lake surface

Waterside and Woodland

Just realised I put the wrong date in on this post so it’s a little later in the day than usual – hope you all missed it!

Following the lakeside on my walk this week at The Waterside – Felindre, where we also enjoyed Welsh Valley Alpacas, we spotted some of the other fauna to be found there, namely a host of little tadpoles and fish.

woodland alley

From the waterside we climbed up into the woods where we enjoyed the bluebells still covering the sun-dappled glades and the alley-ways of trees. The carpet of needles was soft underfoot and, away from the crowd of people visiting the alpacas,Continue reading

Welsh Valley Alpacas

My Walk this Week – Welsh Valley Alpacas

My walk this week includes alpacas! My friends Steve and Sue Heatherington run Welsh Valley Alpacas and, as the name suggests, they are situated in a Welsh valley. The alpacas are wonderful creatures and the valley is beautiful.

Alpaca close-up

I cannot tell you the names of those featured here but Sue and Steve know every one of the 39 (approx) alpacas individually by name and character. They are fascinating animals but not the only ones in the valley. The family of geese have been watched closely from when they started looking for a suitable nesting site toContinue reading

Enjoying the sunshine

My Walk this Week – An Angle On the Beach

My walk this week is along Aberavon Beach on the eastern side of Swansea Bay. It was warm but overcast when we started out and I suppose that might account for the clothing that one of these beach anglers was wearing.

anglers angling

The sun soon showed up, however, and justified the clothing of the others on the beach as well as their activities.

Aberavon has an expansive and beautiful beach but it is slightly strange to see mechanical monsters seemingly so close on the skyline.Continue reading

Red water grasses

Fluffy, Furry and Fuzzy – New Edgeland Growth

The edgeland of Newport which I was exploring on my walk this week were partly coloured by industry, but Spring knows no bounds and prompts all plant life to new growth at this time of year.

Spring growth?

And so, looking away from some of the other aspects of this liminal industrial space, I took a closer look at some of the different wasteland plants that were coming to life around me. The buds and seed heads were fluffy, furry and fuzzy as they set out for the sun against the red earth and water of the ponds in this abandoned area of the Newport Levels.

I never did get to the official Newport Wetlands but was very happy to see this less cared for environment where there was plenty of evidence of man but no man to be seen.

Red Wetland

My Walk this Week – Edgelands and Old Reens

My walk this week is through the edgelands of Newport, South East Wales (UK). It took me towards what promised to be Newport Wetlands, according to the footpath sign post. I hadn’t gone there for this purpose but found myself frustrated in another errand and in need of an escape from the pressures of the day.

old wetland reen

I’d looked to see if there were any nearby walks in a natural environment. What I found was a wild space between industries that promised at least the potential to check out the reensContinue reading

Running Away (from a dark day?)

As we came out of the Great Glass House at the National Botanic Garden of Wales on my walk this week, I looked at the impending weather and took a couple of shots. I had noticed the family in the middle ground but only realised the symmetry of the children running away from each other as part of a game after I had taken the photo.

Running Away

Those dark clouds did catch up with us but not at this point in our walk when I was still interested in the growth andContinue reading

jewelled bank

My Walk This Week – Ready for Growth

My walk this week returns to the National Botanic Garden of Wales. It was Mother’s Day here in the UK and we took the opportunity of our membership to visit at a time when so many plants and flowers are getting ready for growth.

prepared for growth

We can see the plants in our own garden getting ready for growth of course, but we do not have a team of volunteer gardeners and professionals attending to it and neither do we have the wonderful range of native andContinue reading

Uplands landscape

Punctuated By Ice at The Waterside

My walk this week has been around the lake at The Waterside – Felindre and seems to have been punctuated by ice. Indeed, the whole language and grammar of the posts has been dictated by the freezing icy conditions.

Icy Punctuation

Influenced as I am by the things I see and hear around me, I look at the light and shade, the patterns and textures, and I wonder what it would feel like to touch, to run my fingers along some of the surfaces of frozen water, hard ground lightly dusted with snow or old reeds and rushes from last year as they poke through the semi opaque sometimes mushy lookingContinue reading