Posted in Glamorgan, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged geology, Glamorgan, Wales on February 5, 2017| 14 Comments »
Posted in Birds, Glamorgan, Nature, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged birds, Glamorgan, lichen, Nature, Wales, winter on December 31, 2016| 14 Comments »
Robin (Erithacus rubecula) at Dunraven on Christmas Day 2016
When it’s fine on Christmas Day we often go to Dunraven Castle at Southerndown in the Vale of Glamorgan to eat pâté and pickle sandwiches in the walled garden – our main meal of roast beef and Brussels sprouts is in the evening. This year the weather was good, with a cold, brisk wind that kept the cloudy sky interesting. (more…)
Posted in Glamorgan, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged geology, Glamorgan, lichen, Wales on July 19, 2016| 10 Comments »
Yellow lichen and broken red rock on the wall of Porthcawl Pier
This time last year I took lots of pictures of Porthcawl on the Glamorgan coast, one of my favourite places, but somehow I never got around to “processing” the photographs and blogging about them. Now I have put together many Porthcawl pictures into a gallery or two, but I decided to pick out in particular the images of lichen and rock on the pier. (more…)
Posted in Art & Design, Garden visits, Glamorgan, Uncategorized, tagged art, Dyffryn Gardens, Glamorgan on March 24, 2016| 12 Comments »
Fujin, god of wind, a bronze statue at Dyffryn Gardens
There are several Japanese bronze sculptures at the National Trust’s Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan, all of them donated by Grenville Morgan in 1951 or 1952. I’m afraid I don’t know much about the gentleman.
I will start with bronzes of a pair of fearsome nature gods, Fujin and Raijin, not currently on full display – or at least when I last saw them they were tucked away in a glasshouse. (more…)
Posted in Glamorgan, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Christmas Day, Glamorgan, Primroses, Wales, winter on December 25, 2014| 15 Comments »
Primroses in the walled garden at Southerndown, Christmas Day, 2014
It was a glorious blue-sky Christmas Day, so we went for our traditional walk at Southerndown, on Glamorgan’s Jurassic coast. Here are a few pictures of what we saw – including quite a few flowers spotted hanging on late in the season or blooming very early…
View of Southerndown as we walked down from the top car park – VERY bright sunshine!
Posted in Glamorgan, Gwent, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged Glamorgan, Gwent, Monmouthshire, Wales on January 5, 2013| 7 Comments »
House sparrows in a bush, Tintern, December 23, 2012…
I’m back at work now after a long Christmas and New Year break, and I’m picking over the scraps of our midwinter wanderings. I regret that the weather was mostly very wet and dark, so I was mostly hard pushed to take pictures as a record of where we had been.
Although I have a couple of complete blog picture posts pending, there are lots of (more…)
Posted in Glamorgan, Uncategorized, Wales, tagged coast, Glamorgan, Wales on January 1, 2013| 4 Comments »
Rest Bay, Porthcawl, on Christmas Day
I always feel the days between Christmas and New Year are like the useless nemontemi days of the Aztecs. In that week we are usually busy doing nothing apart from driving around while I try to snap some pictures. But only now am I sitting still for long enough to share them.
Firstly, here is a refreshing walk along the Wales Coast Path at Rest Bay, Porthcawl, on Christmas Day in the afternoon. It was one of (more…)
The Squirrelbasket 