Monthly Archives: August 2020

A perfect day for Pendinas

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By The Curious Scribbler

It is hard to remember last week’s grey shrieking storm.  Yesterday I walked up Pendinas in balmy sunshine, and a gentle breeze.  The sea looked as blue as the Mediterranean and the recently turbulent ocean is now calm and translucent – one can see the dark shadows of clouds upon the water, but also the shaded blotches of underwater outcrops of rock under the sea.  Looking over towards Alltwen, the black cattle were all grazing on the flat land.  Some mornings they are spread right up the hillside above the woods which enfold Tanybwlch mansion.  There is a grandeur in seeing the cattle spread out  like wild things in this huge landscape, not penned in a modest field of monocultural grass.  The flats are no longer the scene of the trotting races, but viewed from Pendinas one can still see the ghost of the grass track, subtly darker, perhaps better fertilized, than the rest of the meadow.

Alltwen and the Tanybwlch flats viewed from Pendinas

The climb is a prolonged one, even from the ‘easy’ access at the top of Cae Job in Penparcau.  Families toiled up the path to the iron age hillfort, topped with Victorian arrogance by the chimney-like monument to Wellington’s victory at Waterloo.

The path up from Cae Job

At least that is what it ostensible is.  Personally I think of it more as a monument to a local gentleman, William Eardley Richardes of Bryneithin Hall who built it in 1856 and invited subscriptions from the town.  It is no coincidence how grandly it adorns the landscape as viewed from the windows of his mansion to the south.  The victory at Waterloo was in 1815, and I would have thought that by 1856 national fervour for a monument would have somewhat abated.  Richardes himself had been in the army of occupation after Waterloo, and was moved to re-name the five fields around his house  General, Governor, Captain, Lieutenant, and Major!  They appear thus on the tithe survey of 1848.

The wellington memorial on Pendinas

There were quite a few people at the top, typically facing in all different directions!  The 360 degree panorama laid out before us has no weak point.  Take your pick for views of the harbour and the sea and the distant Lleyn Peninsula, Penglais Hill punctuated by the Hospital, the National Library and University of Aberystwyth, or Penparcau spread out around its green-roofed 20th century primary school.

I first sat on the seaward side, where the bracken and gorse given way to heather and coarse grass. A wren fidgeted around a dead tree stump below me, and the honey bees came in waves, sometimes there were none, then quite suddenly thirty or more were working their way through the flowers beside me,  then disappearing back to the hive.  This is a great spot for looking down on flying birds:  red kite, herring gulls, soaring the thermals, crows  sculling steadily across the fields.  Four speed boats came south into my view leaving white trails of wake.  When they gingerly slowed to creep into Aberystwyth harbour at low tide I could see underwater the bar which partly occludes the harbour mouth.

Aberystwyth Castle just visible from Pendinas

Speedboats approach Aberystwyth Harbour

It may be a Bank Holiday during a pandemic but there is space and beauty for all to enjoy.  Looking down, one could see around twenty cars parked at Tanybwlch beach now that the concrete barriers have been cleared away.  There has always been more than enough space for social distancing on that beach, and I am glad to see these unnecessary restrictions have been removed.

Penglais Hill, Aberystwyth, viewed from Pendinas

Penparcau, viewed from Pendinas

The view south from Pendinas

The Ystwyth enters the harbour at Penyranchor

I love a storm!

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by The Curious Scribbler

Rain last night has further swollen the rivers, and now we have wind! Exhilarating buffeting winds from the west, gusting almost hard enough to knock you over!  60 miles an hour or so I’m told.  So my place of choice is Tanybwlch, where the Ystwyth debouches into the sea.  It is murky and brown with fresh run off, and further swollen in the tidal reach because the tide is obstructing its outward flow.

High seas back up the Ystwyth river

Mist from the breakers hangs over the Tanycastell fields and the riverside path is flooded in parts.

The concrete jetty largely protects the harbour mouth, though the swell still forms regular brown rollers creeping along its leeward side.

The stone jetty protects the harbour from the south westerlies but some waves roll in

But to position yourself on the windward side on the top of the shore provides an endless spectacle, as waves break in curious explosive shapes over the green and white harbour marker, sometimes obscuring it from view, and the backwash forms swirling wave patterns in the angle between the beach and the shore.  It is easy to see how the huge stones at this end of the beach get their smooth contours.  The sea acts like a giant pebble-polishing device.

Waves breaking over the stone jetty

The town is a little tamer than Tanybwlch, but still dramatic.  At 4pm the clouds were so dark that the streetlights on the prom were glimmering into light.

