What I Love About Castles

The way that the towers stretch to the sky...

The dizzying drops...

and the scale that dwarfs

the mad angles...

secret passages...

and arches within arches

but I did not like the oubliette...

Half term means castles. Today we visited Kidwelly's. Find out more here

Canterbury Cathedral

the nave

The city itself was much like any other city: lots of people, pretty shops, a park and ride which the kids loved - the front of a double decker bus is a lot of fun at any time of life but particularly when you are four I guess.
The streets leading toward the cathedral were cobbled and the buildings were close together and timbered black on white plaster. Others were red brick or flint dressed - there were very few examples of the horrifically utilitarian government architecture that is so apparent in South Wales. The air smelled of coffee because of the massive Starbucks that was in the Mercer Square. It was a place to sit and absorb the history, the millions of people over the years. I was fairly twanging with it as we walked through the huge, carved doors of the cathedral gates.

Let me explain myself here. I love Chaucer, even though I haven't read much - that is down to laziness on my part. I love the sense of history. I love the stories that surround this place "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" The terrible murder in a holy place, the humbling of a king by the might of Rome. It is rich stuff for me and seven hundred years or so peel back easily in my imagination.

We walked into the courtyard and saw the carvings on the huge walls, Anselm, Benedict, Francis. The huge doors, the sheer size of the building. We went in and I could not speak. I will utterly fail to convey to you how awesome this place is. The sweeping arches, the thunderous columns upholding the structure. The stained glass,the lace-like stone, the acoustics, the centuries of song, praise and worship that the stones have soaked up. The artistry and devotion that generations of craftsmen have poured into the place. We saw the funeral garments of the Black Prince, the premiere warrior of his day, unbeatable in the field. And of course we saw the spot where Thomas Becket was martyred. Not a huge fan of St Thomas I have to say, he was a political animal after all and it was a political murder, but what gets me is the pilgrimage site, the feet of the faithful, the penitent, the thankful and the supplicant. The stories...the stories. I wished I could hear them all.

I eventually managed to pull myself together and wandered into the quire, a church within a church. The feeling of inner space was incredible. Compared to the nave you see, the quire is almost intimate but in reality it is still a huge space. The sound amplification is astonishing. Lily called for me and Mama went reverberating effortlessly round the arches.

I wish I could explain the effect that the cathedral had on me rather better than I have. V watched me tear up as we stood awed in the nave. The children were also rather puzzled and I could not explain why. A lifetime's desire to be here, the presence of beauty, the silent breath of history in the fabric around us. I loved it there, really I did.

Tretower Court and Castle

An early Norman stone tower and a medieval/tudor fortified manor in a broad, fertile valley. A fat land as they would say, first of the Welsh lands to fall to Norman hands. The Welsh clung to the mountains and fought hard, but four hundred years later all hope for a free Wales died with Glyndwr.

It is hard to find that sorrow in Tretower. It is calm and rich. Broad timbers and plastered walls speak of wealth and the undefendable windows of safety and peace. The garden was thick with bright fruit, apples and rose hips



and the highlight of the day for my girls were the chickens scratching happily where they fancied.


The highlight of the day for myself and Anne, my sister were the re-enactors wandering as busily and happily as the chickens.
We were standing by the boundary wall chatting and just in the corner of our eye we saw a figure in dagged hood and cloak walk past us in the distance, like a ghost or a memory of the old house.

The day did in fact include a picnic and a short walk and knot gardens and soaking up the autumn sunshine in happy company. An grand day out indeed.

Sunday's Walk

Parc Le Breos Burial Chambers in the Gower. It was a lovely soft day, pearl grey light and a gentle rain falling. We were intending to go to the Gower Heritage Centre to see a spinning demonstration but we got there too late, so we went for a walk instead.

Wingham's Sampling Day

One desperately needed cuppa after a hard days spinning, felting and buying fibre goodies

Birdie felting

Felt ehibition

A bobbin full of samples:
rainbow merino and the brown is possum.
Possum is a nightmare to spin, so short!

