Symbolic Forest

They do say that if you want to go looking for fossils on a beach, you should go in winter when storms disturb things or bring clifftops tumbling down. So just after Christmas, we went to Dunraven Bay, just near the mouth of the Afon Ogwr, because frankly if you want to be able to pick fossils up randomly off the sand on a beach, the coast of South Wales between Porthcawl and Cardiff is one of the best places in the world. Dunraven doesn’t just have fossils, though, it has a haunted garden. It did have a castle, but the castle was demolished in the 1960s, leaving behind the walled garden and the ghost that lives there.

Read more...

Keyword noise: Cymru, Wales, De Cymru, South Wales, Bro Morgannwg, Vale of Glamorgan, Bae Dwnrhefn, Dunraven Bay, traeth, beach, môr, sea, fossils, ammonites, garden, walled garden.

Having just moved house, we’re very aware right now that in the south-west, affordable housing is hard to find. It might be getting harder, too. Yesterday’s news included an announcement that local councils will be able to block developments on garden land.

Read more...

Keyword noise: brownfield, development, garden, garden grabbing, green space, housing, planning, redevelopment, Symbolic Towers.

Today must have been the first day of summer.

Read more...

Keyword noise: commercial radio, advertising, deckchairs, garden, gin, radio, seasons, summer, weather.

For once, some photos of my own, rather than from Imperial Russia. These are shots of the snowy scene in my back garden, on December 29th last year. It’s taken them a fortnight to appear because I still use an old-fashioned film camera,^* so have to use up the roll, send it off for processing, and spend a while scanning my prints before I can upload them to this place. Hope you like them.

Read more...

Keyword noise: garden, ice, photography, snow, winter.