dusk walk

I've cleaned a heap of tools, when they and the tool boxes are dry I can sort them and reduce them. All the greenware has been packed in the kiln ready for a bisque. There is room for more at the front, but I want to get this fired as soon as I can. Then it will be a fresh start for this year.

By four o'clock I'd had enough! Time for a walk near the village.

An oak looking haggard and green, so different from last year.

Looking down the Graig with the end of the Mountain bike Downhill Trail behind.
The eight foot tall bracken now brown and laid low
The sides of the fire road, including sizeable trees has been flailed back
Top of Cwm Fapi (the Lappy)
Down between the trees. The eyes see far more light than the camera
The first streetlight at the top of the Graig
sunset
looking down to the lights of Cwmcarn
Back to streetlights, that make it seem much darker

Col's Garden

Since I left it to be looked after by Col's family, his brother has been doing a little weeding. All praise to him, he is an engineer not a gardener.

I think they insisted on caring for it until the end of the season, so that I would not be on it.
This actually coincided with my decision that the tradition of the late gardener's partner being able to care for the plot until the end of the season was good- but not when I have a garden of my own and he had three...so I had expected them to be re-allocated.

I thought that looking after his garden would be therapeutic for them as it was for me. Unfortunately the rasberry, strawberry and currant crops have gone to the birds and the gooseberry, apple, plum and grape look to be going the same way.

Spinach, leeks and brassicas are going to seed, the runner beans are starting to be ready. There is blight on the potato plants.

I think that I am supposed to react and get upset.
It is just so sad,thinking of all the work we both put in over the past three years, and Col alone for the years previous. Thinking of all the people that Col would give the food and flowers to, the local retirement flats, the pub and the church.

walk, Twmbarlwm and Cefn Rhyswg.

A fine sculpture of a heron, just along the path from the Forest Drive visitor centre
Pity about the flower beds!

Along the lake


and up by the stream
to the bottom of the path which goes straight up ...


and up....

to Pegwn y Bwlch (top of the pass) where the chainsaw sculpture stands (no, not a portrait of Himself!)

The Raven from the book, The Mabinogii

and we are at the foot of Twmbarlwm

still more up....



to the fort


looking West and seeing fine rain coming in


and over Newport and the River Severn
Trig point, with grid reference
looking along the main twmp to the separate smaller twmp at the far end

Then looking down from the small twmp along the route I'll follow, straight ahead then round to the left near the skyline

I saw the same group of ponies again. I wonder where all the other mares yearlings and foals are?


just where I rounded the forest and started going left. Then I followed the track which goes off to the left, halfway along.
Instead of going back down towards Rhyswg Fach, which I'd planned in case of heavier rain, I followed the track across Cefn Rhyswg towards Hafod Owen and turned left at the crossroads to follow the lower track to the mountain gate.


Along this track I met two members of Cymdeithas Twmbarlwm Society, who are aiming to research,restore and protect Gwent's most iconic landmark. Such a pity that they never met Col, as he worked towards protecting the whole Common.
You can see them at www.twmbarlwm.co.uk

Looking down Cwm Gwyddon towards Abercarn, and Llanfach to its right hand side


Looking back over the Common from the Mountain Gate


The sheep folds, above, and below, a wall by Rhyswg Ganol


The old road home
trees that were once a hedge
Then back past Col's stables on Rhyswg Fawr Farm fields and down the old road past the back of Rhyswg Fawr farmhouse and on down to enter Cwmcarn by Maes Derwen, the house built for the coal mine manager in Cwmcarn, where Col's grandfather moved to in the early 1930s.

Back to my house with a pair of well used feet- I'll need new walking shoes soon!

I didn't need my waxed jacket, thankfully, and the fine rain stopped me from overheating.

talking and walking

Today I went for a natter with the vicar! She is very nice, we get on well-and talk about everything except religion!
This is the derelict church in Abercarn, as you begin to walk up through Llanfach to the mountain
You can see how the last heavy rain washed leafmould and gravel down the road
Looking down to a new estate- a big new village in itself but only houses and flats, on the site of a coal mine. Newbridge (Trecelyn) in the middle distance
still going up!
Good sturdy new posts, old gates...and new binder twine holding it all together!

Around the corner, and we have a working quarry. On the right at the top you see a good field of grass...at its lefthand corner, is Hafod Fach...and the quarry is nibbling its way nearer and nearer...



Needless to say no-one lives there now.
What I call "liquorice cows"....Allsorts!!
The cattle grid and boundary of the Common...Comin Mynydd Maen
I turned right at the end of the trees on the right hand side of the road and followed an old road. Near the far end of that forest block is Ysgubor Wen (White Barn)..or what is left of it



Here is our whinberry picking site, looking down the Gwyddon valley which meets the Ebbw valley at Abercarn. About a fifth in from the right on the skyline are Rhyswg Fawr Farm fields. Just to one side of the middle is Rhyswg Ganol Farm
In the picture above, in the centre of the skyline is Colin's Tree. Then the picture below shows Whinberry bushes...two hours for lunch and picking still only yielded almost a litre boxfull. It was heaven to sit in peace on "our" corner, out of the breeze as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and kept me warm.

The site of one of last year's fires, whinberry bushes only two inches high and bracken taking over- but at least it will consolidate the ground and save it from being washed away.
Ponies!!


You called?!!
Now here is one I don't recognise...looks more like a Shetland pony stallion to me...and no-one else of the Commoners has ponies on the Common...
Looking back over to "our" corner...now you see why I went round instead of straight down and up again!!
Col's Tree again....Twmbarlwm on the left in the distance and Mynydd Machen on the right in the far distance
back on the old road

Colin's Tree..at last, a close up!. His ashes were to be scattered here... I hope they've kept their word to him and brought him back up his mountain where he always wanted to be.
An old road between Rhyswg Ganol and Rhyswg Fawr
Everything is still there...Penhwnllys Max grazing peacefully...everything except Col.
The old road down to Cwmcarn
I walked back down with Col's spirit around me, keeping me safe.