128. 20.05.2012 out of focus

128. 20.05.2012 out of focus

Well after yesterday’s experience at the optician, I’ve done very little today other than lie on the settee with a damp tea-towel on my forehead fending off self pity.

It was awful. The nice lady behind the desk was lovely though “You live in the stone house with the long drive don’t you?” she said “I can see your house from my kitchen window, but I’ve not got a pair of binoculars.”

“Well I have” I told her, ”but once my eyes are sorted out I won’t need them anymore”  She laughed as she walked away to fill the glass vials with hydrochloric acid that were to be squirted into my eyes in the comfort of a dark, soundproofed and locked room.

We talked about the owls and how we can hear them   “especially when you go down for a  glass of water in the middle of the night” she said.  I was going to pass comment on it being more than  just a glass of water in the middle of the night, but thought it best not to. What she doesn’t realise is that through my binoculars I can see her fridge light go on and off, and to be brutally frank,  I’ve seen one too many family sized trifles polished off before dawn.  Such behaviour is appalling and I personally would never stoop to such a thing. I know that the odd pot of clotted cream, lump of cheese and packets of ham have gone missing from our fridge, but as I point out to John – as I constantly point out to John – one of the downsides to living in an old house is the poltergeists who move things around and hide empty cartons on the secret shelf just inside the chimney breast or stuff cheese wrappers behind cupboards, especially ones in the dining room. John is by the way not exactly simple, but he does tend to believe these things.

Anyway, back to the optician. After having air blasted into my eyes,admitting that I could only see the first letter on the chart but felt certain that  there was a Q on the second line somewhere, the 50/50 quiz of guessing if the red or the green dots were brightest and three quarters of an hour saying ‘the same, better, or worse” as various things were slotted into the Dame Edna glasses she made me wear just so she could laugh at me.

She turned the lights back on and said “bi-focal”. The optician was from South Africa somewhere and I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. “That’s just a vicious rumour” I said. The optician didn’t laugh.  Opticians never do though. It comes from years of sitting too close to people with bad breath. “Bi-focals?” I thought,  I wondered just whose house the woman down the road was looking up at when she looked out of her kitchen window, but it can’t be ours.

“Varifocals” she then said. There was really no need for that, so I swore back at her. You don’t go for an eye test to be insulted.

Anyhow, after the security guards had calmed the situation down, I selected a couple of pairs of glasses – it was a buy one get one free offer – I said buy one get one free – so I bought an everyday pair and some double glazing for the landing  as well as a pair of sensible rimmed ones (filthy innuendo not intended)  for the times when I need to look intelligent and sensible in the boardroom or other meetings.  Not that I’m sensible all that often.

Anyhow, today’s picture was taken from the meadows up on  Bryn Pydew looking  down towards the woods above Mochdre. It’s an example of depth of field with only a bit of it in focus and the rest blurred. It’s deliberate.  A bit like my eyes really.

Postscript, if the lady at the optician is reading this, it was lovely to speak to you and I’ll keep my eyes open for you in the Penrhyn Arms

127. 19.05.2012 Who turned off the Gulf stream?

127.  19.05.2012 Who turned off the Gulf stream?

The doom and gloom continues. It’s getting ridiculous now.  Grey, dark, cold and miserable. Is there no end to it?  April has been and gone,  as has the lion’s share of May and it’s still no warmer than February on a mild day. In four weeks time the nights will be drawing in again and common people will be putting up their Christmas trees.

Midday today and it was 11 centigrade. For those of you of a certain age, 11 centigrade is the temperature that causes your arthritis and rheumatism to flare up, your joints to ache and the dry skin on the back of your hands to flake and crack.  It’s also the temperature of your gin and tonic.

Today on the edge of the beach it was so cold and dark that the daisies didn’t even bother opening.  They just crouched and huddled between the pebbles.  It was so cold that the dog turds were like lumps of treacle toffee. How do I know this? Because I knelt in one whilst taking this bloody picture.

There was snow last week, but not as much as there was on 17^th May 1935 when the people of Yorkshire celebrating King George’s silver jubilee woke up to 2 ft of snow. God help us all if the weather does that on a Silver jubilee, what’s it going to do on a Diamond Jubliee?

According to the statistics the mean average coldest  daily temperatue on may 19^th is  6.93 degrees, the mean average warmest daily temperature is 15.73 – that’s the average temperature over the 24 hours on this day since records began. Whenever that might be.

Just out of interest the warmest temperature ever recorded on this day was in 1948 at Glenbranter in Scotland with a pavement cracking 28.3 degrees and the coldest recorded temperature was just a few miles up the road at Stornvar in 1903 when it was a nipple stiffening -8.7.

