My Walk this Week – Culture, Classical and Concrete

My walk this week takes a tour around the classical and concrete block of cultural, educational and municipal buildings in the centre of Cardiff, Wales. Amgueddfa in Welsh or museum in English, this first image shows a segment of the display block alongside the National Museum of Wales which currently shows the banner for the Arts Mundi 7 exhibition. This is a biannual international art exhibition which we have seen since it started 14 years ago. The exhibition has one of the largest prizes in the art world (£40,000).

Started in Cardiff, it is a an event of which Wales can be justly proud. It ends in cardiff on 26th February and I will be trying to get to see it for a fourth time before that. John Akomfrah is the justifiable winner on this occasion but the whole exhibition, while being largely video based, is well worth giving the time to tour fully.

Amgueddfa / Museum

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My Walk this Week – Forest February

My walk this week is a version of one I do regularly. I have posted any number of images and sounds from this walk which features some local woodland, but on this occasion I took several video clips as well. So my posts this week will end not with the normal field recording soundscape, but with a video compiled from the clips recorded on my iPhone which obviously include the sounds of the walk. Apologies for any wobbles.

morning in the valley

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My Walk this Week – Approaching The Waterside

My walk this week is at a place I have walked at and posted about on a few occasions but until now I have not taken a closer look (and listen) at the the approach to the The Waterside.

Starting just above the school, the lane that leads up to the lakeside where the facilities are in which creative thinking can take place, the wooded valley, while bare of leaves at this time of year, is still green with moss and the damp atmosphere on a day heavy and dark with rain.

wooden gate and lane

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My Walk this Week – Winter Frost and Sunshine

My walk this week is one with winter frost and sunshine in abundance – it was very enjoyable. I did not have the inclination to climb on this particular morning and so took to the local park and from there headed down to the river. The tide was not high and there was little or no wind so the river Loughor and its marshy estuary were still and bright.

River Loughor and swan

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My Walk this Week – Carmarthen Town

My walk this week features part of Carmarthen, a market town in West Wales. It is an attractive town with a reasonable connection to the arts through galleries and the College of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David – now there’s a mouthful!). There is a lot more to the town than I will be showing on this walk and I have posted in the past about walks along the river Towy on a couple of occasions, but the town is not large and has quite an intimate feel about it with various nooks and crannies to be found along the way.

King Street, Carmarthen

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My Walk this Week – The Botanic Garden of Wales

On weekdays in January the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW) is free to enter and so we took a mid week opportunity of some clear weather to visit. We have been many, many times over the years since it opened in 2000 and always enjoy the developing growth and changing arrangements of plants, borders and other features such as the bug hotels.

There is a lot to see and explore there even in the middle of winter and on this occasion we were surprised by the current entertainment of butterflies in the hot house.

water spout

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My Walk this Week – Late Afternoon, York University

While away over New Year I enjoyed an exploratory walk around York University campus. This isn’t the campus! I set out rather later in the afternoon than I had realised and it was only seeing how low the sun was in the sky as I walked towards the university that I realised the time.

The low light levels didn’t help my photography but there would be no point in presenting bright shots of a walk in dim light.

Late afternoon sunlight

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My Walk this Week – Childhood Memory Walk

My walk in this first week of the new year is a childhood memory walk. That does not mean memories of my childhood but instead memories of a walk I used to take when my daughter was at dance class. I would drop her off at the class venue and take an enjoyable hour long walk in the locality. It was not perhaps the sort of place I would normally walk – it is straight (more or less), flat and suburban – but it is also very attractive in its own way. It is quite a long time now since my daughter attended the dance class but taking the walk reminded me strongly of that time.

telegraph poles

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