Helen

The thing about living in Wales is that it's a small country and as we've travelled around it a lot, if a TV drama is set in Wales, we're likely to recognise the location. Last night we watched another episode of "Death Valley". It's not quite a comedy, but we find it quite droll.

From Wikipedia:

Set in Mid Wales, the murder mystery series follows the unlikely crime-solving partnership between eccentric national treasure John Chapel, a retired actor and star of hit long-running detective television show Caesar, and socially obtuse Detective Sergeant Janie Mallowan.

The episode we watched yesterday involved a murder on the set where they were shooting a fantasy film which was supposed to be rather like Game of Thrones, but based on the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion. It didn't take us long to recognise Margam Castle near Port Talbot.

There are probably things that go right over the heads of English viewers, but which raise a smile to anyone who knows Wales. Janie is envious of the young actress playing Blodeuwedd and says she always wanted that part when she was at school, but was always cast as the owl. Also the references to Dan yr Ogof caves which are a popular location for a school trip or family outing.

But now I'm wondering...

We'd heard some time ago that they were filming a fantasy epic in Margam Park. It was said to be somewhat like Game of Thrones but based on Welsh myth. Is there really such a film, or was it actually the filming of that episode of Death Valley? I can't find any links now, though as our daughter-in-law works there, I know that there was publicity at the time.

We aren't quite in heatwave temperatures here, unlike other parts of the UK, but it's hotter than I like it. The Met Office app said it was 30C/86F here this afternoon. There's no breeze either, which makes if feel hotter.

I spent some time revising Book 1 in the morning, then after lunch I went out and emptied the garden wheelie bin. I want to mow the front grass tomorrow but the wheelie bin hadn't been emptied from last time so I dealt with that today. Meanwhile, here's where we went for a walk on Saturday.

We normally avoid driving anywhere on Bank Holiday weekends, but the main road to the Coed y Brenin was fine. There's plenty of parking by the mountain bike centre and the forest is huge and can absorb a lot of people, so we had a pleasant walk and only saw a dozen or so cyclists and a handful of walkers.

G decided to add an extra bit onto one of the walks we do regularly. The basic walk is 3½ miles, the extension made it 4½.

The forecast was for bright sunshine all day. In fact in our part of Wales it started out grey and overcast. But glimpses of sunshine could be seen occasionally.



( More here... )

More mossiness.



This route also took us past some wood ant nests. As it was quite hot by now, they were very active, swarming all over their anthill and rushing about, bringing more pine needle to add to it.

We'll definitely do this version of the walk again. It's nice to have different variations so we can pick one of the right length, a shorter one if we have things to do later in the day and a longer one if we have more time.

Yesterday (Sunday) I had a Zoom meeting in the afternoon. It was a Quaker Area Meeting for business. These can drag on, but in fact we got through the agenda promptly for a change and there was nothing controversial, so it only lasted 1.5 hours.

Anyway, knowing that I'd be sitting in front of the computer for a large part of the afternoon, we went for a shortish walk in the morning while it was fine.

There are a number of walks we do regularly, but we're always looking for new ones. One problem is that all our walks have to be circular. We're either starting from our front door, or we've driven somewhere and have to come back to the car. We thought it might be a change to do some A to B walks, and that's what we explored yesterday.

The idea would be to get a bus to a nearby village and then walk back home. It's safer to get the bus out, rather than walk out and hope to get a bus back, because the most frequent routes are only once an hour and some are only every 2 hours. Getting the timing right to catch a bus back might be tricky. If the walk took longer than expected, then we'd miss it and have a very long wait for the next one. If we arrived early, we could have a long wait with no shops or anything around to do.

We are also aware that route finding across country can be tricky. When we were doing the research for G's geology book, there were many public footpaths that existed on the map but, in practice, were impassable. So it would be foolish to travel out and hope to make our way home at the first attempt.

Our plan, therefore, is to walk out to the halfway point and then walk back the same way. We'll then drive to the furthest point of the walk and again walk half way before returning to the car. With luck, if we start to feel a bit lost in the middle (which is always where things get confusing), we'll recognise the place and hence the next time can try the whole walk.

Because of needing to be back in time for the Zoom meeting, we didn't get quite half way, but we did reach a good viewpoint. Some photos...

( More here... )

This was as far as we had time to go that day. The sun was popping in and out behind clouds, but for a moment the valley was beautifully lit and we got a splendid view of Cader Idris.



Here you can see the narrow path we were walking along, plus the view of the mountain.



I'm not sure where we'll walk this week. There's a newly created (or restored?) path in the Abergwynant woods, or a longer version of the walk we did last week. We'll have to see.

I'm currently rereading Terry Pratchett's Guards series. I have all the books, bought as they came out, but I'm actually borrowing the ebooks from the library because ebooks are just more convenient to read, especially if I wake early before the alarm and want to read in bed before getting up. Putting on a light would disturb G. I can read the tablet without any other light.

So... I've just finished Jingo and started reading The Fifth Element. I've not enjoyed them as much as when I first read them. I'm not sure why. Despite being fantasy, I think there was more topical stuff than I realised at the time and some of the humour has dated. Having said that, I think I'll like The Fifth Elephant more, just based on the first few pages.

Meanwhile, on the Kindle app I'm reading The Golden Crucifix by Joyce Lionarans, a self-published author I follow on Mastodon. It's a historical murder mystery, set in medieval York. I'm enjoying it, even though it's not my usual choice of genre.