And how do I know this? Well I’ve got a book called the Wrong kind of Snow. It’s one of my lavatory books and is filled with all sorts of trivial information that help pass the countless hours I used to spend in there  prior to the successful All Bran challenge and roughage rich health regime.

British weather, is, or so it says in the foreward, some of the most exciting in the world. To be brutally frank, I beg to differ. But there again meteorologists in corduroy jackets with elbow patches would say that, but the next time one of them doing the weather on TV cheerfully comes out with the cliché “coldest since records began” my foot is going straight through the plasma screen. I’ll teach them.

Today’s picture by the way taken on Craig-y-Don beach. Just out of focus in the background are a number of ice bergettes on their way down from the even colder seas in the North, and  now that the Gulf Stream is about to stop (it’s called climate change, not global warming, climate change) , it looks like we’ll be seeing more and more of them and less and less blue thighed Brits in the sea so I suppose there is a cloud to every silver lining – or whatever the saying is.

126. 18.05.2012 nasty gash

126. 18.05.2012 nasty gash

Welsh slate, as we all know, roofed the Empire on account of it being tolerant of extreme wet and cold and scorching heat.  From  the slave barracks of the paradise islands of the Caribbean to the convict holding  centres  of Australia  to the prisons in Victoria's jewel of the crown, slate was blasted mined and quarried  from the top left hand corner of Wales and transported around the world. It was fundamental in building the biggest empire the world has ever seen. At one point the British were imposing cricket, their warped Caucasian superior  morals and questionable high standards on a quarter of the world's population. No mean feat and something the Reagan and Bush administrations were only ever able to dream of achieving.

It also kept and keeps out the water in many a town and city across Europe and closer to home the back to backs and slums of our cities in which the underdogs, workers and scum were crammed in the six hours in the  day that they weren’t down t'pits, up t'mill or down  ont’ farm  maintaining the nouveau Lords of the Manor's extravagant  lifestyles.

The Welshmen (and the Irish immigrants) who quarried the slate weren’t much better off either.  The arrogant quarry owners, always English by the way, were prepared to see their minions starve to death rather than grant them any form of basic human rights. The lord of Penrhyn Castle perhaps being the worst of the lot of them. (google the Penrhyn  lockouts for one of the many truly appalling social chapter in our island’s history.)

These days the quarries are as good as silent and with the exception of the odd garden ornament, driveway chippings, coasters, placemats  or heart shaped souvenirs  from Wales not much is produced (with notable exceptions of the Welsh Assembly buildings at Llandudno Junction or the cafe at the top of Snowdon). Concrete roof tiles are cheaper and where slate is still used, for example on the un- vernacular  carbon copied clones of those  out of town Morrisons or Tescos , most of it comes from South America as its actually cheaper to quarry and ship it here than it is to produce it here.

When we looked into a slate floor, Brazilian slate was a third of the price of the stuff lying about just a few miles up the road. Anything with the tag ‘Brazilian’ whether it be covered in chocolate or a shaped bush fills me with horror.

In fact Penrhyn quarry is currently struggling and faces closure as it can't compete. Another example of the inability of this  Empireless island and in particular the resource rich corner of Wales to exploit her riches.

One of the bi-products of the Welsh slate trade was that the gashes (and I type  that word with a look of distain on my face) and holes in the hills have  been used for crappy sci-fi series. Just like all planets in Star Trek look like arid bits of Arizona, most British sci-fi episodes look like slate quarries. Hardly an episode of Dr Who between 1970 and 1985 wasn't filmed here and to this day strands of Tom Baker's scarf or one of John Pertwee's frills can be spotted  by the eagle eye observant. It was only the episodes with daleks in that weren’t filmed here. Daleks don't like roughly blasted surfaces you see. They much prefer smooth studio floors like the Blue Peter studio.  Meanwhile Blake and his seven visited a never ending number of planets with a hint of an abandoned Welsh quarry about them and not even the red or yellow filters on the camera made them look remotely alien.

But still they come. Scenes in  The Clash of the Titans and the dreadful Lana Croft franchises also have the look of a damp quarry on a Tuesday look about them.

This is the quarry at Llanberris, no longer worked and nature is slowly taking over again although it might be a good few years, possibly even more before the terraces and levels are smoothed down.

The water of Llyn Peris in front of Dinorwic quarry  really is this colour and when the sun shines  it does actually look like  Avon,Villa or Cally might be crouched behind a rock firing a superimposed phaser gun at a member of the Federation.

Right, the 15:50 USS Arrivaprise  is about to trundle in to Colwyn Bay and there are cling ons on everywhere. Damn this All Bran challenge. Beam me up Scotty.

125. 17.05.2012 For Johnnie and John

17.05.2012 For Johnnie and John

Today my thoughts are with a friend who this morning lost the most important and special person in his life. His husband.