Jetskiing at Glynneath Lakes

Cordell Again

Saturday saw us at the Bedwellty Park in Tredgar for this year's Cordell Festival. ienjoyed it but that was more to do with the company and the fact that it was a fine day, the Cordell players had not been invited to attend which is rather disheartening, but we were good enough to aska long to mingle with the crowd in character. That kind of thing pretty much leaves me cold - approaching strangers reminds me of the cold calling days - yuk. But I had the useful character quirk that Elianor Mortymer has of being a spinner, off to the guild and swipe a wheel. I did swipe it too, there was no time to ask and put my name down in the equipment book. It will be returned Monday, not really swiped. So I hid behind the spinning wheel and hung out with Hywel and Iolo, Morfydd declined to dress up, but Elizabeth went half way and consented to card for me and put a bonnet on for the show of it. We talked to quite a few people who came to us rather than having to go to them. Yay!

Hopefully I will have a pic to post up soon as my camera had depleteed its batteries and Catherine/Morfydd is Affirmation Photography,( check it out to see some beautiful wedding pics btw.) and she took some pics that will go up on the Guild site too.

From there it was an impromtu move to Swansea Park and the celebration of the Proms. Great fun, thousands of people, great weather, fireworks and Lakme Flower Duet among others (absolute favourite duet ever - what a treat)

Spinning Day!

Don't you wish you lived here?

Bunking off to Sharons today to glamourous Upper Cwmtwrch. To sit by the river that runs through her garden and spin and knit and chat and drink tea and talk wool. I'll take my camera and hopefully, if the batteries play along I'll have something to show later on.

Finished spinning the kermit merino. Plied up quite nicely really, not perfect but good enough for rock music. Sharon is an expert felter and probably deserves the title fibre artist as she has that edge of vision which I so admire and yet lack so obviously! But she is very generous and allows me to pick her brain at any time. And for this I will take chocolate walnut brownies, which due to my recent disasters with Iolo's cookies, is all that I have the confidence to make right now.

TTFN my lovlies !

Update 21.50 same day
Confession
I didn't take brownies...or cookies. I ran out of time. But I took soup...tinned I'm afraid. I'll lose my Nigella badge if I'm not careful. Sorry Sharon, but there is always next time. After America!

Spent Out...almost

Borders was fab. Had company this time so it was a bit more fun. Debated the relative merits of David Gemmel versus Robin Hobb (Gemmel, no contest) with my middle nephew and got treated to coffee by my dear sister.
I was rather sad to find that there were no spinning books that I could find. Plenty of crochet offerings and I managed to have a look at Flirty crochet and I'm glad I did. I was thinking of ordering it with amazon but really, flirty it was not...and I think that is all I can say and stay within my kind blog remit. I didn't buy it shall we say.

Had a good gander round the history section, Sis bought a grim book on the Cesares and the new book by the editor of GQ magazine on ettiquette for the modern man. I read a paragraph of it and indeed it seemed invaluable, quite pungent, but dealing with some relevant issues that a young man might come up against in life in general. How come kids are not taught how to break up with someone nicely in school? Anyway, Tom is getting this as a parting gift when he leaves for Uni in September. A black day that will be too, not looking forward to that. It strikes me that this book by Dylan Jones I think his name is, would also be quite a handy users guide as it were for females. Always interesting to get the insiders view point and sometimes quite handy when one is at a loss.

It was not too long before I inevitably gravitated to the poetry section. Well, I've seen better shall we say. There were the usual suspects...Poetry Please! The Rattle Bag, Andrew Motion, Benjamin Zephaniah - even angrier than the last time I read him. There were some delicate little books on haiku and a clear mile of W.B. Yeats, is there a centenary coming up or something? And there was not an anthology there that did not churn out the same old same old that they always do. I didn't want the slim volumes of a single poet, though I did think about a pretty little volume of RS Thomas, but at seven quid for a book that was less than half a centimetre thick...No, not really. Then just as I was about to give up I found Poetry to MAke You Smile. I could stand that I thought, picked it up and read three harmless little ditties that I had never read before. Printed on paper so thick as to be almost chunky, it is pleasingly modern in design with a decent size but not obtrusive print

The Rabbit
The rabbit has a charming face:
Its private life is a disgrace.
I really dare not name to you
The awful things that rabbits do...

Anon

That is a little exerpt from one of my favourites. And it's not as awful as you might think at the finish.

