A 250 Red Kite Midsummer's Day at Bwlch Nant yr Arian

Bwlch Nant Yr Arian would be worth visiting just for the name alone - the Gap or Mountain Pass of the Silver Stream. How gorgeous is that, and even better when you learn there were silver mines in the area in the 18th century. 

I'd come for the kites, though, and 250 is the number the information boards say you might expect to see at feeding time, but with no way of counting, there seemed to be hundreds more (though given we were there on Midsummer's Day and it was all a bit magical anyway, there's always a chance some passing Puck put flower juice in my eyes.) 

Here's the view from the cafe terrace of red kites, with a few gulls mixed in, waiting for feeding time.

We made our way down to the pond for a closer view. It felt like when I was a kid and we were waiting for the feeding of the sea lions at Bristol Zoo - only these kites are wild and free, so there was none of the captivity anxiety that hung about zoo visits even back then. 

The Northerner was rather more apprehensive about it than me. Unconvinced that kites mostly eat carrion, he was clutching the walking stick we keep in the back of the car, ready to beat any off bird that might try to make a meal of our (admittedly small) border collie.

Like the sheep nibbling obliviously on the hillsides, he needn't have worried. When the feeding started, it was performative. 

And yes, something must have happened to my eyes because they were filling up with tears at the seeing and hearing of such a spectacle, of birds that were all but extinct in these islands in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, and like the bewitched characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream, I'd fallen in love.  

I doubt I'll witness anything better than this for some time.

Aberystwyth, mon amour ... and Aberaeron

And so to Aberystwyth, one of those places that's a bit like the Forest of Dean, by which I mean, unless you live locally, you have to make an effort to get there. I'd allowed half a day for a flying visit, with the rest taken up with a trip to Bwlch Nant Yr Arian for my must-see of the holiday, the feeding of the red kites. The Northerner, with his sights set on the funicular railway, felt we might need longer.

Looking towards Blaenplwyf

washed-up jellyfish

War  memorials are usually sober, occasionally grandiose, but this one, by Italian sculptor, Mario Rutelli, is actually rather gorgeous. 

First stop, the castle, built by King Edward I in 1277. It was held by Owain Glyndŵr between 1404 and 1408, and since our knowledge of history is so heavily coloured by Shakespeare, we looked out over the Irish sea, remembered the fictionalised version's boast of being able to 'call the spirits from the vasty deep' and wondered if he'd tried that here.  

restharrow and a bumble bee

thyme and restharrow

sea holly and cat's ear

This is the wonderful Gothic edifice that is the Old College, sadly disused although apparently being renovated. Until recently it housed the University's administrative function, but what a fabulous community hub/arts centre for the town it could make.  

We'd hoped to go out to the end of the famous, though somewhat truncated pier but it didn't open till midday and anyway, rain was moving up from the south ...

... so we went and sat it out in a pub, before walking up the promenade to the cliff railway, which takes unfit, lazy people like us to the top of the (famously steep) Constitution Hill ... 

... from where there was a grand view of the town, made all the more impressive by the drama of the weather. 

Although it was a bit hazy, looking north we could see the southern mountains of Eryri National Park and the Lleyn peninsula. 

The Millennium beacon

Renewed rain drove us from our table on the terrace, where we were having lunch, to the inside of the cafe, and continued long enough for us to rule out the Camera Obscura as a viable option ...

... so we went back down the funicular railway, which Cwtch really seemed to enjoy, despite some alarming judders and clunks. 

Despite not going on the pier after all, as Dogs Are Forbidden, by the time we'd wandered back to the car there wasn't enough time to drive to Bwlch Nant Yr Arian for 3pm kite feeding, so we decided to pop into Aberaeron on our way back to New Quay instead. By now the scorchiness of mid-afternoon had set in, so we had ice cream on the quay - in my case, the famous honey ice cream with pistachio, though the Northerner stuck with raspberry ripple - and walked down to the beach, before repairing to a bar with a shady area, which was deemed preferable by us all. 

A good day out ... but alas, only the occasional red kite soaring overhead. 

Poetry-walking the poetry streets of Upper Horfield

Maybe we IsamBards were off our trolleys, holding a poetry walk through Upper Horfield estate on a hot August afternoon ...

... but it's something I'd wanted to do for ages. I first mentioned it to the Northerner probably back in about 2011, as a possible outreach event for one of the poetry festivals, but actually, I'd been fascinated by the poetry streets, where my father grew up, since I was a child. 

The Northerner's response back then was 'well, go ahead and organise it'.  I suppose I could use the excuse that the entire estate was being rebuilt at the time as an explanation for why it took so long, but the construction work was completed in 2013. Any delay was largely just a matter of me not pulling my finger out. 

But finally here we were, in Poets Park, waiting for our audience - always a nerve-wracking moment. But they arrived, and what brilliant listeners they turned out to be. 

For the first time, in addition to our own work, we were reading poems by other, famous poets, namely those after whom the streets are named, as commemorating them was the main purpose of the walk. So in the park, which is on Eliot Close, we read 'The Rum Tum Tugger' from T S Eliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' and, as we were within earshot of  Larkin Place, Philip Larkin's melancholic poem, 'The Trees'. 

Our next stop was Auden Mead, near Keats Close.  The installation here, which was designed by local school children and is inscribed with lines from John Keats' memento mori, 'This Living Hand', took on a life of its own in the run-up to the poetry walk. I tweeted my indignation about the positioning of litter bin bang in front of it, making the poem impossible to read without getting a whiff of dog poo, and it was picked up by the Bristol Post, an interview ensued and suddenly Angry of Bristol's diatribe got some traction.* 

The obvious poem, then, to read at this point was 'This Living Hand', which is fragmentary and very moving, written in 1819 when Keats' health was failing as a result of TB. He was to die in 1821 at the age of 25. 

Since we'd just walked up Shelley Way, we also read a few verses from Percy Shelley's 'The Mask of Anarchy', with a rousing 'Ye are many - they are few!' to end it, while Dominic read W H Auden's 'Refugee Blues', which is more poignant and pertinent than ever. 

On then to a little grassy spot on Thackeray, via Shakespeare Avenue, which prompted some Bard-related poems, and, in anticipation of our walk down Hughes Gardens, David's poem about his mother-in-law going fishing on the River Exe with Ted Hughes. And as we were just a street away from Macauley [sic] Road, where my father grew up in the 1920s, I read a poem not by Thomas Babbington Macaulay but me, about my grandfather and father's experiences of the first and second world war respectively. 

Leading the stragglers

Our destination was Horfield Library on Filton Avenue, where there was tea and cake waiting, courtesy of the Friends of Horfield Library ... 

... and poems about Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose streets are somewhat further afield than the route of our walk permitted us to explore.  Coleridge was particularly relevant here, given that he used to make an 80 mile round trip on foot between Nether Stowey, north of Bridgwater, to his nearest lending library, which was in King Street, Bristol. Thanks to its Friends, Horfield library is still going and residents are spared that effort ... for now. 

* If you think the Council should move this bin so that this installation and its poem can be appreciated properly, please contact its parks team. There’s a page on the council website called ‘Improve a park or green space.’ The name of the park is Auden Mead and you don't need to be a resident to make your suggestion.