It's the Spring Equinox today and from now light makes significant gains over dark as days get longer and longer till the Summer Solstice. Winter is receding to be replaced by Spring, a season which brings renewed hope and energy for new beginnings.
This year, Winter appears reluctant to loosen its grip: we are only just emerging out of a very cold few days with a significant amount of snow and wind that left us snowed in for a couple of days for the second time this month. Spring serves as a transition season, a buffer between opposites Winter and Summer and as such, it is a tentative time, a little rocky and unsettled. Yet, the sun's energy is stronger and days are longer. Nature is positively giving out signals of new beginnings. The birds are active, building nests and singing; lambs are bleating in nearby fields (our own are still tucked inside their mothers' tummies due to pop next month!). Buds are bursting open in the hedgerows, the earth is warming and, after their dormant period during Winter, bulbs are poking their heads through it and beginning to bloom.
Mirroring the new beginnings happening out in nature at this time, new shoots are appearing at Rural and Rustic too. We spent the Winter months working on revamping our website and developing a programme of retreats. We are pleased to announce today, on the first day of Spring 2018, that we have a revamped web page about the shepherd's hut and a brand new one dedicated to the retreats we are offering. You will find both on separate tabs above: Stay With Us and Retreats.
We have developed and expanded the already existing shepherd's hut page by adding a lot more information about it, photos, reviews etc and we invite you to have a browse through it to get a flavour of what sort of holiday experience we offer in our shepherd's hut. We will set up online booking directly from our website at some point in the near future but that is needing more work before it is ready... it has only just germinated! For now, you can phone or email us to enquire about or make a booking. We continue to be on Airbnb and Tripadvisor too and you can use these as booking platforms.
It had always been our intention to offer retreats. In the natural world, for both animals and plants, gestation periods vary between species and the retreats have been more or less 3 years in the making. The project was conceived when we planned our move to Wales in 2015 and moving to our smallholding obviously gave it momentum, as did buying the shepherd's hut a year later. However, it was not until we set up the shepherd's hut in 2017 and experienced our first year of guests, the full four seasons till now, that the project was ready to be born, having gone through several developmental stages before eventually reaching full size and being ready to be born this Spring. We are pleased to say that we are offering three types of retreats here: a Creative Haven retreat, a Self-Care for your Well-being retreat and a Move to a Smallholding retreat. We go into more details for each in the Retreats page above so do take a closer look at these fresh, new shoots that have just sprung on the website. Again, online booking will become available for the retreats later on. For now, you can make enquiries or book over the phone or by email.
We look forward to hearing from you - and perhaps even welcoming you soon to our peaceful spot in the beautiful Welsh countryside for a soul-nourishing short break or wellbeing-enhancing retreat that doesn’t cost the Earth – literally!
