even say hope.