John, there is nothing that words can say to ease your pain.
... Johnnie, it was a pleasure to have met you and heard you laugh and chuckle.

Perhaps the clouds will be your pillow amongst the birds you so loved until the day that John will be with you once again.

124. 16.05.2012 Purple pineapples

124. 16.05.2012 Purple pineapples

Obviously they’re not really pineapples. Pineapples aren’t purple.  And pineapples are bigger. And they don’t grow on plants but come in rings in tins.

Throughout history, wherever there’s been an old lady, there’s been lavender. In fact, when God  had that spare week on his hands in which he created the world,  after creating Adam He stopped to eat  an apple and went on to create Eve, but being a wise old bean, He realised  that Eve would one day become an old lady.  So  He created lavender because, to be brutally frank, the thought of wee wee knocked him sick. Concerned that lavender might not be enough, He created highly scented roses,  and lilly of the valley spray scents. It’s also  a little known fact that  He also created highly scented roses and a little known fact is that He is also the patent owner of Tena Lady, although you have to read between the lines in the Bible to interpret that little fact. Not that anyone actually interprets the Bible to suit their own causes though.

These ones aren’t the ones that they stuff into little muslin bags though and they’re not as scented as the ones old ladies prefer.  They’re French lavender. English lavender is the one that smells nice. I could make a comment about the French not smelling nice, but shall resist the temptation. It’s just a fact of life and one that  has been addressed elsewhere.

Lavender, alongside daffodils, is my favourite flower. In a previous life in Holland, I had a roof terrace that was planted entirely with them.  I used to sleep outside in the summer amongst it. Perhaps odd by most people’s way of thinking, but to fall asleep under the stars with the hazy sweet  smell of lavender is one of the unique joys in life.

It’s also tasty, especially with salmon, or a sprinkling of the flowers in a salad or  in cheese and chocolate. Try it!

123. 15.05.2012 the lonely buttercup

123. 15.05.2012 the lonely buttercup

Just a stone’s throw from the gloriously floral Bryn Pydew, the fields are green. Remarkably green. Nitrogen enriched green. The colour of Man Utd fans faces yesterday green ...you get the idea...green.

Buttercups. It’s how parents work out if their offspring prefer butter or the more healthy option of a vegetable  alternative like Flora or maybe an olive based spread that keeps old people in Italy young, vital and horny. Berlosconi swears by it and has an array of busty signore to apply it. All over. He never actually eats it though and  hates the taste by all accounts.

 The proper name for buttercup – that’s the one that serious horticulturists call them is ranuculus which is derived from Latin for little frog (rana = frog plus a diminutive) probably because a lot of species grow around ponds. 

But in the Germanic languages it has connections with butter, Boterbloem in Dutch, (boter = butter and bloem = bloom)  Butterblume in German and Lurpak-blomst in Danish, although Jakob Larsen will need to confirm that.

Despite it’s connections with butter, it’s toxic to cattle despite the fact that it’s toxic to cowsand tastes vile which is why there are lots of them in fields full of grazing cows.   

People in unenlightened times used to think that it was the yellow that made butter yellow because the cows ate them. The same people also used to think that if you held one up to your neck or smelt one on the night of a full moon you would turn insane, hence the name “crazyweed” which might be a warning because the acid in them  can be toxic to humans too.

Beggars were aware of this and would deliberately rub buttercup juice on their skins to arouse sympathy to blister the skin. A sort of mediaeval chemical peeling. Meanwhile enlightened fishermen used to pour buttercup tea on the ground which brought the worms to the surface.

So there you go, a fact filled post with only one made up fact. But which one?

122 14.05.2012 Blue Skies over Manchester

122. 14.05.2012 Blue skies over Manchester.

6pm on a Monday evening. Normally at this time of day the  city centre is thronging with buses cars,  commuters, impatient black cab drivers place is full of traffic and drab faced  and drab clad commuters going back to wherever they go back to.

But this evening Manchester was different. No traffic in the city centre.  Metrolink took full advantage of the situation and were delighted to  announce that there were delays on the system and advised that this would have a  knock on effect until... well until the Christmas lights go up.

Everywhere people thronging and lining the streets. Smiling, happy, flag waving. Families. Lots of children. People thronging, flag waving  and happy.  Blue being the colour.  Blue everywhere.  Blue skies, blue shirts, blue flags, blue banners,  blue scarves, blue silly hats and vendors selling blue candy floss and women of a certain age with blue veined legs in comfortable footwear.  Oh and blue faces on the other half of the city who wear red shirts.

Just a shame that the sullen other half are such bad losers. Today I’ve not seen this  many slumped bottom lips, sulking and bad tempers since junior  school when Mrs Ellis told us that Father Christmas wasn’t coming because we had all been noisy.

