Portmeirion

I was in my favourite place last week – the amazing Portmeirion in North Wales.

This was a three night writing retreat staying in Bridge House 4 with views over the estuary and the village and is my fourth visit.

To recap the history of the village from previous posts: Clough Williams Ellis began creating the resort in the mid 1920s and was still building cottages 50 years later just before his death. Although it is called ‘the village’ – all the cottages are entirely for hire for guests. You can stay in either of the two hotels or in the very quirky cottages which are self catering or suite or just double rooms. It is quite pricy, but in the suites or double rooms you get a range of luxuries – robes and slippers, L’Occitane toiletries, sherry, bottled water and a large range of teas/ coffees.

Clough’s vision was that different architectural styles should work next to each other, so you have Georgian and rustic and Norwegian and maritime, etc, and around the site are arches, bridges, statues, ponds, gazebos, grottos, gardens and 20 miles of fabulous woodland walks which I absolutely adore. There are also a few cafes and shops on site.

In the evening, all day visitors have gone and the site is very peaceful.

During my stay I got some writing done on the children’s fantasy story I am writing with my great niece (well, I am doing most of the writing, she is providing ideas and illustrations) which uses Portmeirion as a setting in the story. I hope that book will be self published in the next year under my other pen name, Joanne Patrick.

I also worked on a book of woodland walks which I will self publish in due course giving details of starting/finishing points, length of walk, what to look out for and difficulty of walk.

It was all very relaxing.