TWENTY TWENTY (SIX) VISION

As we share this exciting update, it seems like forever since we posted the news that we’d had our planning application validated. Well, maybe not forever but six months back at the end of July. We knew we then had to wait until September at the earliest to hear if we would be granted permission to erect ‘a glamping yurt with decking for holiday use, bicycle store, bin store & WC/shower structures and all associated works’. 

Artist's Impression of the Earth Heart Yurt Site

That project title doesn’t exactly skip off the tongue and never really did justice to the full vision of the Earth Heart Yurt but with a good deal of help from a specialist agency, we were confident it was the language Powys County Council planning department would speak and so we settled in to await the result. If only it had been that simple! We really didn’t anticipate the amount of additional to-ing and fro-ing that was about to ensue.

Firstly, we navigated a complete redesign of the proposed parking spaces (including a loss of some of the wildflower area, sadly) in order to address visibility and sight lines for emerging cars in such a way that satisfied Highways without removal of a 200 year old hedge. Whew.

Spacious!

The Proposed Toilet and Shower Block

Then followed far more research than we ever thought we’d need to undertake into percolation tests for the installation of a new septic tank, which, given we’d proposed a compost toilet and were merely looking to drain a single shower, hand basin and kitchen sink, was in hindsight probably over egging the pudding. 

Thankfully, that eventually worked in our favour and following an assessment (and overdue emptying, whoops) of our domestic septic tank up at the cottage, we were able to replan the grey water drainage into our existing system. Yay.

Of course these things delayed matters somewhat and the initial September deadline had already sailed past without so much as a nod by the time we finally submitted the additional ‘compost toilet management plan’ to Environmental Protection. We’ll spare you the details but suffice to say we hadn’t expected to calculate the average daily solid and liquid waste produced by our anticipated guests; four hundred grams and three litres in case you wondered!

Then came the nervous waiting, anxious checking and fretful rechecking for further comments from different council departments. We were fearing the worst after so much effort and expense to respond to the various issues but finally, at the beginning of November we received the news we’d been hardly daring to hope for; our planning permission was approved! There followed at least 45 minutes of cautious jubilation until we read the small print, which was frankly boggling and demanded further information (and another chunky fee) for yet more approval under the worrying title of ‘discharge of conditions’. ​

So, we put together a detailed planting and biodiversity enhancement plan as requested. Actually, compiling a shopping list for native trees and hedging plants was rather joyful and we now know a little more about nesting boxes, bug hotels and keeping bats happy. Win/win.

Wildflowers and Bug Hotels!

Happily, in mid January the condition of our discharge (it didn’t say how many grams) also met with approval, and now we merely have the trifling task of making it happen. Thankfully we’ve got five years to recover before we get started. Not that we want to wait even half that long at all!

So now what? There we were thinking the planning application process was complex and expensive enough, but now we’ve been through it and we’re in a position to turn diagrams into manifest reality, we know how woefully inadequate our original budgeting was. Maybe it’s kinder to say ‘wonderfully optimistic’ but ‘uneducated’ is more accurate. So what next? Where to start?
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Cue ‘visioning’. The first month of 2026 may already be behind us but last weekend we sat down at the Earth Heart Kitchen table (so oft the centre of operations!) and started thinking ahead to the rest of the year. The first question was how much we wanted 2026 to look like 2025, and how we would choose for it to be different. What do we want to cultivate and make more time for? What then, do we want to let go of, in order to make more time for it?

We started by revisiting our central ethos, our values, passions and driving motivations. ​

Ethical and personal responsibility, inclusion and collaboration, kindness and compassion, integrity, honesty and sustainability are all key, as is the promotion of lifestyle choices which reflect all these. We summarised by stating that we aim to ‘Do Everything with Love’ but that sort of statement can be vague when life gets gritty so it’s helpful to have unpacked it at the beginning.

The Earth Heart Central Ethos

From there, we’ve got our existing four areass of Kitchen, Garden, Creative and Holistic with the fifth area of Yurt being officially added.

