Mist

Heavy frost overnight and then a damp cold mist that seemed to rise from the valley and swallow the hills.  At the moment I can see about thirty metres in front of me.  Everything is wet, dripping, silent.  I love late-autumn days like this.  

With driving across to Aberystwyth I have come to see the Radnor Forest hills as the start of the hill country over to the coast, which in a way it is.  One reason the journey starts for me at the Kington roundabout - even though that's another five miles or so beyond where I live - is that the hills start there, and the journey across to Aber is a journey through hill country.  The treeless Radnor Forrst, then the seemingly-endless rolling hills visible from the road between Llanfihangel and Llandeglau, the lower hills between there and Rhayader, then the higher hills towards Llangurig.  Between Llangurig and the coast is quite high hill country, the wild centre of Wales.  There comes a point near Eisteddfa Gurig of  'weather watershed', where the weather changes from the hill weather to a climate influenced by the coast.  Often I have left here in rain or mist and arrived at the coast in mild sunshine.  

Losing the Leaves

I am ploughing ahead without images and may well remove the earlier ones, as the computer system and the Blogspot system don't get on.  

Recent journeys to Aberystwyth have been through a darkening autumn landscape, and I seem to have taken lots of pictures of moody hills and low cloud.  The year is turning, the autumn is passing.  September seems a long time ago.  The light has changed; often now we do not see sunlight at all and the branches are black against a grey sky.  I had forgotten this monochroming of the landscape, as in six months the slow greening of the hills will also surprise me.  

I realised recently n a way this journey begins or ends at Kington.  There is a neat roundabout - plastered with hoardings for festivals and 911 conspiracy theories - where the A44 comes out of the hills and onto the English plains of Herefordshire, as if Wales stands still or stops in surprise.  Beyond that the road crosses the Midlands to Oxford.  This is a neat defining point for me, as I was looking for markers for the journey.  I finish my journey on the steep hill above Aberystwyth but one day I will walk the family journey along the promenade and lay a stone in the sea.  

Birdscape

Last week I treated myself to the mountain road between Rhayader and Aberystwyth, through truly wild and empty moorland.  It was a journey defined by birds.
Goldfinches in Old Radnor

Buzzards near Llanfihangel

A merlin on the mountain road

A red kite feeding on the road ten feet in front of the car above Cwmystwyth

Seagulls in Aberystwyth

A rookery on the university, roosting as I started the journey home.  

Milestone

Apologies for not posting - the weekly visit presents difficulties of its own.  

One area I'd be interested in exploring is milestones - here is one measuring distance from/to Presteigne and Rhayader.  Each one hand-carved, and one every mile for how many hundred miles?  I keep my eyes open for them and wonder about stopping and inching my way back along the A44 to record them.  Perhaps local branches of The Milestone Society have already done this.  There is a poetry about milestones; recent monoliths, tilting, ignored, slumped in ditches.  In the future they will be as valued as wayside crosses.  They also help me recognise the modern stretches of the road because there, of course, there are none.  

Chapel

Derelict chapel near Llandeglau

Cold and wet here tonight, a suitably gloomy evening for Hallowe'en.  One thing I notice on journeys are ruins, so for the eve of All Hallows I thought I would upload an image of a very derelict chapel on the moorland near Llandeglau, and a view of surprised sheep behind it.  I like the idea of charting a journey or a landscape through 'elements' which seem to define it.  I pass four interesting derelict or semi-derelict churches on the journey to Aberystwyth, and may well upload more images of them later on.  Rhayader is the only sizeable town I pass through, and this is a Dylan Thomas town of pubs and chapels, but one of my queries about the blog is how much additional travelling I should do.   But these buildings define this Welsh landscape so it might be interesting to document them. 

Moorland landscape behind the chapel

Fifty Miles of Weather

Fields and clouds near New Radnor

This journey to Aberystwyth is essentially a rural journey, from the Radnor valley to the sea.  I was aware today how busy the road is and how empty and bleak the surrounding landscape is.  'Bleak' is the wrong word, it is just empty, but today there was an edge to the wind and the drizzle never let up until I began the descent into Aberystwyth, when the clouds parted and the sun came out!  At home we haven't seen the sun for about four days.   My camera was struggling with the light and shade this afternoon, but here are three images to record the weather - and the contrasts - today.  

Lead mining landscape near Ponterwyd, outside Aberystwyth

And then climbing back into the hills the weather closed in on me again, the traffic all had headlights on, the drizzle turned to hill-mist and steady light rain.  

Near Tarenig, looking back towards the coast

The Start of the Journey

The Radnor Forest above Llanfihangel

At this time in my life I am travelling to Aberystwyth every week from the Walton basin/Radnor valley near the border with England.  This is a journey across Wales; from the house I can see into England, and from the hill above Aberystwyth I can see the Irish Sea, so my weekly journey takes me from border to border.  I thought it would be a good idea to record these journeys in a blog, recording stories and weather and landscapes, history, abandoned places, all my usual interests!  I will try and add photographs - weather permitting - and hopefully the posts will build into a poetic, creative portrait of the year.