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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Looking Down at the Forest in April

To judge by my photos from my forest walks in April, the weather was good that month – at least some of the time. However, evidence both in the puddle below in which the trees are reflected, and the pattern of pine needles on the footpath in shot 3, would suggest that we had plenty of rain in April as well. The sunlight that is prompting the young fern to unfurl in shot 5 proves the advantage of having both light and water.

Forest Trees in April

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Cairnholy Landscape

Having said that the weather could have been better on my walk this week, today I am posting the proof. The view from Cairnholy chambered tomb on the Galloway coast in Scotland would be pretty good if it weren’t for the clouds and rain – but there you go, that’s Scotland (or perhaps I should say the UK) in these days of unpredictable seasons.

On a more positive note, the landscape did not loose any of its atmosphere or colour as a result of the weather and it seemed to make it easier (though I don’t know why it should) to imagine people there in neolithic times.

Scottish landscape

Seaview

Scottish landscape

Scottish landscape

A Place to Lie – Neolithic Chambered Tomb

It was tempting to lie down in the neolithic chambered tomb at Cairnholy but it felt like it might be dishonouring the place somehow – I would also have had to have been quite short. My walk this week to visit both the tombs at Cairnholy was well worth it even though the weather was coming in around us by the time we were up there. It didn’t stop me trying a few different perspectives on the standing stones at the entrance to the tomb but raindrops on the lens did create a bit of a challenge.

Cairn holy chambered tomb

Cairn holy chambered tomb

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Water in Turmoil – Looking Upstream

It is difficult to tell in this first image whether you are looking upstream or down. The water is in such turmoil that its direction seems to be every which way.

It wasn’t raining on my walk this week around Corris in the Welsh mountains but the memory of it was fresh in my mind when I looked down at the Afon Deri flowing under the small main road through the village.

I’m sorry now that I didn’t record any of the sounds of the village – I think I was focusing more on the potential sounds of the StillWalks production walk up the mountain that I was going to take later in the morning.

Corris river - Afon Deri

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My Walk this Week – North Wales Recce 2

My walk this week is from my second recent recce walk in North Wales, specifically the Lledr valley south of Blaenau Ffestiniog – there’s a name for you to have fun with if you’re not Welsh 🙂 The beautiful evening of the day before in Colwyn Bay did not follow through to this walk and the result was that I got very wet.

Lledr Valley-1

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Looking West and Reviewing the Week 57

I am not often walking on Swansea Bay when the tide is in – for some reason it seems to be out far more often. This must be coincidence but it means that when I am there when the tide is high, it feels new and fresh, a bit like the way snow changes the landscape.

The tide was not particularly high on this occasion but it was still lapping at the foot of the promenade steps and this, for me, is an almost iconic sound of the place. So click the play button below for an aural backdrop to the images posted about my walk this week. Click the first thumbnail image to view them in sequence.

Swansea Bay and Meridian Tower

Waves on Promenade Steps

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