From Borders I had a few errands to run in town and as I didn't have the encumbrance of a double pram, took the opportunity to have a browse in some clothing stores. Hardly ever get that opportunity. And there waiting for me was this funky little halter neck dress in a lovely soft slinky cotton. Sold. Can't remember the last time I bought a new dress. Now all I need is somewhere to wear it.

So an enjoyable afternoon, just what I needed. I haven't had retail therapy session like this since last Christmas and I don't think it's over yet. Just don't tell V that's all.

Almost ten o clock now and the insomnia of last night is starting to bite. I'm off to bed.

Nos da my lovlies

If You Go Down to the Woods Today

You'll meet singing bears, a scabby wolf with a penchant for food fights and a TV presenter Goldilocks obsessed with winning an award. Great fun.

Afan Forest Park Fun Day, there was all sorts of craft activities, carving, bird box making. There was a storyteller which I would have likes to go and see but we didn't get the chance. There was a live band and there was pouring rain. We stood in it patient as cattle, it felt very British. Thermos flasks, biscuits, raincoats, wet grass and jolly big umbrellas.



Goldilocks and the Three Bears as you have never seen it before. The domestic God daddy bear, the Welsh Mam, handbag wielding, mummy bear, the (teenage) baby that sings - I'm too sexy for my fur, so sexy I grrrr for the camera, the stroppy neighbour from hell wolf that breaks into the bears cottage, trashes it and has a Star Wars-esque mop fight with Goldilocks who is secretly filming the bears in their natural habitat. I think that sums it up really.



I laughed like a drain through most of it. "Baby bear, why is there a girl in your room?" and a food fight is always fun, especially when the victims are not expecting it. "Do you want some jelly" in broadest wolf Essex, hurling wobbling gobbets at the audience and generally trying to make the children cry. Even Lily shrank away from her own Daddy. And in grand theatre tradition ending on a song and dance with an impromptu pillow fight thrown in. I loved it.

A Delightful Weekend

Happy day on Saturday when Faith and Jonathan got married. Dyffryn Church is easily the prettiest church in the area and then onto the Glyn Clydach for a ceilidh and cold ham. Fantastic. I've never enjoyed a wedding more. I danced 'til my feet bruised and then I danced some more.

Today was Tom's eighteenth. Family get together, quiet as usual but very pleasant. Curry, chocolate birthday cake and champagne.
Off to church then and more dancing. Settled down now with V, the Matrix and some sweet popcorn. Might do a row or two of the shawl if I can.

Nos da my lovlies

Today's Walk

Towards Clyne

Back of an old row of miner's cottages

It looks green but the pasture is not that good. These Welsh sheep are tough old things, they can survive on nothing

Mum's Painting Place

View back towards Resolven

Seventies Night at Church on the Move

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Well how would you dress up for a 70's night?

We had fun, lots and lots. There was every spectrum of the seventies from Farrah Fawcett, to Huggy Bear, Leo Sayer and Jonny Rotten. Eclectic? I'll say. Give a man in our church a chance to wear a medallion, an afro and a chest wig and they leap at it like a rooster at a blackberry.

The photos and vids are yet to be put up on the COTM website but here am I dressed as a punkette, even though I was mostly in cord flared dungarees in my experience of the seventies, normally with my spacehopper in tow and though I had no idea of the punk movement at all, I just couldn't do disco.

The Wives of Bath

Oh, what a lovely day. Steph, Sara and I went to Bath. We'd planned it ages ago and then mostly forgot about it until we turned the April page in our calendars over and there it was - Bath. And what was most amazing was that though several things cropped up to impede, nothing was allowed to force us to cancel.

So rather to my surprise we were on the M4 east at a fair time. The journey was easy peasy and there was loads of space in the park and ride. Stress free, fab!

We got into town just before twelve and immediately decided on lunch in Cafe Rouge. What I had envisaged to be a quick snack before some serious shopping turned into almost two hours of hilarity as we enjoyed particularly good steak, which even impressed the Texan among us, and sublime deserts (apricot tart, something in chocolate and a crepe) which required twenty minutes all to themselves. Sara had her first taste of espresso and her shocked, shuddering reaction caused me to almost have an asthma attack laughing. Oh and the very young French waiter was very pretty too. Not for the first time that day we were reduced to the level of giggling adolesents. Such fun considering that between us we have three handsome husbands and eight gorgeous children.