The Promenade takes a battering

Unwary promenaders could get splashed by the waves curling up against the sea wall and showering spray and small pieces of gravel.  As the waves pull back the perfect profile of the sandy beach is briefly exposed.

Sand is smoothed out as the big waves flow back into the sea

The full force of the open sea is greatest at Alexandra Hall but this was a summer storm, not one of the ferocious winter ones which sometimes hurl stones at the windows of that forbidding building.  The door was open and without barricades.  Students will soon be moving in again. There were a few walkers kicking the bar, and beyond it the small piece of sandy beach below Constitution Hill was white with blown sea foam.

The north end of the beach

I came home to wash the sea salt out of my hair, much invigorated by the wind and waves.

Covid instruction fatigue

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by the Curious Scribbler

I went into Argos today to collect a purchase made online.  The store was perfectly empty of customers, and a young woman at the door directed me to a young man at  the right hand end of the counter.  Separating him from me was a broad no man’s land of diagonally placed yellow tape on the floor,  a no go zone reaching six feet from the counter.  Standing obediently outside this forbidden zone I began to state my business.  But this was not good enough.  I was instructed to move to the left  and stand with my feet upon the two footprints in a red box before my order number could be processed!  I then progressed to a second red box marked with two footprints  order to receive my order. Am I alone in suffering from instruction fatigue?

At Westonbury Water Gardens, near Presteigne last week, I and my companions obediently followed the one way system around the garden.  It was disappointing that the eccentric water-powered cuckoo clock has been disabled for the pandemic.   But we were  really nonplussed by the instructions at the approach to the toilets.  On a table outside we found instructions to use hand sanitizer and don the provided blue nitrile gloves before entering, then to discard the gloves in the bin provided on leaving.  Once inside, one was faced with a dilemma:  wash the gloves, or remove the gloves and wash the hands?  And there being no hot air hand driers to blow virus particles around the room, how to refit the gloves upon wet hands? In the end I came away with washed hands and the gloves  –  which may come in handy some time.

At Lower Brockhampton Park, we had to pay online for timed entry to the National Trust  grounds and arrive in our half hour slot, or not at all.  While this laudably limited the number of people in the outdoor setting, and understandably denied access to the house, we also found that many of the paths leading to attractive features had been roped off, and found ourselves instead on a muddy track leading nowhere interesting. Could we not have been trusted to socially distance ourselves out of doors?

In Llanidloes Church I had hoped to view the 13th Century arcade rescued from from Cwmhir Abbey after the Dissolution  and was encouraged by the sight of an open church door.  Sadly we found just the porch was open, adorned with origami doves  and a plethora of notices!

The church seems to be taking an especially discouraging approach to re-opening, in spite of Welsh government permission to do so.  Other than when services are scheduled it is rare indeed for a random church visitor to find another person already present in an average parish church.  Surely one admonitory notice and a bottle of hand sanitiser would suffice here?

These small but baffling restrictions are disruptive.  I am minded to only to frequent places where there is absolutely no one to tell me how to behave.  In this respect a weekend outing to Clywedog Reservoir ticked all the boxes!  First we parked at the Bryntail Lead Mine car park below the 100 foot dam.   Respectfully passing a few  other tourists, we walked across the footbridge, and passed through a metal gate to visit the ruined mine buildings.

Bryntail lead and barytes mine works

The only admonishment came from that wonderful cast iron Cadw warning which displays people falling over around a variety of obstacles, overhead or underfoot.  (Should the central picture be re-interpreted as a warning to avoid a person with a headache and a  sneeze?)

The Cadw warning sign is an artwork in its own right

Climbing a path from the mine ruins we rose through dunnock-infested bracken and gorse to above dam level and were rewarded with the sight of cormorants wheeling on straight wings high overhead.  They look extraordinarily prehistoric circling on high, instead of flapping industriously over the sea as one usually sees them.

Clywedog reservoir

Later we drove along the western side of the reservoir, and picnicked on the grass.  At the head of the reservoir we stopped to view the Clywedog ospreys’ breeding tree and the two fledged youngsters perching grumpily in nearby conifers.  No adult brought them fish.  Later, we read that a Clywedog osprey had chosen to take that day off  to visit their colleagues on the Dyfi Estuary.

The return to Aberystwyth via the mountain road  to Machynlleth was uplifting, with another pause to gaze down the spectacular river-cut gorge at Dylife to the U shaped valley beyond.  The Cambrian mountains were sculpted by the last ice age.  They may be lower than Snowdonia, but they offer space and tranquillity and a reassuring absence of rules.  I think we passed three cars on the way.

The Dylife Gorge