Living up a Mountain

Yes thats what I do, I live up the top of a mountainside, nestled along the coast of west Wales. Its a wonderful experiance and a genuine privaledge to live here .

Alongside my home is Harlech Castle with its tumbled ancient walls and its magnificent floodlit atmosphere at night. Local youths have attempted the rite of passage here every year, to stay in the castle, to enter it at night and walk the walls over a hundred feet above the ground. You see mists or is it a ghost ? drifting around and your skin shivers with anticipatory fears.

The coastal waters are crystal clear, sometimes emerald green, turquoise, deep blue, sky blue and often a mix of them all but forever a changing beautiful image to inspire. The waves can crash onshore like a thousand white stallions eager to reach the beach, or lap carressingly against your toes, tickling you with tiny drifts of seaweed. Fish in shoals leap over the waters playfully, safe from the trawlers nets , occasionally flirting with the stray angler who has hopefully cast his fishing line in the languid waters. Swimming here is a must, the Gulf Stream warms the waters all through winter, it isn't unusual to see a little skinny dipping going on in the middle of November !!!

The forests are ancient, marked on maps so old they are kept in museums, ancient trees dripping with weedlike trailing ivies and goosegrass, sometimes lichen and moss so thick its as soft and deep as a mattress. Fairies probably do live here...if you stayed still long enough to see one ! Mushrooms and fungi nestle in little pockets of the forest floor or inside a rotting log and some of the trees are so old they can't be 'hugged' they are far to wide a trunk on them. Silence is your companion in the forests, silence and a feeling of timeless mysteries.

But living in a small village atop a mountain has its drawbacks too.

There are two village stores, one at the top of the mountain, one at the bottom and to reach either from the other end you either catch a bus OR if your feeling brave you walk up Twtl Hill...Gods its steep, in fact I believe its one of the steepest roads in the UK and I have actually walked it twice in one day...slept for an hour after but it had to be done. Food is expensive and limited in choice but one store is open till 8pm and one till 10pm so at least we have some availablity. One thing we don't run short of is a choice of presents for family because of course we have shops to sell items to tourists and in winter they do a brisk trade for the old xmas stocking too. We have cafes and resteraunts galore and breakfast is often an occasion to go out and have a chat to neighbours over coffee and a bacon butty. By the way butty is a word taken from the Welsh Buttie which is translated as cafe...there you go read and learn haha.

Another drawback to living up here is the travel time you take to get anywhere. To visit the nearest town with any shops noted in most small towns, your Tesco or Lidl and the like. Then it is a ten or fifteen mile drive through the sharp mountain roads and either the toll bridge or the coast road both of which can get flooded in winter. Or joy of joys we can be snowed in, or worse fogged in..the fog is by far the worst. Sea mist can roll in up the mountain within literally seconds and of course the rain when it falls can lash with fury as coast winds howl in from the sea bringing salt water as well as rain as a downpour that can occasionally sound like a thousand drummers all madly pounding on your windows with tiny drumsticks.

Added to the distance you have to go for ordinary shopping is travel time to see family. My blood family all live miles away, its a 3 hour drive to get to my Mum and in an emergency I would have to drive like a hellion to get to her under that time using the hidden roads around here. The roads that cut through mountains and highlands, little more than tracks and without a single light or warning sign, they do get you where your going fast, almost an hour faster but they can have their own little dangers so its risky. Couple that with the well known fact that our Police are hell on fire when it comes to traffic offences and you have yet two more drawbacks.

Most of us drive ordinary cars but to travail the mountains we also have to have superior driving skills. I don't mean we are superior to other people, I mean we have to become superior to our normal everyday driving skills. For one thing hairpin bends and massive spiralling roads is common. Gathering your skills to get anywhere is a genuine act. You think of the twists and turns, the gradients (some being 1 in 6 !!!) and the timing too. No one travels during tourist time if they can help it. Too many people who don't understand the sudden sheep in the road, the tourist who is walking along the roads with an enormous backpack that can take your wing mirror off even though you gave the person a wide berth, the emerging tumble of a tree as it slowly kilters down the land because its time is up....and so is yours if your not quick enough. Stone slides, floods and ice as black as the road and undetectable...are common every day hazards, so driving skills to the fore and never, ever, ever speed...because sure as eggs are eggs the Policeman will be just round the corner. In fairness they do a grand job, but they are really strict here so it is rare indeed to see anyone stupid enough to speed or to drink drive...they would be without a car within the week and that would make life very difficult indeed.

Hospitals are miles away, a dentist is over ten miles away and fully booked usually, the travel to any place limited to two trains a day and thats it...a couple of buses if the roads are safe. trust me, no one wants to lose their car.

Which brings me to the final drawback...you never know when your family want you, never know when you might have to travel somewhere and never know how quickly you will have to be ready so as a village I can tell to the minute when everyone relaxes. Saturday Night.

You don't have a social night during the week that involves alcohol...you might be driving the next day. You don't have a drink on Friday Night because its town and shopping on Saturday morning so its Saturday Night. Because Sunday morning you can have a lie in bed, plan absolutely nothing and enjoy the time off from work, shopping, and sudden needs to get about...Sunday is Sacred.

I personally think its brilliant, when it isn't tourist season the whole week is beautifully balanced, work, sleep and easy going socialising, come the weekend party time...but just one night. Sure people do act outside of this but it is the norm, it is the way, because it works. Its why my friends on Facebook take the mickey out of me, they know they can put a status on their own FB thats about party times and I can only click on like but I can't join in...especially when I had to take painkillers OMG that was a tee total time all round not even my weekend moment lol. But in the end its an old fashioned way of socialising a few drinks on a saturday with a few good friends then a nice lie in and then back to work...and you don't lose your drivers license either :)

Any other drawbacks ? not that I can think of, you are known by everyone, your business is known by everyone so their are no lies or need to hide yourself because there is no point. A whole lot stressfull than for some :)

All in all I love living up a mountain, I love the atmosphere and the people and the view and the peace and the quiet. I can walk, swim,drive or simply lounge on my balcony to my hearts content. Visitors love it, friends are threatening to move in...and I am happy.

You should try it sometime :)