My Walk this Week 261 – Cally Gardens, It’s All About the Plants

Posted on 18/06/202114/06/2021 by Alastair

My walk this week is in Cally Gardens in Scotland where it is all about the plants. We have been visiting this nursery garden for many years and used to enjoy hearing and learning about Michael Wickendon’s plant expeditions and explorations around the world. Sadly Michael died on one of those expeditions a few years ago but the garden has been take over since then by Kevin Hughes and he is clearly developing and maintaining the plants and garden in a similar vein to its past.

I do not have a video from this garden walk to include but the video on the diary page of the Cally website is enjoyable and informative.

My Walk this Week 204 – A Wander in the Park

Posted on 24/04/202020/04/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week takes a wander through our local park – Coedbach Park. Along with other parks in the county of Swansea were closed for a few days once the Covid-19 lockdown started, but eh council were good enough to open them again quite quickly. It would have been a great shame not to see it Spring development.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon and I made the time for a stroll through the park – I thought I might see the ducklings my daughter had reported to me. Alas, I was only able to enjoy the spectacular blooming of the trees near the entrance and the woodland wildflowers, garlic, wood anemone and bluebells, the crooked oak trees and the sounds of the birds – poor me 😉Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 203 – Spring Garden

Posted on 17/04/202017/04/2020 by Alastair

My walk this week returns to our garden where Spring is in full flow with the birds singing and the colours spreading.

But there is a rare anomaly for me in this post! The images and soundscape are from different weeks with the audio being recorded one week earlier than the photos. This is very unusual for me but there is a reason for it. The recording was made while I was digging the first small vegetable patch and as I did so in the breezy sunshine, a blackbird sang his heart out in the trees behind me and it was such a joy to be doing this work to his and other birds accompaniment.Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 158 – Uphill from The Waterside

Posted on 10/05/201922/05/2019 by Alastair

My walk this week is a welcome return to my friends Sue and Steve at The Waterside in a nearby Welsh valley where they have a beautiful lake and a fascinating herd of alpacas. I wanted to climb uphill from the lakeside to get more of an overview of the valley and the landscape around it. On this particular morning I had spent my time doing admin and taking a break in such a relaxing location was just what I needed.

Hillside by The Waterside

So after an enjoyable lunch on the First Friday open day in May I took myself off to look at the bluebells and blossom of the hill on the far side of the lake. The sun shone intermittently and Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 157 – High Tide Deposits and Spring Growth

Posted on 03/05/201902/05/2019 by Alastair

My walk this week follows high spring tides on my local marshes and looks at the deposits they left as well as the new wildflower and marsh grass growth coming through with Spring.

Bluebells en route

Spring tides occur twice a month every month, as do neap tides, not just in the Spring. The term “spring tide” is given to those tides that have the greatest difference in height between high and low tide, but the highest tidesContinue reading→

My Walk this Week 150 – Weathering at the Botanic Gardens

Posted on 15/03/201913/03/2019 by Alastair

My walk this week is at the National Botanic Garden of Wales where there was some weathering they could not control. Outside the Great Glasshouse the sun and rain, heat and cold have taken their toll on this metal plant label and the paint has cracked and peeled into a most interesting, map-like pattern.

Inside the Great Glasshouse they can and do control the weather conditions for the different parts of the world represented there. So while there are times of year when everything in there seems so busy with growth, there are always fantastic colours, patterns and textures to enjoy whatever the time of year.Continue reading→

My Walk this Week – Spring Walk in A Woodland Park

Posted on 07/05/201805/05/2018 by Alastair

My walk this week is in my local park – it’s a beautiful place and in recent years has been managed and developed by a volunteer group. I am ashamed to say I have not contributed my time to this group unless you include the promotion of the place via this blog.

The management and development of the woodland and other areas is a good thing in many respects, certainly it is if it gets more people using and benefiting from it. For myself, I love it now and I loved it before just as much. I suspect the birdsContinue reading→

On Returning Home

Posted on 29/04/201429/04/2014 by Alastair

Firstly I must thank everyone for the likes and comments made while we have been away. If I have not done much liking or commenting on my first day back from our Easter break, I can only apologise. Things will gradually get back to normal over the coming days and weeks.

The thickening carpet of Cherry blossom petals in our garden confirms what we expected – i.e. we would miss a large part of the tree’s Springtime display while we were away in Scotland.

But we are not sad because we had a great time with mostly excellent weather and some very enjoyable walks. I will be posting some of my photography from our trip to NE England and SW Scotland as soon as I get the chance to process it.

The photo below was taken on my iPhone.

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