To be brutally frank, I can take or leave football.  If Wales are playing, I support them, if Holland are playing  I support them, if England or Scotland are playing I support them. If the Faroe islands are playing I support them. Basically I always support the underdogs.  

The noisy neighbours have done well. The balance of power appears to be swinging. Amazing what a bit of money can do.  It’s taken them 44 years to do it, but they have and well done to them. Come on you  mard arses... give them credit J  it is after all...only a game J

Right... let the comments flow forth...

119. 12.05.2012 Timotei – for body, shine and balance

119. 12.05.2012 Timotei – for body, shine and balance

We planned this meticulously. We’ve known Katy Garner nee Katy Hinderance for long enough to know that pride in personal appearance is fairly low down on her priority. In fact to be brutally frank, she just doesn’t care.

Her hygiene regime usually consists of a quick run through at the BP carwash. Mark (that’s her husband) tethers  her to a pallet on the end of a length of rope and a couple of hefty lads  and a dray horse drag her from rinse to buffer to polish through to  blow.  There is usually a certain amount of uncalled for screaming  and high dramatics,  but no more than can be expected from someone from Lincolnshire.  Normally the promise of a bag of Sports Mixtures, a sherbert dib-dab  and a bottle of  fizzy Vimto from the BP Shop is enough to quieten her down.

Anyhow, when it was known that Katy was coming we decided that the falls at Abergwyngregyn (that’s Aber falls for the lazy) was the place Katy would be viewing. Closely.

Those of you of a certain age will remember the Timotei advert which featured the woman washing her locks under a waterfall. Well, Timotei wasn’t available but we did have a bottle of Stardrops under the sink. It’s good on limescale, grime and build ups. Just the thing.

An hour later, the new, sparkling Katy Garner appeared from the plunge pool looking like a picture of spring health. Miracles can happen.

Oddly enough as we walked up to the falls a chap, a rather shifty looking chap to be brutally frank  stopped John and pointed vaguely in my direction and said something about facebook. (John is unclear as to what exactly was said, and it’s like getting blood out of a stone) but the man in question had seen me first, not recognised me without my TV makeup, then spotted John and put one and one together. I didn’t have a pen for an autograph though.  Honestly, I don’t get a minute’s peace.

Pleased to have met you Nick J !!

Right, must dash, Katy needs a rub down with something..... happen  the old horse blanket in the back shed will do.

118. 11.05.2012 I can see clearly now

118. 11.05.2012 I can see clearly now

The man looked out of the window.

Beyond the leaded panes the world was dripping and dull and ashen and bleak.

Like a sulking diva, spring had decided to disappoint her adoring fans. Fans who had waited all through the winter for what was billed as a  gala performance. There was to be no glittering or sparkling performance. Not this year.

 Without the pageant of spring, the  valley  was bereft of colour and joy and slumbered half way between dormancy and despondence.

The mud came up to the  farmer's ankles and his dog patted about in the  week rotting shoots in the fields. It was, they said, in smug, faux jolly voices  “the  wettest spring since records began”. The farmer shook his head and for once  agreed with the hind sight speaking  forecasters in their nice suits in the city far away.

 A  blackbird sat quietly and morosely on her damp nest. She knew that her eggs should be the same colour as the sky. They weren’t.  She so wanted her home to be warm and cosy. She thought back to the days of her own childhood. Blue and fluffy skies,  sunny and full of hope. Not like this.  She hated this  spiny miserable place. She hated it so much she couldn't even be bothered singing in the morning.

 The hawthorns  cried quietly to themselves, but nobody could hear them above the wind. Done  up to the nines in their frothy blooms of white. Dressed to impress. But the bees stayed away and slumbered and dozed in their empty hives.

The sheep looked  to her twins. They should be jumping and bouncing. They weren’t. She too remembered the carefree days of her childhood.

Within the garden wall, the slates on the shed roof lay like fallen dominoes. Like the hawthorn, they've put on their best finery. They always do when it rains but nobody ever  appreciates the effort they go to. They sighed and shifted gently in a gust.  Nobody ever appreciated their  rich hues of green and turquoise and the rainbow of  grey.  Neither did the man behind the splashed panes. They did their best to shelter the  damp remnants of last winter's  coal that shuddered  in the darkest corner, but the angry rain drove the dampness through the gaps.

Like the sky,  and the valley and the world outside, the man's  face was ashen and grey.  And the clouds in his head hung  low and black.

For five days. Black and endless. A black and endless migraine. Take one twice a day. Do not exceed daily dose. If symptoms persist... If symptoms persist? Do what exactly?

An underlying headache with the power and sound of a fairground generator. Dull and never ending and without the screams and cries of delight or the promise of candy floss for the way home.

