estuary vista

My Walk this Week 207 – Cefn Drum Lower Slopes

My walk this week is a warm Springtime walk to the lower slopes of Cefn Drum (pronounced Kevn Drim). I didn’t have time to go further but it was still a most enjoyable and much needed relaxing and therapeutic hour.

country lane

The weather is cooler now (my walk was taken two weeks ago) but the road verges are still looking as beautiful as ever. I have a suspicion that the County Council has delayed much of the cutting and trimming they do each year – either that or the climate over the past year has, for all its ups and downs, produced a bumper crop of wildflowers . . .

. . . or perhaps nature is just taking full advantage of not so many humans being around as a result of the Covid-19 lock down!

The birds were singing, the insects buzzing and true to their name, the mayflies were flying above the river in unbelievable numbers. You’ll have to trust me on that one because, unfortunately, I didn’t get a photograph.

Cefn Drum Soundscape

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view from the footpath

My Walk this Week 145 – West Wales Winter Wander

My walk this week is a Winter wander in the West Wales countryside around Narberth. There had been a layer of snow in the morning but by the time I was able to explore this footpath from the town, the sun had all but cleared it and the only evidence was a thin strip or two in the lee of lane-side hedges.

countryside footpath

I have visited the attractive town of Narberth on a number of occasions and the purpose of going has mostly been to view the exhibitions held in the excellent Oriel Q Gallery in the Queens Hall. I had a small exhibition of my tapestry weaving there atContinue reading

bare branches

My Walk this Week 138 – Another Quarry Walk Through Time

My walk this week is to another quarry but one that is quite different from that which I explored last week. The rock is not black this time but the sides are steep and I cannot imagine how the writer of the graffiti, still to be faintly seen near the top of the quarry face, got up there. Nor can I make out what is written as time and weather has done its work and taken most of it away.

Dantwyn Quarry

It is 35 years since I first explored this place in my local countryside and I guess the plants and trees have grown up since then. I certainly remember it being more open back then, whereas now the small footpath leading through to the pool at the foot of the rock face is kept open only by a few dog walkers and young people playing on bikes, sitting round a bonfire or perhaps writing some more graffiti.

Dantwyn Quarry Soundscape

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lambs looking back

Looking Back Down the Hill

Looking down isn’t always the best thing to do – certainly not if you want to see where you are going – but it is also necessary if you want to be able to see the details underfoot of where you are. In the case of the lambs in today’s featured image, looking back down the hill at me is a matter of curiosity, the curiosity of the young.

dewey web detail

Their mothers had led them up the hill away from me as I approached on the descending lane, but they halted half way up to check me out. I too halted many times on my walk, first to look andContinue reading

holloway footpath

My Walk this Week – A Countryside Hike

Hike is an exaggeration for my walk this week but I was wearing my hiking boots which, with the hot weather we have been getting recently, was unusual. Though boots may make my feet hot, they are still much more comfortable to wear when climbing hills and crossing a multitude of terrains, than open sandals are.

country lane

So on my “hike” I crossed the river, climbed the countryside lane and entered the holloway (or hollow way as it is sometimes written), to climb higher – Continue reading

NBGW Country Seat

Looking and Listening Seats for the Landscape

The attractively designed benches situated along my walk this week at the National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW) are ideal facilities for looking at and listening to the surrounding landscape.

NBGW Landscape 2

At the moment I am focusing on the looking rather than the listening. It wasn’t actually raining on the walk but the ground was very wet from recent weather . . . as were the seats. Everything in fact, looked Continue reading

thistles

Colour in the Valley and Some Cautious Sheep

Colour and sheep were significant features of this first part of my Cwmdu walk up Cwm Sorgwm between the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains in Wales.

Gate and foxgloves

The colour was largely the vast array of greens common to the Welsh countryside and hills, but also other colours such as the purples of thistles and foxgloves. The sheep too,Continue reading

Wildflowers-wild rose

A Week of Wildflowers

On one of the short walks I took while away in Scotland recently I made a point of looking out for and photographing the various wildflowers along my route on the shore.

Wildflowers - Honeysuckle

It was June and so I suppose they were to be expected but when you start looking out for them, it is still amazing just how many there are. Continue reading