In addition, I'm listening to The Pied Piper by Nevile Shute. During WWII an elderly Englishman finds himself trying to escape from occupied France along with a growing collection of children. Shute seems to be the master of writing about quiet desperation.

Yesterday (Sunday) was Quaker meeting in the morning. I made sure I got there early because an American chap had emailed to say he was going to attend. Being in a tourist area, we do get visitors from time to time, especially in the spring and summer. As it wasn't raining, I drove half way, parked the car in the layby on the old road (now a dead end for cars) and walked the rest of the way.

The wild garlic is flowering profusely. My walk didn't take me up this path, but it always looks so inviting when the wild garlic is in flower. As I was passing, I took a quick photo.



Close up of the wild garlic flowers. The May blossom was out too, but I couldn't get a photo of that on my walk.



After meeting, S (who has just returned from holiday in Corfu) had brought treats. Fresh kumquats and (very delicious) kumquats covered in dark chocolate. I'd never eaten a kumquat before or even seen one, but they are tiny citrus fruits about the size of a large grape. S explained that you just eat them whole. Biting into the fruit there is a burst of tangy citrus taste, then chewing the peel releases sweetness. The chocolate covered ones seemed to have been cooked or preserved in some way and the whole thing was sweeter and very delicious. I'm sure they will never be available to buy locally, but I will certainly look out for them again.

As it's been dry and sunny for a few days and the front grass was starting to grow and look untidy, I got the mower out and gave it its first cut of the year. It took 1.25 hours and produced 2/3 rds of a wheelie bin of grass clippings.

Over the winter we seemed to have got into a bit of a rut with our walks. The endless rain meant that some favourite walks would be quagmires, so best avoided. However, the weather has settled and it's bright and sunny and so yesterday we did a walk that G had found after exploring the paths somewhere new.

We drove to the car park near the old bridge, just to save a boring plod along a road and then on the footpath by the bypass. As you can see, the weather was glorious.

The photo is taken from half way across the old road bridge looking towards the new road bridge that carries the A470.



The whole walk was only 3 miles, but it was 1½ miles steeply up followed by 1½ steeply down, so provided more exercise that the distance alone suggests. The path led through woodland. ( More photos here... )

Before too long we were treated to a splendid view. From here you can see the entire Cader Idris range. The air was a little hazy, unfortunately. Today is clearer, but today I had to do the food shopping.

I've been hearing the woodpecker drumming for a while now. I've never managed to work out where the sound was coming from. I thought the bird was in the very tall alder that's growing just beyond the bottom of our neighbours' garden, but even with the binoculars, I could never see the bird while it was drumming.

But this morning it saw it!

I've managed to cut a path through the brambles to the very bottom of our garden and this morning I went down there to cut back some of the goat willow branches that were overhanging our bottom fence. I need to get someone with a chain saw to cut them right back, but I have cut enough to enable me to have a bonfire down there so I can burn all the brambles I've been cutting down.

Anyway, as I was standing silently contemplating the intrusive willow, the woodpecker started drumming very loudly very close by. And I finally saw it! It wasn't high up in the tree, it was much lower down and it was drumming on a wooden bird box that our neighbours had put up on the tree trunk. That explains why it's so loud. The empty wooden box is acting as a resonator.

While I'm posting...

Further to my post about the author who really shouldn't have been reading her own story, today G and I started listening to a new novel. It's being read by the author, but she's doing a good job with it. So it can be done, as long as you don't start making up weird accents and stick to only doing accents that you're capable of doing properly.

A film company was filming in town yesterday and today. It's not a TV company. It appears to be a feature film starring Anthony Hopkins. Apparently it is based on a story by Dylan Thomas and will be called "A Visit to Grandpa's".

We knew that some streets in town would be closed during the filming, but what we hadn't been aware of was that the cafe where we meet every Wednesday to chat in Welsh would also be closed. Late night emails flew around informing everyone and we decided to move to a different cafe, Y Sospan (The Saucepan).

( More photos here... )

The shop fronts had had old-fashioned signs erected over their normal shop fronts. All except for one. I actually laughed out loud when I zoomed in on the photo and saw that Siop Hughes was completely unaltered, apart from the items in window display, which were slightly more old-fashioned than usual.



I could have done with this a few weeks ago when the weekly alphabet theme was "Jalopy"!



I made my way round the back streets to the entrance to Y Sospan and looked inside. None of our group were seated at any of the tables on the ground floor, though by then it was past 10 a.m., our nominal start time. I climbed the steep and rather uneven stairs (it's a very old building) to the upper floor and found myself surrounded by extras in costume!

I made my way back outside and, after hanging around for a few minutes, met a group member who said that she couldn't join us but that M was now in the cafe. We ordered our pots of tea and took them upstairs where, ignoring the extras, we bagged a table at the far end. So it was rather a surreal meeting. There were six of us sitting around a table chatting in Welsh while extras came and went, summoned by youths with walkie-talkies and taken off somewhere, only to return to help themselves to a drink and snack later.

Then when it came time to leave, a youth wouldn't let us out through the door until we heard the word, "Cut!" issuing from his walkie-talkie.

Today the local Facebook groups were full of photos of Anthony Hopkins who was shaking hands and having his photo taken with people. But as I said, we were walking in the forest, so missed all that.

I have the Co-op app and each week there are member offers. Today, for the first time, I played their version of Wordle to earn another 50p off the weekly shop. I've actually stopped doing Wordle because I got bored with it, preferring the puzzles in the iPaper instead, but I'll do it for 50p. :-)