Strata Florida

“To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.”
e e cummings 
Continuing my pilgrimage, I prepared myself for a long day with a cooked breakfast on campus before heading off to Dolaucothi Gold Mine, where I had a very entertaining and informative guided tour of the mine, believed to date back to Roman times. After the briefest of visits to Carreg Pumsaint, the standing stone nearby, I had plenty of time for a meditation to decide on the rest of my day. Decision made, I headed back through Lampeter heading for Strata Florida, a place I’d thought of visiting many years ago but it was always too far off the beaten track for me – today I was following another map. It was only about 45 minutes drive and the countryside was glorious, with trees in their fresh spring foliage and the air clear after overnight rain. I was welcomed by swallows on the overhead wires, the first I’ve seen this year. A brief detour into the small exhibition opposite the car park was a reminder of why following inner promptings are so worthwhile for me, as the guide told me the story of the pilgrim sculpture which once graced the nearby hilltop – hopefully soon to be re-established after a crowdfunding appeal – and showed me a photo of a medieval pilgrim’s ampulla cover found in the abbey gatehouse. It depicted the scallop of Santiago de Compostella, the general symbol of pilgrimage by that time. Reminded me of a trip I made to Worcester several years ago, where I was also pleasantly surprised at being welcomed by the Worcester Pilgrim, discovered by others in 1987 but not until 2015 by me.
My photo for today shows the remains of the Abbey, with the Holy Well (right  foreground) which I was told pre-dates the Abbey, which was probably built on an earlier Celtic site. While there I spoke with two other visitors, who’d also stayed over from the Study Day to enjoy the area. In conversation I said I was planning on heading home but was looking for a meal somewhere – they suggested a place they’d visited on the way to Strata Florida, at Tregaron, which I managed to find from the old tractor at the roadside, which carried the sign for the café, a riverside oasis for travellers. More food for the body and soul, the animated conversation was free and it was well over two hours later that I left, re-energised for the return journey to complete my Ceredigion pilgrimage.