Revisiting Twmbarlwm

 Liz - my friend of 57 years standing -  knows Wales better than I do, which isn't surprising, given her father was from Pontypool and her mother's from Ebbw Vale, and trips back home were frequent. She hadn't climbed Twmbarlwm, though, so for once that made me the expert and therefore in charge of getting us there.   

We met up at Magor services, the plan being to leave her car there and continue in mine, in case Cwtch took it upon herself to do more rolling in cow pats, but there was a strict two-hour parking limit in operation, so we decided she'd follow me to our in-the-middle-of-nowhere destination, the car park round the back of the hill, not too far from the summit. Which was fine until the sat nav advised leaving the M4 a junction earlier than I'd anticipated, and then taking us all the way to Cwmbran before dumping us nowhere near the car park, it having no name or address, just a postcode.

We conferred and repaired to Risca Leisure Centre which was one of the waymarks on the route I'd prepared the night before, in consultation with said sat nav, and eventually we got to where we needed to be, but there's only one thing I hate more than the sat nav reneging on our agreed journey and it's when I don't have the nerve to override it. 

And then, when we got to the hill fort at the top, instead of this ... 

... we saw this.

I was a bit disappointed, as I was sure on a clear day we could have seen Liz's house across the Severn from up there, or at least Portishead, where she lives, and also the field where Cwtch, the Northerner and I walk most days ... I'd wanted to watch myself watching Twmbarlwm on the skyline.

Liz and I have climbed a few hills together in our time - Sugar Loaf in Bannau Brycheiniog and the nameless hill near Capel-y-Ffin in the Black Mountains as young children, and the occasional Dartmoor tor years later with our own kids. I remember Liz's mother showing me bilberries at Capel-y-Ffin, and explaining that in South Wales they call them whinberries. I thought she'd said 'windberries', which I really liked the idea of, and was disappointed to be corrected.

Twmbarlwm has a place not just in Welsh folklore, but also Liz's family mythology, as she recalled her father talking about climbing it as a lad with his cousin, Ken - 'more like a brother, really' - and everyone saying 'Oh, Twmbarlwm'. And as names go, it has so much resonance, why wouldn't you want to say it, and keep saying it ... Twmbarlwm, Twmbarlwm, TwmBARlwm.

When it was time to leave, I brooked no nonsense from the sat nav and headed resolutely in the direction of Risca and we were back home on our side of the Severn in three-quarters of an hour. I hope Liz will go back on a day when the views can be seen. I hope I'll be back as well before too long.

April Elsewhere

As I write, it's the first of May and there is no may to be seen up the field, or out over the farmland. The wet cold weather this spring means the whitethorns are several weeks late blossoming. And when I say wet, it has been wet. 

Never mind, all the heady exhilaration of hawthorn is still to come, and if the display is anything like the (also late) blackthorn we've had this last month, it will have been worth waiting for. 

It's been like watching colossal, slow-moving waves of white blossom roll their way around the field edges, from the sunnier hedgerows to the more northerly ones.

Flowers are starting to pop their heads up above the parapet now too. The white violets in the Small Dark Wood of the Mind and the purple ones I spotted in the middle of the Field of the Hollowing Oak for the first time were past their best before April had much advanced, but the celandines and ground ivy are still going strong, and have been joined by silverweed, buttercups, herb Robert, cowslips, bugle, forget-me-nots, and the most spectacular display of dandelions. Grasses are starting to flower now too, and some of the anthills in the field have covered themselves in speedwell and bittercress. 

A fragile pleated inkcap appeared briefly in the field ... 

... and some insects have stayed still long enough for me to photograph them too. 

a Common Carder bumble bee, a green dock beetle, first ladybird of the year and something that looks superficially like a ladybird but isn't and I don't know what it is

Meanwhile, the rookery is full of Sturm und Drang. There have been ravens and buzzards, but none of them have stayed around to be photographed. I did find this beautiful starling feather in the field, which is a bit strange as I don't think I've ever seen starlings up there. Maybe it was flying over.

Most exciting of all, the roe deer are back - I've seen hoofprints out on the farmland and in the field, though no sighting of them in person just yet.

And all the time, the hollowing oak has been getting on with the process of leafing, and for the first time in three years, it's also covered in blossom. Expect an excellent mast year.

