Dear Reader,

While touring Scotland for places to live, Wales kept coming up as a maybe: the cliffside climbs of Pembroke, the community-supported agriculture of Carmarthenshire. It would be that much warmer. The vegetable growing options would, well, grow.

A few months after travel restrictions lifted beyond the Scottish Borders, we planned our excursion to Wales. We found a wee cottage steps from a magic stone circle, where singing round the campfire was encouraged. It was all coming together.

This cottage happened to be just 25 minutes from Oakwood Theme Park, home to Britain’s infamous wooden coaster, Megafobia! Glorious indeed, but my pick of the day was a 1989 family coaster that travels through the actual treetops. Since Oakwood is my first UK theme park, that makes this ride — Treetops Rollercoaster — my top UK coaster. I wondered how it would hold up against the Alton Towers Secret Weapons in September.

But yes — Wales.

We journeyed like we always do, in search of a feeling. The forests of North Wales nestled us on our way down. It’s looking good. But the trees thinned, then disappeared, as we neared the more barren seascapes of Pembrokeshire. The coast, beautiful in its own right, was not quite it for us. We landed on a need newly defined:

There must be mountains.

And so we drove back north a day early, spent the night in Bangor, found a roastery in the mountains (there must be coffee, too). It’s looking good. We found our Next Time place in North Wales. And we gathered scraps of a cottage theme song, penned in the Pembrokeshire cottage: There must be mountains.

Until the Next Chapter,

P.S. North Wales is only a couple hours’ drive from Alton Towers and Blackpool Pleasure Beach. HMM…

P.P.S. In this series, I am chronicling my dreams as a work-in-progress. For more guidance on applying quest/life balance to your own life, join the waiting list for Everyday Wonderland. We’re recruiting new members for a new chapter in November.

All Literary Cottage Logs:

• Literary Cottage Log 1: This Is the Dream
• Literary Cottage Log 2: Take Me to the Lochs
• Literary Cottage Log 3: Pilgrimages Past
• Literary Cottage Log 4: Timing
• Literary Cottage Log 5: Practicing Permanence
• Literary Cottage Log 6: Can’t Have A Cottage Without…
• Literary Cottage Log Finale: Best Friends at the Edge of the Forest

There Must Be Mountains

Buried deep in the forest
Down a path lined with trees
There’ll be vegetables to eat
But at the edge of the scene
You will see mountains

There must be mountains
Wherever we go
There’s one thing I know
There must be mountains.

They make us happy
When we see them in the morning
Towering over me
The mist sometimes obscures them
I like knowing
Beneath the condensation there are mountains

There must be mountains
Wherever we go
There’s one thing I know
There must be mountains.

I’ll move with you to the city
If that’s where you call home
We’ll paint the walls make it pretty
In cream and rose they’ll be in the shape of mountains

There must be mountains
Wherever we go
There’s one thing I know
There must be mountains.

We put our hearts first
Not buried in the details
Of what might work
We’re following a feeling
As we’re learning and we’re healing
We’ll find mountains

We’ll grow and plant
Take care of the land
by the mountains
In the mountains
we grow we grow
In the mountains.