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

Cost

There are 2 single rooms, 1 double and 2 double en-suite rooms available.
Prices range from £540 for a single room, £570 for the double room with single occupancy and £610 for each double en-suite room with single occupancy.
There is a discount of £80 per person for two people sharing a double room.

This holiday is fully catered. Breakfast is self-serve from a selection of breakfast foods for you to choose from and there will be a tasty home cooked meal for lunch and for supper each day.

The price includes excursions, art materials and the silversmithing and candle making workshops.

Description

We began a new venture for Journeying this year with our New Year Retreat. However, it proved so popular it was sold out before it even appeared in our monthly newsletter! So, here we are offering a similar opportunity for fellowship and companionship with other like-minded people, in a beautiful home from home experience in February, one of the coldest, darkest months of the year. Let’s enjoy walking together in an amazing landscape and sharing some creative fun and fellowship. We do hope you will join us.

We will be staying in a lovely stone farmhouse just outside of Brecon in Wales in the foot hills of the Black Mountains, our neighbours are mountains, forests and waterfalls. 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 with a large log fire in the sitting room and central heating in every room, you will be 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.

For most of us, February is a long, dark month with little to look forward to and spring can seem so very far away. However, the beginning of February offers us a Christian festival of light – Candlemas, which celebrates the first stirrings of spring after the long dark winter. In the Orthodox Church it is the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, recorded in the gospel of Luke and it weaves together the themes of dedication, prophecy and light. As light is what we all yearn for at this time of year, let’s use this as our theme to inspire the walks on this retreat, the creative activities and times of contemplation. Let’s celebrate together at the threshold of spring, the light shining out of the darkness of winter and as Christians let’s celebrate Christ the Light of the World.

In the title of this retreat is the word ‘Creative’ … for many of us when we see the word creative or art and 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 are two creative workshops that we hope will entice you to try something creative and have a go at something that is fun and fully guided so that you can’t fail! There is no controlled programme on this retreat and no critics or judges 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. The workshops relate to the two Christian festivals that take place in early February – Candlemas and the feast of St Brigid … I hope you are feeling curious!

So, just before our retreat starts on 1st February is the feast of St Brigid, which marks the traditional beginning of spring in Ireland. It is when the daffodils start to bloom, the gloom of winter starts to lift as the days lengthen. Symbolically she would be welcomed into every home with an offering of food and drink and crosses made out of reeds would be crafted. These crosses were known as St. Brigid’s Cross and it was believed they would protect the family’s thatched cottage from fire. Sophie, our host is a silversmith, who makes the most beautiful jewellery in her workshop at home; she is going to run a workshop for those of us who would like to make a pendant out of silver in the form of a St Brigid’s Cross. It’s a wonderful, creative opportunity to try something new and gives us something unique and very special to take home as memento of this holiday.

In some churches around the world, there is a tradition during Candlemas of parishioners bringing candles to their local church where they are blessed and then used for the rest of the year as a symbol of Jesus Christ, who referred to Himself as the Light of the World. As we will also be celebrating Candlemas, we each have the opportunity to make our own scented candle that we will then take to Brecon Cathedral to be blessed. We will each take our candle home at the end of our retreat, to give us light and remind us of the time we shared together and the intentions we set for our lives whilst making them. To celebrate this time of light, we will visit a mountain top in the early morning to watch the sun rise together and spend some time in quiet reflection. In the evening a candlelit banquet is planned and afterwards we will share blessings, poems and stories in front of a lovely log fire. It is a time for music and singing, if you play an instrument that you can bring, please bring it – we do have a piano.

On this retreat there is also the opportunity to try some contemporary monastic practices such as contemplation, Lectio Divina and centring prayer. 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.

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. 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 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 start to get to know each together over afternoon tea by a lovely log fire. We will explore the theme for the retreat and a little about St Brigid.

There will be an opportunity for creativity each day on either the workshop that has been planned or on your own project that you may have brought. It may be that you just would like to rest and relax in your own way and that ok too. Let’s be spontaneous, flexible and respond to what arises as this is the essence of the retreat. The days 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.

Day 2: We will start with prayers and reflections and then for those that want to, Sophie will gather us to her silversmithing workspace to demonstrate and guide us in making a pendant based on the design of St Brigid’s Cross. St Brigid is the Patron Saint of blacksmiths but on this occasion we pray that she will bless the hands of the silversmith. We will stop for lunch and then continue or if we have finished we will go for a local walk on one of the many beautiful footpaths around the house.

Day 3: Before dawn we will drive the short drive to a nearby mountain and then walk the short distance to the top where we will watch the sunrise and share a time of quiet reflection - Weather permitting. Returning for a lovely breakfast, there will then be an opportunity to make your own candle if you wish to join an easy and fun workshop.

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.
On the way back we will visit Brecon Cathedral for a self guided tour and a blessing with our candles. In the evening we will share a candle lit supper and some poems as St Brigid is also the Patron Saint of Poets.

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). Two of the double rooms are 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 the leader for more information please contact: +44 (0)7977 163032 cheryltettmar@gmail.com and to check that a place is still available and which rooms are still available.

Once you have completed the Booking Form you will receive an invoice from treasurer@journeying.co.uk for a deposit payment of £200, this can be paid by BACS or by debit / credit card, full instructions will be given in the email. An invoice for the remaining balance payment will be sent from the same email address at the end of November, again payment can be made by BACS or debit / credit card. Please note that our terms and conditions relating to your booking are available on our website and by making your reservation you are accepting that these apply to the booking