Somewhere behind the left eye, there are fireworks. Diamond jubilee fireworks and hand held sparklers all in full  display. The right eye doesn’t see them but isn’t missing out.  If there was a crowd they would be oohing and cooing with delight. But to be brutally frank, the only person to see them just wishes he could turn his back and gaze at the cold black clouds instead. 

And then, after a week, there's a break. The evening sun peeps out, the clouds turn to apricot and peach and custard and raspberry ripple ice cream, the blackbird feels a sudden urge to sing to her husband and to  her neighbours and to everyone else around. The  sheep casts an eye towards her bouncing offspring hoping that they don’t over do it on the first day  and the cowslips on the high meadows shake  off the droplets and shout with yellow joy.

Today's picture : a brief moment of spring on Bryn Pydew amongst the swathes of cowslip.

117. 07.05.2012 Little Orphan @.

117. 07.05.2012 Little Orphan @.

Meet @.   @ was abandoned when he was no bigger than a large ball of wool.

His mum, a mangle wurzel addict, was unable to cope and sadly rejected him.  Poor little @ could well have nearly lost his short life.  Luckily the farmer  hand fed him through the precious first few weeks of his life and christened him @ with a blue aerosol on his back.

@  lives in a slate enclosed paddock on the hills above the Menai under the shelter of the Carneddau.  He shares the field with four of his friends.  Minty,  Sauce, Rosemary and Leg of. All his friends are orphans too. They will never know their mums.  

Despite the cruel and harshness of how life treated them, @ and his friends are happy now and spend all their time bounding about, jumping up and down on the spot, enjoying the sunshine and the views out over the sea.

We need your help though. To ensure that @ and all the other little orphans like him enjoy life to the full, we need your support. Please send £2.50, or whatever you can afford to Tim Shawcross.   Remember, a lamb isn’t just for the spring, it’s for the Sunday roast as well.

Thankyou.

Anyhow, after descending from the hills to the farm where the plain flattens out to the sea, this cluster  of  lambs came running towards us, bleating their little hearts out thinking that we were the farmer. The first four came to look, coyly sniffed our hands but not recognising our scent kept their distance. This little chap however didn’t seem to care. He was desperate to get to us and didn’t want us to go.  He loved being stroked and tickled and gave us little cheek buts like cats do when they want their ears tickled.  

I wanted to take him home, but John wouldn’t let me. John is like that. Any avenue of potential pleasure and he puts up a road block.

116. 06.05.2012 Grazing the graves

116. 06.05.2012 Grazing the graves

It’s not every day that you come across a Princess Leia wannabe grazing in a graveyard. In fact to be brutally frank, this was the first time for me.

This is the wettest graveyard in the country. It’s the original chapel that gave its name to the hamblet of Capel Curig, Capel Curig has been recorded as the wettest place in Britain, but for an island where it pisses down every other day, it’s a fairly meaningless record really, it just means it pisses down slightly more than elsewhere although considerably more than where Boris is, but who cares about him anyway. He’s a long way away.

Like so many chapels and churches in Wales, there would have been a timber and wattle construction before the 13^th and 14^th century building seen  today was erected. (once again, please don’t titter at the usage of the word ‘erected’. It’s not funny and it’s not clever and I don’t know what alternative to use) The bell in the tower is dated 1623. How old the bell end is though  is a matter for conjecture.

During the 19th century the church became too small to accommodate the congregation and a new church was opened in 1883. The new church was dedicated to St. Curig, the boy martyr and the dedication of the old church was then changed to St. Julitta - Curig's mother. It remained in use until the 1970s when it was deconsecrated and is now used as community and visitor centre. Although when we visited... it was locked.

Anyway, the custodians of the graveyard appear to be three sheep who keep the grass trim and proper. Another of my favourite places in Wales.

115. 05.05.2012 The first cuckoo

115. 05.05.2012 The first cuckoo

Sitting by the shores of Llyn Bodgynydd with a cheesy bap in one hand and fingering a bag of Ready salted with the other (173 calories, suitable for vegetarians and a good source of vitamin C & D) with   not another human in sight – and yes, John was with me.
Silence save for the breeze tickling the birch and larch trees and then a  sound that heralds the real spring  resounded across the trees and water.  The first cuckoo.

It’s May.

The weather might not know it.

The cuckoo does.   

Half an hour earlier we were sheltering from hailstones not quite the size of fabled golf balls, in fact they were hardly noteworthy of anything, but not nice to be caught by the unawares.  I was once caught by my unawares and believe you me, it was not particularly pleasurable but that’s something that’s been discussed at length elsewhere.

In the avian world, cuckoos are not held with great esteem. They are crap parents.  If birds had their own television channel, they would be the ones to appear on Jeremy Kyle. Their offspring would be called  Linzi-Dorn [sic]  and Keanu [not sic, just stupid].  They get knocked up once a year, leave their ill behaved kids with a neighbour whilst they flit back and forth to the talon and nail salon or go on foreign holidays without a thought for their little ones.