​We’ve chosen to visualise these as five petals unfurling from our central values. ​

This helped us sketch out a slight shift of perspective on which of these petals to give more or less attention. We know we want to nourish and cultivate the Holistic whilst pursuing a different emphasis on the Creative. To resource that, there will need to be a little less Kitchen, though we’ll still be excited to cultivate as much Garden as the Welsh valley will accommodate! (It appears to be the wettest February on record so that might be a bit beyond our control.)

Sounds all very theoretical doesn’t it? What’s it actually going to look like? Well, it’s back to those petals and here are some things to expect from Earth Heart as 2026 gets underway:

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Earth Heart Kitchen 2026:

We’re hoping the Lake Vyrnwy Farmer’s markets will continue from April and we plan to keep attending the Welshpool Car Boot Sales. ​

As we’re going to put a bit more emphasis in other areas, we’ll be keeping our market stalls to that one weekend a month. We may drop some vegan baking in to the roadside honesty box and there could well be one or two weekend pop up stalls at Dragons down in Llanrhaeadr but that will be a bit more ad hoc as it fits in around increased offerings in Holistic and Creative areas. 

To keep moving ever more in line with our central values, we’ll be looking to source more organic ingredients, even if we can’t always source completely organic ingredients. This means prices might fluctuate a bit more but we’ll always try and keep healthy, compassionate and sustainable choices as affordable as possible. If we wouldn’t pay it, we won’t charge it!

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earth Heart Garden 2026:

It’s not been a hugely promising start to the year for reasons of, well, weather but where there’s a Nik, there’s a way and you’ll still be able to source organically homegrown plants and veggies from our roadside honesty box most weekends through the summer, even if there’s no baking. Who says it has to be all or nothing!?

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Earth Heart Creative 2026:

Expect less jam jars and more journeys! You’ll still be able to find a few bits of up-cycled crafts, illustrated cards, poetry books and the occasional dangly thing in our online store and at Dragons Craft Shop in Llanrhaeadr but we won’t be prioritising new crafts and you won’t find it on our stalls.

​Do watch this space for more sitar recitals though, and hopefully at least one or two new, longer sound journeys, partnered in with our Holistic offerings to include guided meditation. We’ve already shared a new Sound Journey on our YouTube channel this year but we’ve further plans. Watch this space! 

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Earth Heart Holistic 2026:

Annabeth is continuing her study and practice of Reiki, healing and meditation. You can join her at Llanfyllin Library Building on Mondays from 11:30 — 12:30 for a meditation group that got started successfully in January. There will also be three taster sessions at Oswestry Library on Wednesdays 4th, 11th and 18th of March from 16:30 - 17:30, which may yet grow into a second group.  We want to make wellbeing as accessible as possible so all sessions are offered by donation, as is in person, distance and remote healing. If you’re interested, you can find out more and get in touch here.

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Earth Heart Yurt:

The first thing we’ll do to make way for the yurt is prepare the land. We’ll need to borrow or hire a mini digger and some digger skills, all of which will cost money, but we’re heading towards nesting and growing season so not looking to get started on that until autumn anyway, which gives us a whole season of summer market trading to top up the coffers; fingers crossed!

So that’s the in-depth update on what has been and what shall come.

As we look across the sleet-saturated Tanat valley, the other side of which is shrouded in soggy February mist, it’s almost hard to imagine we’ll be graced by a busy summer season let alone a single dry day. Except of course for the fact that last year absolutely flew by and we know that somewhere under the muddy puddles, The roots are stirring. We know that somewhere, deep in the branches, the sap is rising, which means the buds are slowly, surely swelling and we know that yes, come April, there will be cake.

Our visioning day was fruitful; the process gifted us an opportunity to discuss more complex issues that can easily get skipped over and brought clarity to what sometimes seems like a disparate project. Despite academic and social pressure to choose one discipline and specialise, projects that blur boundaries on the surface, when pursued with authenticity and commitment at heart, can in fact communicate something far richer, deeper and more meaningful than anything that can be neatly compartmentalised into conventional categories. Having a few parallel projects can enrich the fruits of each, and it’s not always productive to pigeonhole creativity into one discipline. Earth Heart is a Human project, which makes it necessarily complex and at times passionately and beautifully messy. Seeing it all organised on paper was very affirming.