Moon over Venus – our treasured goal for the Druid twilight.

There are at least three dimensions to one of the Silent Eye’s discovery weekends. There’s the place itself, with its features – ancient and modern; there’s the social side, most present in the evening when we mellow into the chosen restaurant and share good food and a glass or two of wine; and then, there’s the way the whole event unfolds, which is the most important of all.

Good unfolding is the essence of a good weekend, and it does not come about by accident. For “Of Ash and Seed’ The organisers made two separate trips to Anglesey during the year leading up to December’s pre-solstice weekend. Each time we were ‘sensing’ how the plans would flow into a near-solstice day which is very short. We work on the basis that, social time, aside, December allows us only the daytime hours of ten till four and then the darkness wraps around us.

If the weather is foul, as last year’s was, then we also need places of retreat along the way. Last year, for example, the long-term forecast was dreadful so we booked a Christmas lunch at a nearby pub (The Jolly Crofters, Bolton) – one on the same height level as the top of Leverhulme’s gardens, leaving us only to stagger through the gale force storm to get to it…

But even those grumbling by then were the first to admit that it made the day very special.

When you start planning such an event, you look a the meagre list of places you want to include and your first thought is: there’s not enough! That won’t fill a day and we’ll have a ring of people looking expectantly at the sodden itinerary that has just been raced through…

Cafés…. I confess to finding great happiness in cafés, liberally scattered through the day so that a pleasant half hour can be spent out of the wind, rain or sandstorm… Can’t beat it. They also come in handy when you’ve lost the leader of your party and you need to wait somewhere predictable so you can be found. I’m very predictable… you’ll always find me in a café – ideally one that (rapidly) serves big pots of tea, with anytime cream teas… I’m a simple soul.

420 stone steps is slower on the ascent….

The climb back up South Stack, with its four hundred-plus steps, is demanding, but there were many stopping places where we could rest the legs and take in the splendour of the views. Being December, bird life – in abundance on the RSPB cliffs during the warmer months – was scarce, though several beautiful choughs, with their orange-red beaks, were gaily in abundance.

It is important to go at the pace of the slowest, and we take that seriously. This is why such days need to have lots of ‘elastic’ in them – think tea rooms…

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