One well reported case a couple of years ago was that of an unfit mother who flew off to sunnier climes to top up her tan leaving little Kylie at home alone. She was arrested at the airport, somewhat worse for wear, but claimed that she’d left Kylie with a tin opener, a couple of tins of beans  plus  the Sky remote control  so couldn’t really see what the problem was.

Anyhow the cuckoo, when not forced to perform in clocks, traditionally only  sings between  St Tiburtius Day (April 14^th) and St John’s day (24^th June)

The first time you hear the cuckoo sing, you are supposed to turn over all the coins in your pocket, spit and not look at the ground. If you are standing on soft ground you will have good luck for the rest of the year, but if the ground is hard the outlook is bleak. I was sitting on  my pac-a-mac cagoule. Not sure if that bodes well or not. But at least it wasn’t the medicinal rubber ring.

114. 04.05.2012 Trainspotting (not)

114. 04.05.2012 Trainspotting (not)

I’ve got a pac-a-mac cagoule and could spend at least an hour exalting both the versatility and convenience of it. It has a lightweight yet sturdy black zip and the hood has an elasticated  drawstring which comes in useful during bouts of inclemency.  It all folds up very neatly into a pouch that can be attached via a loop to a jeans belt. It could just as easily be attached to a pair of casual brown cords or perhaps a pair of beige weekend slacks. I chose one in a sensible middle-aged dark navy blue, but a range of colours are available from colours at the gaudy end of the spectrum to those at the dull  end that people like trainspotters plump towards.

We should’ve known that something untoward was afoot as at every vantage point along the A5 between Llangollen and Carrog there were groups of excited, yet amazingly boring looking men setting up cameras on tripods with oversized and pointless lenses.  Some of them had dragged their wives out for the day and they were sitting in foldaway chairs basking in the excitement of a cup of something from a Thermos can in a layby whilst admiring their husband’s choice of cagoule and legwear. I’m assuming that they were their wives, but there again they could’ve been a match from an online dating agency (hobbies include darning,  Paul O Grady, TV cookery programmes,  reading the stories in People’s Friend and the prize crossword in Woman’s Own.  Enjoys the occasional run out to the country but not keen on mud. Favourite colours mushroom and taupe)

Anyway, a trainspotter I’m not. I might have the cagoule, but I don’t have a proper camera, a foldaway chair, a jotter and click-pen  or a wife with a face like a limestone escarpment. But as I saw the steam coming around the mountain, and to the sound of  heavy palpitations, and possibly flatulation  - I always lose control when I get excited – I  rushed across the busy A5 to take a quick shot of the train as it passed.  I did think about jotting  down the number or serial number or whatever it is that real trainspotters do, but to be brutally frank, I couldn’t be arsed and there was mud on my shoes.

This train runs on the  Llangollen Railway that  was once part of the old Ruabon to Barmouth line, one that Dr Beeching disliked and closed  in the sixties. A shortsighted crime really given the fact that it not only traverses some breathtaking scenery, but would have provided valuable transport links for this bit of Wales, as would all the other ‘branch lines’ that were more than just branches but essential for many.

Right, that’s me done. Off to do a bit of darning and check the zip on my cagoule for tomorrow’s run out.

113. 02.05.2012The ladies of Llangollen.

113. 02.05.2012The ladies of Llangollen.

This isn’t the house that the two ladies lived in, but it reminds me of them, possibly because I once read a book about them and there was a picture like this on the front cover.  It was taken above the Vale of Llangollen looking towards the heartland of North Wales.  The light had a mystical quality to it and the picture reflects it. It’s almost like a painting

As to the ladies of Llangollen, well...  they were actually Irish and fled here from their home in the 18^th century.

Eleanor was a member of the dynastic Butler family of  Ireland and amongst her ancestors were Anne Boleyn  - that’s the one that had too many fingers and a head too short.  As it became obvious that she wasn’t going to get married, her mother tried committing her to a convent to stop her turning into a spinster, but Eleanor was having none of that catholic bull.  Other famous Butlers have included  the bus driver Stan Butler, Brabinger, Carson and Paul Burrell, but to be brutally frank, they weren’t related to Sarah.

Sarah who lived nearby was also well to do and had Earls and Ladies on her family tree. Don’t we all.

They met in 1768 and quickly became friends. Well actually they were [lifts hands off keyboard, glances to the left and the right and then behind, lowers fingers to keyboard and types the word lesbian] lesbian.

The rainbow flag and those two little circles with crosses on them hadn’t been invented at that time in Ireland so in 1778 they ran away together.

