Journeying | Pilgrimage Holidays | Christian Walking Holidays | Christian Short Breaks

Cost

There is now only a double room with single occupancy available. The cost is £570. There would be a discount of £80 per person for two people sharing this room.

This holiday is fully catered. Breakfast is self-serve from a selection of breakfast foods and there will be a home cooked meal for lunch and supper each day. On New Year’s Day, we will celebrate with a special banquet meal in the evening.

The price includes excursions and art materials.

Description

This is a new venture for Journeying. It’s an opportunity for us to offer something new that we think our guests may enjoy and be blessed by. There is a space in our programme that has always been empty – the winter time but here we have created an opportunity for fellowship and companionship in a beautiful home from home experience and to enjoy walking together in some beautiful countryside. We do hope you will join us.

Throughout the world, New Year is celebrated as it is a significant transition in the calendar and seen as an auspicious threshold by many. This retreat is an opportunity to get away and escape the craziness and hype of traditional New Year celebrations, a time for companionship with other like-minded people, a time to welcome something new into our life or a time to simply ‘be.’ We will be staying in a beautiful, stone farmhouse just outside of Brecon, in the foot hills of the Black Mountains, Wales. Our neighbours are mountains, waterfalls and forests and we dip into them (maybe not the waterfall) to be inspired by them as metaphors for our life and to weave them into some creative fun or use them for contemplation later in the day. If gentle walks, being a little adventurous to try something new or just relaxing in any way you choose (a good book sounds great) this retreat is for you. We will settle-in, settle-down and settle into the presence of God over our 5 days together.

This house was chosen for our retreat because it’s the most wonderful `hideaway’ for us to hide away in for a little while. Its location is perfect for a journeying holiday because it’s in an area of outstanding natural beauty in the Brecon Beacons National Park. It is a house that promotes gentle conversation and a sense of well-being. You will feel safe and held within the 2 feet thick stone walls and the central heating and fireplace in every room will ensure that you are warm and cosy. It’s a house full of beautiful features: Sophie our host is a gardener and inside and outside there are plants, cuttings and seedlings germinating rooting and growing that speak of life and being nurtured. Signs of her creativity, attention to detail and appreciation of beauty can be found all over the house in her artwork and silversmithing.

In the immediate landscape around the house, nature is simply happening everywhere around you and footpaths will beckon you - inviting you to simply wander. Wake up to bird song, the little cockerels greeting the day and a halo of tiny pipistrelle bats orbiting the house before they settle down to sleep. Days start slowly here and so can you! This is an opportunity to relax if you want to, with nothing to remind you of the world you have just stepped out of to come here. There are no roads or commuter traffic just quietness and a swaddling of green - every shade of green. It’s a place to experience nature intimately and to be held by rolling hills and high mountains. The air is clean and unpolluted and the water is pure and sweet as it comes from a spring directly out of the rock in the hills above.

This little holiday is a pause ….aaah can you feel that? Maybe that’s just what we all need. Allowing this for ourself, allows space to reflect on the year that is passing and see where grace has been at work. This is perhaps an opportunity to catch up and be present with all the changes we have experienced. It’s also an opportunity to express our gratitude and thanksgiving for what has been; a time to acknowledge the soul journey we are on and to pause on the threshold of the New Year in order to prepare our hearts for the road ahead. This retreat holiday is a time to stand at the cross roads and pause for a little whilst seeking the path that God desires for us in the year ahead.

There is the opportunity to try some contemporary monastic practices such as contemplation, Lectio Divina and centring prayer. I have recently been blessed with the practice of ‘Ora et Labora’ (prayer and work) and have used this whilst painting with watercolour. I would love to share the blessings of this practice with you.

Please bring a journal for journaling, as it’s a wonderful way to reflect and contemplate. It’s a practice that supports spiritual growth and intimacy with God and we can journal together collectively and also enjoy the space to journal alone.

In the title of this retreat is the word ‘Creative’ … for many of us when we see the word creative or art, we immediately experience fear, anxiety, trepidation and shame kicks in and our inner critic starts to shout really loud, “I am not an artist and I am not creative, I can’t do this, everyone else is better than me!” Don’t worry, this is not a retreat for artists, it’s a retreat for someone just like you to be creative if you sense it’s in there somewhere; to dip your toe into creativity if you feel adventurous and to by-pass it completely if you have something else that would better nourish your body or your soul – like extra sleep! There is no controlled programme on this retreat and no critics or judges are allowed in - there is only acceptance and a safe environment to be vulnerable and to allow yourself to try something new if you want to, it is New Year after all! So let’s leave our inner critic at home; not take ourself or each other too seriously and let‘s enjoy the journey together because it’s really all about the journey not producing a masterpiece. Let’s just have some fun!

The weather may be wet and cold but that really doesn’t matter as this holiday has been weather-proofed! It’s about comfort, companionship and relaxing. It’s designed as an opportunity to rest and to rest in God and allowing ourself to be held – held in a warm, loving environment with sweet fellowship and kind conversation; it’s about log fires and lovely food and allowing gentleness for ourselves. Sophie our lovely host will support us on walks, share her favourite places with us and spoil us with her delicious cooking. We really want you to feel at home so bring your slippers and why not bring your knitting, your crocheting, patchwork or embroidery if you already have something on the go? We have lots of jigsaws and puzzles if that’s something you like to do on a rainy afternoon but find you never have the time. The itinerary is flexible to accommodate the weather – we will go out when the weather is dry (or the least wet!) and the walks and excursions are to ‘thin’ places in nature, that don’t demand walking long distances and are opportunities to just ‘be’ for a little while. The farmhouse is set in gentle hills and rolling farmland so there are also lovely short circular walks from the house if you just want to explore.

