I was going to write about Wales. And then I was going to write about child looters rampaging the evening streets of English cities. I probably won’t finish either of these essays though they exist in partial drafts. So here instead are a few photos of a recent camping trip. You can click on them to see larger versions.
But when it comes to capturing a moment, a thought, a feeling, I prefer words.
I took more photos of Portmeirion but they all show the same kind of artificiality. I think its designer, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, would have been insulted by the comparison with Disneyland—through what adds up to snobbery I suppose, but snobbery with a solid basis, like the difference between a good and an average wine.
We’re not really the kind of tourists who go to see the sights, pretty as Portmeirion is. I’ve mentioned the place before in these “Wayfarer’s Notes”, (click here to view the post), in reference to a singe moment in a particular spot, a moment I’m grateful to have captured then, because I could not remember it when we passed the same spot the other day. I remembered the spot but not the thought, so I’m grateful to have recorded it at the time, in the following words, extracted from the post linked above. The spot is not in Portmeirion village at all but just before you enter it, and the moment was about twenty years ago, when I passed the spot with my two young children:
“What am I doing here? All I have ever wanted is this feeling. I recall the various moments in my life when I felt this way. Why are we coming here to look round this place? Why do I have children? How has all this happened, when all I wanted was a feeling? Why am I weighted with impedimenta, when all I ever wanted was to sniff the air and sip the moment like a wine?”
. . .
Do I have to strut on this stage? I haven’t learned my part. I don’t know who I am, but the clock ticks on and I have to act anyhow. Can’t I start again, and be fancy-free, as when I was a student, hanging out in Paris, Tarascon, Marseilles, Florence, Assisi? I was lonely then and aimless, but I didn’t compromise.”
I think I have learned my part a bit better since then.
We took a train to Portmeirion, a Mediterranean fantasy village started thirty years before Disneyland, and designed for grownups, though small children love it.Wales clings to its past. These petrol pumps, on the other side of the road shown above, have been superannuated, but the same company has a modern filling-station nearby.
a wayfarer’s notes 
That seems to be a major flaw in the way our shows are scheduled. By the time you learn your lines real well, you are no longer in syndication.
Even though I am partly of Welsh descent, I'm glad I never had to learn the language. They are seemingly way too fond of using “w” as a vowel.
LikeLike
“A Wayfarer's Notes” has been included in this weeks Sites To See. I hope this helps to attract many new visitors.
http://asthecrackerheadcrumbles.blogspot.com/2011/08/sites-to-see_12.html
LikeLike
Thanks, FishHawk, this site feels privileged to have been selected by you. I've glanced at your own extraordinary set of blogs, & the guiding principle on which they are based, and wish you well.
Rev, I had to look up “syndication” in the Oxford English Dictionary, but I remain none the wiser.
As for the Welsh language, yes, it's almost impossible for the casual visitor. We'd taken a round trip by train to visit Portmeirion, having left the car at a small station called Llwyngwril. On the return leg, we had to ask the conductor to stop the train there, but I couldn't spell, pronounce nor scarcely remember the station's name. The conductor laughed indulgently! The Welsh depend on tourism, but in some ways they're inward-looking and secretive. Preserving this language doesn't just help maintain their national identity, but also provides a kind of camouflage to hide behind.
LikeLike
It was a allusion to “I haven’t learned my part. I don’t know who I am, but the clock ticks on and I have to act anyhow.” Treating life as if it were a teevee series we had to act in each day. In the beginning it's a comedy when we don't know what we are doing. An adventure when we start to spread our wings. A drama when things start to get interesting. Then it seems to wind down into a mere documentary towards the tail end of it. Basically it was a cheap stab at a lame joke.
LikeLike
No, Rev, I love your description, not a cheap joke at all. but it was that word “syndication”. I know that comic strips are syndicated. Perhaps TV series also, since you have lots of tv stations perhaps?
LikeLike
Great pictures, Vincent. It does look like a pleasant place to visit.
Oh… I don´t think I´ll be able to learn all my parts. Maybe I´m not a good student. Or maybe the learning will come when I don´t need it anymore, like darev2005 said.
