My walk this week is around a small central area of city of Bristol next to Temple Meads railway station. I had been for an interview with the Theo Moorman Charitable Trust for an award of funding towards developing new work in my tapestry weaving – the application was successful I am pleased to say.
It was a sunny day and my next appointment for the day was later in the day in Newport where I ended up with another short walk – see last week’s posts. So I took the opportunity to have a little explore of theContinue reading→
In this my third and last post for my walk this week I am looking at some of what is left behind by both recent weather conditions and humans – the ice and jetsam scattered in the river and around the frozen woodland in a semi urban / industrial area.
The ice was not yet melting but had created strange bubble-like forms around old reeds at the river’s edge. Also at the edge of the Afon Llan was a collection of abandoned shopping trolleys tangled up with bits of wood swept downstream and caught up in their old metal mesh.Continue reading→
My walk this week braves the bitter wind blowing across Britain from Siberia. I have never seen ice like this on our local river, the Afon Dulais, but despite this and the fact that the rest of the country was under thick snow, we had next to none of it! The “beast from the east” and Storm Emma brought high winds and bitter cold but we were disappointed not to get any snow when seemingly all around us a colour, texture and acoustic change was taking place across the land.
Never mind, despite the ice feeling like it was inside my fingers, I still enjoyed my walk and the sights and sounds were still different to normal, but more of that later in the week. There was still someContinue reading→
Reflecting on my walk this week on the landscape of my local salt marsh I am happy that I took the walk when I did as I suspect this open landscape would have been even more cold in our recent weather than the walk I took at the tail end of Storm Emma (that will be next weeks posts).
My focus on this walk has been more about the details than the open space and those details have mainly been the marsh grass and one or two of the features within it, such as the fences. I love some of the individual “marks” in this landscape – the spiky reflection of marsh grass in the river, the spiky barbs of a sinking fence, the spiky flicks of individual grass blades amongst the busy textures their stems, the crusty lichen covered surface of thin branches and the twirly wiggle of an old bit of rosebay willow herb from last year.
My walk this week is a bit marshy, but not boggy! I hadn’t been down to our local salt marshes on the Loughor Estuary for a while and as the weather was unusually dry, it was an opportunity to see how things had changed as they undoubtedly would have done in some ways.
I never get tired of seeing this environment – it has the quality of peacefulness and tranquility when it is dry even with the motorway traffic in the background. The day was still with little or no movement other than the slow flow of the half full river as the tide receded. The subtle swirls of the current gave a gentle distortion to the reflected pattern of clouds, but there was unquestionable evidence in the form of gaping cracks that there had been slippage of the river bank as a result of high tides and fast flowing water.
A makeshift rusty barrier was constructed as an extension to the wooden fence that prevents cattle reaching an area where the marsh grasses give refuge and residence to some of the birds that enjoy this habitat. I disturbed what I think was a beautiful looking corncrake but wasn’t quick enough with my camera to get a shot of it.
My walk this week up to Swiss Valley Reservoir was a very wet one, but also a very enjoyable one despite the amount of water (except for the fact that my umbrella kept collapsing on me!).
Please note: I need to let you know that my weekly posts are going to change slightly – from here on there will be no post on Saturday. I am cutting My Weekly Walk posts to Monday, Wednesday and Friday with the soundscape for the walks being posted on the Friday. Further cuts may be necessary in the future.
I took the walk later in the day than expected and in combination with the wet weather, this meant it was another walk that started out dark and became darker and darker as I followed the riverside footpath up the ravine. By the time I reached the reservoir (not very far) the scene was as you see it in the image above.Continue reading→
The darkness of my walk this week in the rain provided me with a creepy atmosphere from time to time. This tree was one of those presenting itself as a ghoul in the gloom of the woodland as I climbed the footpath to Swiss Valley Reservoir.
Even the more open areas of the valley floor were gloomy and what light there was created and aged effect on the subtly coloured branches of an orchard.Continue reading→
My walk this week, my first for 2018, shows the madly rushing water of the Afon Lliedi as it flows down from Swiss Valley Reservoir on a very wet and gloomy afternoon.
The rain was falling but you can only allow bad weather to stop you going out for so long before it becomes a necessity for both body and mind to free itself from the confines of buildings.Continue reading→
