Helen's journal and online home

Two things were cancelled today, or rather postponed. But I'm happy with that. Tomorrow is going to be very hot and though I want to see our daughter and granddaughter, leaving it another week should mean cooler weather for a long drive down to Mid-Wales. This also means that tomorrow I can attack the back garden, which is still not really under control.

Meanwhile today has been very successful. Although the gas engineer had finished by lunchtime yesterday, I didn't feel like driving to Barmouth to collect my rings. However, when I saw that it was raining and very dismal this morning, I decided to go and get them, rather than wait until next Thursday.

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And here are the rings, as good as new! Combining my mother's wedding ring with my own has worked really well. I must thank curiouswombat for the idea. I would never have thought of it myself. I've ended up with a slightly chunkier and much larger wedding ring that fits nicely and I don't have an old wedding ring hanging around in the jewellery box.

I follow a few photographers on YouTube and a day or so ago I watched a video where one of them explained how he always looked back over the photographs he'd taken during the year and chose his 10 favourites. I thought I try the same exercise and I've put them in a Flickr Album (Link here...)

To be honest, looking back through them in this way, I was a bit disappointed with the photos taken this year. However, on thinking about it, I haven't been out specifically to take photographs. The professional landscape photographers I follow go to specific locations, spend time on their own scouting around, then set up the camera on a tripod and choose the ideal camera settings. Of course they also have newer and better cameras and lenses and filters which helps.

Meanwhile I'll go for a walk somewhere with my husband and just snatch shots as I see them. Mostly the photos are illustrative rather than intended to stand as images in their own right, so I suppose it's not surprising I don't have any stunners amongst them.

Perhaps in 2024 I ought to make the effort to go out alone with my camera sometimes, specifically to take photos? There's no real reason why I haven't been doing that, though the weather sometimes dictates that the only fine day is the day in the week is the day we go for a walk.

The weather pattern on Thursday was the opposite of Wednesday, i.e. it was foul in the morning with the promise of a reasonable afternoon. I therefore spent the morning catching up online and reading while G worked on something on the laptop. The apartment had wifi, so we got useful stuff done.

After a light lunch, we set off for a walk around the park. We had arranged to meet our son later -- he works not far from Bute Park -- and initially the weather was actually fine.

Look, a pretty lake in the sunshine! Except that water shouldn't be there, as revealed by the goal posts in the distance.



The walk ended up rather more exciting than all my previous walks around the park. After passing the "lake", we discovered that the path leading to the bridge across the river (just visible in the distance in the above photo) was flooded. People on bikes were riding through, but after a brief experiment which resulted in a slightly wet foot, I refused to try to paddle through.

We therefore carried on to the end of the park, emerged onto the road, crossed the river on the road bridge and then came down onto the Taff Trail on the other side. The sunshine had now vanished and it even threatened rain, but never actually turned wet.

Looking back at a fallen tree we had to negotiate. Fortunately you could scramble up the bank and then stoop under the tree trunk, thus avoiding the branches that were blocking the path.



A little further on, the river was encroaching onto the path. I didn't get my phone out quickly enough to get a good photo of these two police women on horses.



You had to dodge the waves coming over the river bank. Remember, this is a city park, not somewhere out in the wilds!



It's never really safe to swim in the river, but people do in the summer when the water level is low. Very popular with teenage boys.



But even teenage boys were keeping well away from this torrent. There was a sheet of fast-flowing water, then an impressive standing wave and then brown turbulent water. I have a couple of video clips which I'll post tomorrow.



We made our way eventually to the Secret Garden Cafe where we met our son. Then we went for another walk round while we had a catch up chat. M and I briefly lost G as he chose a different path round a flooded bit. But we were reunited after making it over the flooded path we had been unable to negotiate earlier. The water had gone down somewhat, so it was now passable. After parting with our son who had to get back home for rugby training, we chilled out in the apartment before being collected by our daughter. We had celebratory Chinese takeaway (our granddaughter had achieved an A* in her GCSE maths).

Considering all the recent problems with rail strikes, rain, floods etc, our trip to Cardiff went remarkably smoothly.

The journey down went well. The round of strikes had come to an end so the trains were running normally. We'd also worried about the weather, especially during that cold snap with the horribly icy snow, but though the rain was heavy and the cloud was right down and no mountains were visible as we came over the pass, the road wasn't flooded at the bridge on the approach to the station, so we didn't need to take the longer detour. We parked the car in the long stay car park and were on the platform in plenty of time for the train, which was on time.

We arrived in Cardiff mid-afternoon and bought food for the evening meal in the little M&S Food at the station. After wandering the long way round to the apartment, we settled in for a cosy evening. We've stayed in this property before and in fact stayed in this exact apartment. (There are six in the building.)

On Wednesday the weather was OK so our plan was to get the train to Cardiff Bay. Unfortunately we arrived at Queen St station just as the train was about to depart which meant we had no time to buy a ticket and get to the platform. As the next train wouldn't be for 30 minutes, we decided to walk to the Bay instead of waiting. ( Collapse )

We had hoped to meet our son in the afternoon at the cafe in Bute Park, but the weather deteriorated with heavy rain and a dramatic thunderstorm, so we had to cancel. Fortunately the rain eased briefly so I nipped out to a Sainsbury's Local to buy food for dinner. We decided to have a meal in the apartment again because by the time we would want to eat, more heavy rain was forecast. We decided that getting soaked walking to a restaurant and getting soaked again walking back wouldn't be much fun.