Eschewing the liquers as rather heavy for an afternoon we headed off to Monsoon to get Stephanie's posh frock for an upcoming glittery wedding in London and for me it was one of the most fun parts of the day. Steph is beautiful, tall, size 10, long hair, just the right amount of tan, a fabulous figure and possessing a natural athletic grace probably from those excellent cowboy genetics. Combine this with the most genuine compassion for others and the sweetest heart I have ever encountered and it is impossible to feel anything but pleasure in her blessings. It was fantastic to pick out these outfits and she'd try them on so patiently. So with mine and Sara's help we got her the entire outfit, from hat to jewellrey and simply stunning coral shift dress.

From there to the spa. Oh my gosh. I felt very provincial - which let's face it is what I am - when we went in. I've never been to a spa before. Words almost fail me. A rooftop pool that was as warm as a bath so that the soft breeze from the hill around the city felt tinglingly fresh. Steam rooms scented with lavender and sensuously moving heat - that was gorgeous. A bright welcoming restaurant where I sat in stoned silence, drugged on warmth and lavender oil. A quick dip in the whirlpool bath to wake up and it was time to leave.

We'd missed the rush hour and driving back into the slowly setting sun was easy watching the sky turn lazily through rose to turquoise. A day to treasure, which is why I wrote so much.

A Hot Dark Knight

Sir Rodery of Caerphilly Castle

Today we went to see a demonstration of siege engines and medieval warfare in Caerphilly. It was a warm day and poor Sir Rodery was sweltering in his plate armour that weighed about 100lbs. We managed to get quite close up and the chain mail looked so intricate, so delicate but it could take quite a bit of punishment. It looked crocheted if I'm honest but it was, in reality, the result of hours of painstaking linking, that amounted to some serious money being spent on a weekend hobby.

The kids loved it, running around with bows and arrow. There was a fletching demonstration, falconry, the siege engines of course and finished up with a grand melee between Welsh and English, but despite huge and obviously biased support, the Welsh lost! This year's rugby all over again really.

I wish I had another day in the week as it looked such fun, I would love to join a re-enactment society. I think V would look rather spiffy in plate armour and I could have all that extra time sitting in a long pretty lace up dress, spinning away looking picturesque. I mentioned this to V and he stated that plate armour aside, that pretty much was life as usual in our house.

Rape of the Fair Country - day out

Went to Blaenavon today to take promotional pics for the Arts Festival and the Cordell evening.

Had a good poke round in the iron works and then on to the Big Pit. It was a lovely day, the weather was warm and sunny. Thd children behaved like angels and we all had a great time. I took some particularly good photos of Morfydd and Iolo Milk (aka Catherine and husband Matthew) kissing in the heather and there was quite a good shot of V and myself at the pit wheel looking very romantic.
However, my favourite was one of Zoe (as Edwina) reading outside an Irish cottage.

Went to the Dyffyn Arms for a drink after and let the children run off steam as they had contained themselves so well all day. I did a little crocheting to use up my stash, the Welsh black and silk left over from my mum's Christmas present. I think I might try a little felting after the children have gone to bed.

I (as Elianor) get to wear a particularly good felt shawl as part of her costume and I found it rather inspiring. It was certainly very warm.

The charm of the boy

Went to see Becoming Jane last night with my sister. It wasn't fantastic or wonderful or marvellous, the usual words for a film that I really enjoy. It was however, just right. Quietly agonising with that peculiar pathos of the British broken heart. I know a little of the history of Jane Austin and I know she never married so I knew how that little romance was going to end but crazily I hoped for a diffent ending! And by golly that James McAvoy can act and although young is not my thing usually, he was particularly beautiful and intense.

There was one particular scene where LeFroy and Henry Austin were pelting down a hill, running hell for leather and they looked so...young thatI felt really quite old. What I mean is that these young men had such energy and hope and strength and ...well, I don't. I felt the cold breath of my own maturity on the back of my neck. Which is why I think there is such a fond sorrow for films like this.

Just read this over and I sound particularly pathetic but really this is the mood of the passing moment. Like mist to be burnt off by sunshine of the full day. I have plenty of hope, there is lots to look forward to, but twenty seems such a long time ago.