Each day includes an opportunity to walk in the morning in order to spend time in a beautiful location or special feature in the landscape. Inspired and blessed we will come home with our treasure to reflect upon and use in any way we choose. It will be nice to have a theme to guide our observation and contemplations whilst out in nature and this may continue to inspire any creativity later when at home. There are lots of materials available for art and craft: felt tips, pencil crayons, paints, paper, card, calligraphy pens and pastel crayons. There are also 2 sewing machines available for use and a piano and a hand drum. If you already paint, take photos, sew or play music etc. please bring any other materials, equipment you may need or your instrument if you can. Some music and singing around the fire in the evening would be lovely.

The days will start and end like all other traditional Journeying holidays with a short time of prayers and reflections together in a circle and a beautiful Celtic blessing to see us safely into the night.

Walks and Excursions

Day 1: Meet at 3pm at the farmhouse and settle in and together over afternoon tea by a lovely log fire.
For each of the next three days we follow a pattern of a leisurely walk in the morning to explore a theme that can be used to direct our attention and awareness in the natural world around us. We return home for a lovely, freshly prepared lunch and a relaxed afternoon that we each fill in any way we choose. There will be an opportunity for creativity either our own project that we may have brought or one related to the theme of the walk. It may be that you just would like to rest and relax in your own way. Let’s be spontaneous, flexible and respond to what arises as this is the essence of the retreat. The afternoons will shape themselves and unfold in any way we chose individually or as a group, allowing opportunities for rest, relaxation, reflection and for art, poetry, craft or creative writing. We will find an opportunity if we can to visit Brecon Cathedral and it would be wonderful to listen to the bells ringing on New Year’s Eve. It has the only ring of ten bells in the diocese
Day 2: Visit to The Defynnog Yew Tree in the church of St Cynog’s Church. It is one of the oldest living trees in Europe estimated to be between 3,000 - 5,000 years old. It’s appearance, structure and detail is simply incredible. It has a real presence that will inspire a time of reflection and contemplation in the church yard. The theme for this day is: ‘Being Rooted.’ Weather permitting we will walk on the moorland above the village to experience the vast open landscape.
Day 3: We will first visit the Talybont Reservoir which supplies 300,000 people with fresh water each day. Standing on its shore, experiencing the vast expanse of water, the huge mountains and forests all around us is a magical experience. It’s like being beside the sea, as the wind on the water creates waves and the air smells salty. We then drive a little further on to visit the beautiful Blaen y Glyn waterfalls and walk along the Caerfanell River which runs through the Tallybont Forest. The theme is ‘Being in Flow.’ In the evening there is a special supper to celebrate the New Year.
Day 4: Parking at Cwm Llwch, we will begin to walk the gradual ascent part way up Pen y Fan, the highest peak in South wales at 2,907 feet. It is a truly awe inspiring vision that towers above and before us. Don’t worry we are not climbing all the way up, only about 1/3rd of the way on the easy bit! We will have a wonderful, inspiring walk that takes us up to the small glacial lake (Lyn Cwm Llwch) that is cradled in a hollow on the sides Corn Du and Pen y Fan. It’s the most stunning place to sit for a while and take in the enormity of the mountains, the vastness of the sky all captured in the crystal clear water of the lake below. The theme we will reflect upon is ‘Seeing the Bigger Picture.’
Day 5: We say our farewells and leave after breakfast

Accommodation

The farmhouse is very spacious, the rooms are large but the ambience is cosy and intimate – we can all sit together in the large sitting room, kitchen or studio to be creative and relax together and there are enough rooms if you just need some space. The house is the home of Sophie, our host, who normally lives there with her 2 children, as well as her cat and chickens. It’s a family home that will become our home and like any old stone farmhouse in Wales it is rustic and a bit quirky. But it is lovely and warm with central heating, log fires and plenty of hot water. There are 3 double rooms and 2 single rooms. The double rooms are large and have been priced as single occupancy. If two friends wanted to share a double room but not share a double bed, there is room for a simple bed to be made up on the floor (there would be a discount on the price). One of the double rooms is en-suite.
There is a family bathroom that we will all share and a downstairs loo.

Getting there

We will meet at 3pm at the farmhouse in time for afternoon tea.

If you are coming by train please make your way to Abergavenny. We will organise a collection at 2pm at the train station.
If you are arriving by car the address is Wernfigan Isaf, Trallong, Brecon. LD13 8HW

Contact & Booking Form

Pepper (Cheryl)Tettmar.
Please contact the leader, to check that a place is still available and which rooms are free. For more information please contact her by phone or Whatsapp: +44 (0)7977 163032 cheryltettmar@gmail.com

There will be a single payment for this holiday as is it makes administration so much easier for our Treasurer and our booking system. Our Treasurer will email you an invoice that you can pay by BACs or by Swift.

After you have contacted the leader to check that a place is still available please complete the details on the Booking Form