I didn't take any photos of the Bay because I have plenty of photos already, taken in much better weather. I even made a whole video about the Bay (in Welsh with English subtitles available). I did, however, snap this street art as I cut through a side street en route to the small supermarket.

Street art on Womanby Street. The words say, "Dim cerddoriaeth ar blaned farw" (No music on a dead planet). Cardiff Castle is just visible in the distance.



The decorated horse skull wearing a sheet is a Mari Lwyd. They are traditionally seen around Christmas and New Year, accompanied by a group of people who demand to be let in and given food and drink. The demands are carried out via song with the Mari Lwyd's attendants and the householder alternating verses. In the past, the Mari Lwyd and her attendants would go round a village. These days it's done by arrangement and usually the venue for the song battle is a pub.

As I said in my reply to the comments on Tuesday's post, the engineer finally turned up at 6.10 p.m. As he had a long drive to get home, he just did the boiler and arranged for another engineer who lives much closer to come and service the gas fire on Friday morning, i.e. tomorrow. At least we have a priority 2 hour slot for that appointment due to being messed around.

Anyway, the boiler was fine so no extra expense there. We thought it was OK and it's connected to the internet and is supposed to notify the gas company if anything goes wrong, but it's nice to have its health confirmed. As far as we know, the gas fire is fine too, but we pay for the annual routine service, so it needs to be checked over.

Then yesterday what should have been the simple job of picking up another month's supply of my BP medication turned into a confusion of being told one thing by the chemists and another thing by the doctors' surgery. I finally got it sorted out this morning and picked up a new pack of tablets, so that's another job done.

Meanwhile, I am making good progress with editing the video I shot a week ago. I need to get it finished and uploaded by Sunday at the latest so it's there for Halloween.

41/52 for the Flickr group 2022 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: O is for Oil

This wasn't the shot I'd been vaguely planning all week, but when I came to look at the cooking oils in the cupboard I couldn't see how to make a decent composition with them. I'd also thought about the oil for the car or the oil I use for the bike and the sewing machine, but eventually I remembered the essential oil in the cupboard.

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In other news, the weather has been all wrong today. I had hoped (looking at the forecast) to go and shoot the video. What I want is dry but a bit gloomy with a nice dark cloudy sky. So first thing it was sunny with blue sky and a few fluffy white clouds. I saw it starting to cloud over, so still hoped the weather might be what I wanted, but on checking the forecast there was a thunder storm and heavy downpour due to arrive at noon.

There would probably have been enough time to shoot the video. I don't think it would take more than two hours to visit the locations and shoot the clips, but I didn't want to be rushing to finish before the storm arrived. So no video today.

The storm did arrive on the dot of 12.00 noon and the first lightning strikes were on the hill where I would have ended the video shoot, so not going out was the right decision. The internet was wobbly for a while so I read a book, but eventually things settled down. I then set up the photo shoot with the oil burner and it's now nearly time to stop and cook dinner.

I had thought that I might go and shoot the video about local ghosts today because the forecast said it would be cloudy this afternoon. Instead it's been glorious sunshine with not a cloud in the sky. Absolutely not spooky at all.

Just a couple of quick snaps taken with my phone while out on a short walk this afternoon.

Mare and foal (plus another foal in the background, can you spot it?)



First signs of autumn colour.

The weather forecast was favourable and G had planned another walk. We drove to Arthog and parked in the huge layby below the village hall. The name "Arthog" derives from the Welsh word for "bear" and is a reminder that we used to have bears roaming around, though they are long gone now. We also used to have wolves. Legend has it that the last Welsh wolf was killed near a place called Coed y Bleiddiau (“Wood of the Wolves”) close to the village of Maentwrog in the early decades of the 16th century. Though there's also a local legend that the last wolf was killed on a farm on the lower slopes of Cader Idris.

We followed this rather stony bridleway up through the woods. As I think I've said before, you can't really walk anywhere round here without climbing a hill. The track zig-zags steeply up the hillside. To the right was a scree slope, glimpsed through the trees.



After a couple of miles, we passed the track leading to a mill and then reached a cluster of cottages. One had a plaque saying that Henry Lloyd, a Welsh poet who used the bardic name "Ap Hefin" lived there as a child. But I think I'll do another post about him tomorrow.

At the top we briefly came out on more open land. This is the Afon Arthog (River Arthog).



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And here are the Arthog Falls! I thought it would just be rushing rapids all the way down, but there was this delightful waterfall. It was obvious from how well used the path is that most people walk up to the falls and then retrace their steps. In fact G had done that some time ago, so he knew the falls were there, but hadn't told me so it would be a surprise.



Back at the main road, there was another Cambrian Way sign.



From here we crossed the main road and the took the footpath through the fields and along the Mawddach Trail back to where we'd left the car. Total distance 3.5 miles.

And here is the final post relating to the walk on Monday. On arriving back at the Penmaenpool bridge, we were somewhat surprised to find it full of really really expensive cars. I saw Porsche, McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar and possibly others I've failed to recognise and/or read the name as I walked past.

From what I overheard later while we ate lunch at the George III hotel, out on the veranda, they were not being driven by their owners. Apparently you can buy a "drive a super expensive car" holidays.

The lead car was a Porsche.



This McLaren seems to be engaged in some sort of birdlike mating display. :-)



It was followed by a Ferrari.



This might be another McLaren, but I'm not sure.



And this is a Lamborghini.



Hiring one and driving around in a convoy is not something I'd want to do. They were horribly noisy and are really not the right car for this area with its narrow winding roads.