They ended up in Llangollen where they set up home but racked up huge debts due to their life style and relied on friends to support them. They became known as “The ladies” despite not being interested in socialising or fashion. I could make a comment about boiler suits, checked shirts and dungerees at this point, but I shall resist the temptation.

After a couple of years, their life attracted the interest of the outside world. Their house became a haven for all manner of visitors, mostly writers such as Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Sir Walter Scott, not to be confused with Sir Walter Raleigh who wasn’t a writer but the man who circumcised the globe. A young Rolf Harris also visited and was commissioned to paint the first known portrait of a pair of lesbians.

Queen Charlotte wanted to see their cottage and persuaded the King to grant them a pension and eventually their families came to tolerate them.

They lived together for the  rest of their lives, an amazing 50 years.  Eleanor died in 1829. Sarah died two years later.

In April last year, the same month in which the first Irish civil partnerships took place, a forward thinking Ireland finally acknowledged the fact that they were Ireland’s first openly lesbian couple.  Whatever next...

112. 01.05.2012 Road to nowhere

112. 01.05.2012 Road to nowhere

Taken from Llantysilio Mountain  looking eastwards across the Clywdian range to the escarpments above the Dee valley.

The Clwydian  range is the first buffer of mountains you cross when coming into North Wales and is an area of designated area of outstanding natural beauty with miles of  unspoiled rolling heather clad hills and peaks. They run, if that is the thing that mountains do,  from the coast in the North near Prestatyn down to Llandegla. The highest one is Moel Famau,  the one with the TV transmitter that you can see from the A55 -  and also our  bedroom window on a good night is Moel y parc.

I can also see them from Manchester on a good day, calling to me to come home,  but Manchester being Manchester that’s only once or twice a year and then only ‘weather permitting’ Perhaps best really as my hiraeth for home is unbearable at the best of times.

As it was historically, and still is come to think of it, the first buffer of mountains over the border, it is rich in the remains of defensive Iron Age hillforts, castles, tumuli and cairns although nothing on the scale of a Cadw run castle or fort (with gift shop). By the way, don’t ask me what a tumuli is, I can just see them marked on the map.  

As can be expected, and this being Wales, there are legends associating these hills with King Arthur as well as being the setting for some of the tales from the Mabinogi and numerous spiritual and ghost scattered yarns. Given the fact that the majority of tourists flock to Snowdonia or Rhyl sun centre, it’s easy to climb up high and immerse and experience the loneliness and the  spirt of  centuries past and  understand why there are legends of these hils.

So, here is it. A road  cut out of the heather. A road from nowhere, a road to nowhere.

111. 30.04.2012 Man on the Edge

111. 30.04.2012 Man on the Edge

John is always telling me that I’m pushing him closer to the edge. To be brutally frank I’ve no idea what he’s on about.  But it’s mutual. There is only so much plucking of hairs from ears that a person can take.
After combing through the small print on the insurance policy, I thought a trip out to the Horseshoe pass was on the cards and some shots for the picture of the day of him dicing on the  rim of the  chasm (innuendo not intended) The sort of picture that could be framed in a tasteless gold frame above an  urn on a mantelpiece, perhaps with a string of alternating fairy lights for ambiance with some personal nick-nacks like his Vicks nasal stick (which to my knowledge he’s had for the last 7 years) or the congealed bottle of  Compound W or his favourite   callus file, or his   electric jumper-bobble remover – personal and sentimental items.

Anyhow, the spoil sport was sulking and wouldn’t pose and spent half an hour stamping up and down the lay-by whilst I skipped up  llantysilio mountain with the agility of a Great Orme goat.  (it’s the new fitness regime you see)

The pass is oddly enough horseshoe shaped but in  Welsh it  translates as Pass of the Cold Stream (Bwlch yr Oernant) -  think of it like having a wee in the Irish sea  but with the stream being cold and not warm.

The pass was built in 1811 and was originally part of the turnpike road.  It’s often closed in winter due to snow and landslips or bikers protesting about the price of fuel.

The bikers love the thrill of  speeding  up and down it two or three abreast  on the wrong side of the road, maybe because the white line in the middle of the road doesn’t actually apply to them, I don’t know.  They  don’t seem to be put off by the many bunches of roadside flowers along its length. Years ago I used to pillion ride a friend with a motor bike (no inuendo intended) and to be brutally frank, I got through more pairs of underpants than I care to think about.