LikeLike
This comment has been removed by the author.
LikeLike
I was with a resistant family when I discovered the delights of Portmeirion. For all its artificiality,I love it.
Recently, I gave a relative a card, a print of a water colour of Portmeirion, as a birthday card. She squealed with delight before the card was fully revealed….I recognised it straight away….obviously another happy visitor.
One person's dream, one person's mirage, can give a lot of people great pleasure.
LikeLike
Yes, teevee shows here are syndicated just like comic strips. You don't get anywhere if you aren't owned by some corporation or another.
LikeLike
you looks so handsome, Ian!
but your last part scared me off! i think i will have someone in life soon with whom i will hopefully settle down. i have got my girl, or so i think. knowing you, you are like me. tell me Ian, is that that scary to have kids? not being able to sip the wine of life like a a visitor at a bar? man, your last line monologue is surely scary for me!
LikeLike
Ghetu, I made a lot of mistakes in my life. It was hard to accept that at the time. But the particular spot where that thought occurred twenty years ago was the closest I got to understanding some of the mistakes at the time.
Congratulations on what we here in the west might consider an announcement of your engagement! I cannot believe you would ever, especially at your age, make mistakes as bad as I have done. You didn't have to endure my childhood etc. I think the young lady is lucky and I'm sure you are too, and congratulate you with all my heart.
LikeLike
Right, ZACL, I'm glad your enthusiasm for Portmeirion was not dimmed by the resistant family who accompanied you!
LikeLike
I spent three days driving in Wales once – although I liked it a lot, I'd only intended to spend 2, but somehow we got twisted around and drove energetically in a large circle…. mysterious. I poured over the maps but never did figure out where we went wrong. Later, in Scotland I met a couple from Wales, told them I admired their country, and told them of my mishap. They nodded seriously, advised me that it was such a common problem that they'd done it themselves many times on the narrow, unmarked roads.
Your photos are wonderful, and make me wish I could return.
LikeLike
(I remember particularly the lushness of the undergrowth as it crowded the roads, trees leaning out over and forming a tunnel I passed through. Eventually I realized that the sides and roof of the tunnel was actually created by the trucks that passed through – their passing kept the branches to their size.
LikeLike
Somehow I get the feeling that Wales is all an inside joke by the Welsh on foreigners. And they are all sitting around the pubs laughing at our discomfiture.
LikeLike
not sure how i got here, but i've enjoyed the visit. i run a Habitat for Humanity ReStore (new and used building supplies) in northern Alberta, Canada. there's a tall, handsome Welshman who comes through regularly looking for bits 'n pieces for improvements on his cabin in the wilderness.
LikeLike
Hayden your experience of driving in circles in Wales is close to mine, on the recent trip. I had a road map, but kept reading it wrong. I always got to the right place, without any need to backtrack, but usually by an entirely different route from the one planned.
Yes, the roads are narrow and bendy, especially through some villages where it’s hard to walk through the main street let alone drive, as there may be a hairpin bend on a steep slope, with the corner of a cottage in the way. How is this possible, one asks, when mid-Wales is a vast space for sheep and mountains, with only a light scattering of human habitation? I think there may be an historical reason: that the peasants owned no land, and so were crowded in to small marginal spaces. You find the same in parts of Buckinghamshire: valleys where you can see no house at all, then a row of farm cottages jammed up against one another.
LikeLike
Rev, I believe your feeling is exactly correct, and they literally behave as you suggest. Have you been there or is this just intuition?
LikeLike
GrannyF, welcome! Is his name Tom Jones? Does he have a big voice?
I went to your site. Your piece on the robin is magnificent. I hereby subscribe & recommend.
LikeLike
I've never been there but alot of my ancestry is Welsh and I know how crafty and devious my whole family is… It only stands to reason.
LikeLike
@Rev: Vincent doesn't stand to reason. He likes to lie down, typically with a cold drink. 🙂
LikeLike
Bryan, I sit corrected. I too, generally lie down to reason, but I still stand up to pee.
LikeLike