Finding Avalon.

I’ve been to a lot of places in my life that were both beautiful and quiet, and yet it occurred to me recently that only three of them had that something extra, something that set them apart as special, magical places. I don’t think the words exist to do them full justice; the best I can offer is to say that the sense of peace and timelessness was so profound as to seem palpable. They engendered in me a feeling of connectedness, that everything was as it should be and working perfectly without threat or danger of malfunction as long as they weren’t invaded by anything that would pollute the energies and tip the balance.

One was a spot on the cliffs overlooking the sea near St David’s Head in Pembrokeshire. Another was a low wall that bounded one side of the courtyard of an old youth hostel in the Yorkshire Dales. I sat on it one evening, looking out over the Swale Valley in a light summer drizzle. The third was the garden of a pub in the Lake District, a little off the beaten track so there was no sound of traffic or noisy tourists.

For me, those places held the essence of Avalon, and whatever it was that suffused them was sublime but also fragile. Now I can add a fourth: my garden on a warm, still evening when the lane is empty of vehicles and the only sound is the trilling of birds and the hoot of an early owl. This is my Avalon.