There’s a cafe at the top – The  Ponderosa which is where all the leather clad bikers head to to have a bacon butty and a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup standing around in groups pointing at each other’s bikes. To the untrained eye one bike looks very much like another to me, unlesss there’s a peg with a bit of cardboard stuck to the mudguard or those  coloured beads in the spokes that make a noise when they ride past.   
The Ponderosa, just like every tourist hot spot in Wales sells just about every item of tat that you could find in just about every other tourist shop in every part of  Wales. The tat that Welsh people don’t actually buy  – fridge magnets with dragons on them, pencils with dragons on them, notepads with dragons on them,  dragons with dragons on them and dragons with dragons with little dragons on them  as well as the much sought after Welsh lady ass. fudge. Oh and the very flimsy traditional Welsh cookery books filled with classics such as Welsh rarebit, Welsh cakes and Bara Brith and ermm other traditional Welsh fare like that.

110. 29.04.2012 Place your bets on another drought warning

110. 29.04.2012 Place your bets on another drought warning

Betfred Llanrwrst. The throbbing Mecca for men with purple noses, plastic trainers, pouches of tobacco  and smoker’s phlegm donned  in mismatching sportswear and other forms of casual wear.

“Just sit in the car and don’t mess with anything whilst I pop into Spar for some essentials” said John. So I did just that. As good as gold I was. I didn’t  bib the horn, I didn’t flash the lights, I didn’t engage the reverse gear, I  left the handbrake as it was,  I didn’t  climb from the front to the back and the back to the front again. Neither did I rummage through the glove compartments in search of lost mints. Neither did I run the battery flat listening to the radio at full pelt and neither did I lie on the parcel shelf and pull faces at passers by. I didn’t even daub the wet windows. Like I said, I was as good as gold. To be brutally frank, I just wasn’t in the mood today.

I just sat there taking pictures of people going in and out of Betfred. I live an exciting life, but there again, what else is there to do on a wet day in April in Llanrwrst when everything has closed down for the rest of the year?  It’s a glorious place in the sunshine when the place is a hub of local activity,  less so in the rain.

Anyway, without being too tenuous, I reckon that all the purple nosed, white socked men going in would be placing bets on the odds of yet another drought and hosepipe ban being enforced on the same day that flood warnings, gale warnings and yellow rain warnings were issues with those little red triangle things that pop up on the forecast. 

It transpires that it’s the wrong kind of rain in the wrong places at the wrong time of year.  But seeing as the entire country is being yellow rained on,  just where is the right or wrong place for it to be raining?  Even sub-Saharan London is getting a tipping. There really is no winning with these panic merchants.

Oh and yellow rain alerts are real. Check out the met office website. Those of you with disgusting minds will automatically assume that yellow rain is something to do with poor plumbing on a busy Saturday in a Wetherspoon’s urinal. I don’t.

109. 28.04.2012 Valle Crucis

109. 28.04.2012 Valle Crucis

The vale of Llangollen was in medieval times the ideal place to set up an abbey. It was remote and wild and before coach loads of cagoule clad daytrippers discovered it, it was on the edge of the wilderness.

The monks who lived here were of the Cistercian variety. In other words they looked like monks, wore white  dressing gowns with hoodies  held together with one of those  posh curtain cords people in detached houses have  and they all had bald spots. 

In fact the Cistercians only admitted fat, balding middle aged men into their fold. If only I had been born 800 years ago.

They founded their abbey at Valle Crucis in the 13^th century and added bits to it for the next few hundred years including in the 15^th century a new hall and a heated private apartment for the abbot, which went somewhat against the Cistercians basic way of life. Like the majority of abbeys it was dissolved in 1537 but was by accounts at the time in a poor state of repair before this.

Valle Crucis,  or  'Valley of the Cross', is named after Eliseg's Pillar, a 9th century Christian memorial cross which stands nearby.

People often ask me about the various orders of monks. “Tim” they ask, “tell me about the different orders of monks” In fact people come up to me all the time and ask me. To be brutally frank, it can be a bit tiresome, but for the umpteenth time, here is a quick résumé

Cistercian – bald, fat jolly monks. Friar Tuck might have been one of these, but his dressing gown was the wrong shade

Belgian – were good at making chocolates in the shapes of seashells for some unknown reason.

Nasturtium – wore gowns of bright orange and were usually covered in caterpillars.

Amphibian – spent most of their time praying at the bottom of ponds

Coercian – usually used pressure to do things like making cheese or pressing grapes through thin mesh to make wine

German – known for their hilarious sense of humour. Usually tall and blond with a liking for towels and poolside sunloungers.

Gluten – an intolerant order.

Insertion – generally popular with nuns

Frisian – favoured black and white dressing gowns. Known for their milk.

Piston – also generally popular with nuns

Grecian – there were more than 2000  orders of Grecian monks, Grecian 2000 being the best known. As a rule the members of this order had unnaturally dark hair.

Roentgen – this order wore very thin robes, practically see through. 

Piston – not to be confused with the other Piston order, this order was famed for their honey mead and traditionally brewed ales. Usually preferred to pray in silence on Sunday mornings.

So there you go. Don’t say I never teach you anything.