1st April 

6th April 

7th April

19th April

20th April 

26th April

29th April 

There was despair early in the month when the footpath along the embankment was closed and a digger turned up in the skylarks' field, solidifying our vague feeling of dread into resignation that the building of the access road had finally started. 

Then a sign was attached to the fencing explaining that the digging constituted temporary archaeological works. I was a bit sceptical about the instruments these archaeologists were using, till the Northerner reminded me that there's a digger on site in Detectorists, when they're excavating the crashed WWII bomber (series 2).

And then they'd gone and taken their digger with them. Presumably they found no long lost Roman city or plaguey burial pit. There will be no scraping of trowel on mosaic to hold off the building of houses here, but with luck, we might get another summer walking the footpath.

The other progress has been of the sun along the line of hills to the west, on evenings when the cloud hasn't been too thick to see it. 

1st April

4th April

7th April

20th April 

The sun lodged in the hollow between Mynydd Maen and Twmbarlwm on 20th April

29th April 

Exile from Elsewhere

I haven't been to the Field of the Hollowing Oak, or the Small Dark Wood of the Mind, or the common next to the disused airfield, or the footpath by railway embankment, or the farmland that is under development and will soon be the new Bristol suburb of Brabazon for ten days, not since I momentarily mislaid where I was in time and space and did me another spectacular ankle sprain that has seen me confined to the Settee of Suffering for a large part of my birth month, which is a shame because I love it. And I miss my little bit of edgelands. So here's some photos from the last couple of months to cool my cabin fever. 

Through the parables of sunlight and the legends of the green chapels

One thing we couldn't help noticing during this time was the slightly dispiriting passage of the setting sun from Twmbarlwm in Gwent along the hill behind the M5 to Avonmouth, finally reaching the point where it's just about disappear from view, and at the same time occurring progressively earlier in the evening, from 8.15pm on 19th August to 6.40pm on 3rd October. Of course it can't be summer for ever but it's hard to see it go.

Also, the progression of autumn colour, as the leaves turn yellow, gold and red, berries ripen and fungi mushroom. 

haws

blackberries and old man's beard

the hawthorn grove

acorns

oak bracket fungus

dogwood

the rookery

hawthorn leaves

hawthorn leaves and blackberries

oak

stump puffball

ghost dock leaves

a new view through the wood post-storm

In early September the time for picking wild damsons and making damson vodka came, so we did it. Having apples in our garden, we left the crab apples for the wildlife, along with more damsons than we took because other creatures need them too. 

The time of thistledown is waning though there are still moments of beauty ...

... and around the time of the Queen's death, the wild carrot seed heads were forming gilded sceptres.

There aren't that many feathers around to pick up any more either, though I did spot this beautiful buzzard feather on the edge of the Small Dark Wood of the Mind just after I'd watched its previous owner hunt overhead one lunchtime. 

In early September we saw a kestrel hunting a few evenings on the trot, including one night when there were two prospecting together ... 

... and the ravens did a few flypasts too.

 

The rookery is silent most of the time, but abruptly fills up at sundown. 

Other wildlife I spotted but didn't manage to capture included several sightings of green woodpeckers and quarrelsome jays. These two weren't getting away from me, though. 

There have still been some insects about, including two species of butterfly - small copper and common blue - I spotted within moments of each other, having tucked a couple of pigeon feathers - actually there are quite a few of those about still - in the heartwood of the hollowing oak as a gift. I hadn't seen a small copper up the field till that point. 

Clockwise from top left:  Dock beetle, clock beetle, speckled wood, small copper, large white, common blue, another speckled wood, thistle gall, greenbottle

And even when the skies seem empty of birds and insects, there's still plenty of cloud and colour to enjoy. 

Out on the farmland, the pond harbouring the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water had gone dry. Maybe he'd gone on his hollibobs. We were there to see how the development was progressing. (We don't go too often as it's pretty depressing.)

Something else new was hearing a train down in the cutting for the first time. (Normally that line only takes freight trains at night.) Again, since there was clearly some work going on down at the disused halt last winter, I suspect it's to do with the new development.)  Cwtch was stopped in her tracks by the strange noises that were emanating. 

Talking of whom, she celebrated her birth month having a lovely time tearing about and especially playing with other dogs in a much more manageable way than would be the case somewhere more dog-dense, like the local park (though she does go there too from time to time). From being a nervous lockdown pup, she's turned into a playful but respectful young dog. 

And now, laid up with a fat blackened ankle, I'm missing it more than ever. Hope to be back soon.