Letter from Y Gerlan

Judith Kaufmann

The quarry’s spoil heaps across the valley are a bright green this year. After the last two dry springs, this year’s raining wet has certainly given nature a will to live and the trees in Penybraich and Coed Meurig are sated with breathing chlorophyll.

Even the gaps in the woods where they had the fire a few years ago are now closed again with green. The clouds are grey and hang low but there’s some light on the other side of Gwaun Gynfi and Moelyci in the west.

Waterfalls

The sounds of the wind, the cars on the A5 past the football ground and Carrie’s cheese church, and the Caseg below the Wern grassland are merging into one. It is never quiet in Gerlan, you can hear the river’s waterfalls from every house. Constant. Running, sometimes rushing. Calming maybe, but never calm.

Now there are single rain drops bringing an October smell through the open Velux as I keep looking to the quarry, squinting to see whether there’s activity on the zip wire. I can’t hear any screams apart from gulls calling, nor can I see travellers in red flying the invisible zip line. In front of me in the next terrace below the garden is the roof of the unofficial tavern, Mrs Library’s house, the only one pointing directly at Penrhyn’s giant hole in the mountain side of y Fronllwyd, secret code to anyone who fancied a forbidden drink.

I hear no birdsong, only a few distant sparrow chirps, a dog barking, a single motorcycle weaving its mindfulness journey through the village. Another dog replies in dog code, then a third, then quiet again. It’s going towards the evening, and Bethesda is less busy. Fewer vehicles, fewer machines.

Slate blue

The edge of the breeze lashes into the room, and the cloud opposite has picked up more blue from the palette and laid it on thick. Slate blue. I want to see sky blue between the clouds and feel sun’s warmth on my cheeks, and feel an urge to go down to the Caseg and have a quick dip in its squeezing cold in the grey wagtail’s pool below the waterfall.  It’s only a few minutes’ walk through Nantgraen and cow-wheat-yellow woodland that stains my fingers with bilberries. They are always quick, my dips, as it only takes a few strokes before something icy and threatening creeps from my fingers up the length of my arms under the skin. Yet it is refreshing, and every other water seems blissfully warm.

Spire landmark

On the same level as me on the western flank of the Ogwen valley, Eglwys St Ann’s makes its spire statement above the trees. Ironically, the quarry had the church built to replace the one they buried under the blue slate that wasn’t good enough to make into sellable products. The church has been boarded up for years, but its tall spire serves as useful landmark. Behind it, Gwaun Gynfi, or what is left of it since they expanded the works at the top of the quarry, must be white and silver with cotton grass.

Abundance

I have noticed an abundance on the hills in the last few weeks, and their gentle movement in a caressing breeze takes my breath away every time. Moelyci’s heather is not out in bloom yet, but it shouldn’t be long before the whole mountain is covered with purple, brightly and honey-scentedly competing with the duller purple of the slate all around.

Further down the valley, I see the green woven windbreak by the school allotments, wondering is there anyone who looks after the crops during the holidays? There’s a hint of hiraeth in the air.