Twice in one day!

Neither Rufus nor I do heat. It’s great to see fine weather, the sun is a rare visitor and always welcome. But you won’t find either of us sweltering on the beach, or panting across some shadeless moorland in the high noon heat.

That’s why we both like the early morning. And there’s an added bonus; no one around. It means we can enjoy the countryside free of shouts and screams and this means more chances to see the native wildlife. Yesterday morning, we headed off the Brynllefrith Plantation again. We were there at 7am and immediately we were rewarded for our early start by the sight of a buzzard flying lazily between perches in the trees. All the time as we walked through the trees, sheep called and the echoes amongst the woods made for an eerie atmosphere.

After last week’s visit, I was wary of where Rufus went and my caution was rewarded when I was able to stop him from trying to investigate at an intimate level two dead sheep within yards of each other. Aromatic disaster averted, we dived off the main path to head deeper into the trees and away from any more ovines. I found myself being attacked by horseflies and wishing I had put on some of the insect repellent I’d got for the trek.

We walked for about two miles through the trees, down to the Upper Lliw reservoir and back again and by the time we left the plantation, it was getting hot. I had planned to head off the sort distance to the wind farm, where by it’s very definition I knew there would be a cooling breeze. But as we neared the car, Rufus munched on some grass and a minute or so later was suddenly sick. He didn’t seem ill (he’s been running around in the woods) but I decided to cut our walk short and head home. By the time we got to the house, all signs of a tummy upset were gone and a healthy appetite had appeared. I can only assume it was a bit of dodgy belly and he’s made himself sick with the grass.

The day was hot with little breeze to cool things down. Even in the shade the temperature was up. We sat and sweated and dozed and channel hopped between the Tour de France and the Commonwealth Games. But there was something missing. unfinished business.

Once the day’s temperature had dropped, we set off back to the wind farm. Rufus was bouncing once more and I wanted to try some long exposures of the moving turbine blades. I hoped there would be enough of a breeze to get them going. I needn’t have worried. as we made our way across the moorland, the blades were slowly swooping and swishing. In the silence of the late evening, I could hear them and the whine of the generators almost as soon as we left the car.

The sunset was quite disappointing but the evening was pleasant and the turbines dramatic.

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Something wickedly aromatic this way comes

I was woken early this morning by a wet nose on my hand, a reminder that there’s a new boss in town now. But when I looked out, there was a lovely mist in the air and I immediately thought of getting out to some woods to try and get photographs of trees in the mist. We’ve been going to the woods above the Upper Lliw reservoir for a while now and I knew with the right conditions I could get the photos I had envisaged.

Rufus managed to eat half his breakfast but I was faffing about so much that I only had a cup of coffee. I knew the mist would soon burn off and so i wanted to get going as quickly as possible. We set off and it didn’t take long to make the journey over the misty hills to the little valley in which the woods nestles. Of course, with my luck, the mist had lifted from that part of the world and so we entered a clear, sunlit plantation with the early morning rapidly warming.

The calls of buzzards echoed through the trees as we made our way along the track towards the reservoir. In the distance, I could hear seagulls calling from the reservoir dam. As I feared, there was no sign of any mist and we reached the shore of the reservoir with only a few speculative photographs taken. The water was still and the seagulls were sat on the wall of the dam. On the opposite hills I could see mist brushing the tops, and I realised that the cloud was coming down again, which would introduce the mist tot he woods.

Off we went, back along the path. This time Rufus took a diversion the continued along near the shore of the reservoir and I followed. A subtle haze filled the woods and I managed to get some photographs that I was happy with. I’m always happy when taking photos at my own pace in such beautiful surroundings and I didn’t really want to stop. But I was conscious that it was getting warmer and both Rufus and I aren’t great in the heat.

Walking back to the car, I caught a whiff of something deeply unpleasant. Rufus has a habit of rolling in unpleasant things and I kept an eye on him in case he dashed off to dive into this one. But he seemed to show no interest, which is very unusual. Then it dawned on me why; because the deeply unpleasant aroma was coming from Rufus. He had already rolled in it while my back was turned (or more likely, my eye was at the viewfinder). Rufus is the master of discovering impossibly awful things to roll in. I don’t know what this was but I tried my very best to keep upwind of him. At the car I tried to wipe the worst of it off but it made very little difference. Needless to say, the back windows were kept open and the air conditions was on full blast in an effort to remove the smell from the car.

 

We took a short detour to see the wind turbines but further up the mountain the mist was much thicker and I only managed to catch a glimpse of the base of one or two, plus the odd blade slowly spinning by. Then it was back to the car and a swift drive home to the shower. A curly and damp but sweet smelling Rufus is currently dozing on the sofa.

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More history on your doorstep

I went back to Mynydd Betws with Rufus this morning. It’s a nice place in good weather and he can roam free. I had another purpose to go there, though, and that was to have a look at some marks on the ground I had seen on a Google Earth image and which I had found out were the remains of anti invasion defences from World War 2.

This part of the mountain, about a mile south of the wind farm, doesn’t have a clear name on the map. But when you climb up off the road and reach the flat top, you can see how easy it would be to land some gliders there. Looking south, you can see Swansea and Port Talbot – both important ports during the war. Swansea, of course, was deemed important enough to spend three consecutive nights blitzing it during 1941, which resulted in the almost complete destruction of the town centre.

Rather than permanently station troops in the hill, which would have been stretching limited resources, they dug a series of parallel ditch and mound structures in a grid. Any kind of aircraft trying to land there when the structures were fresh would have tipped over, or had it’s wheels or belly ripped open.

Today, all that remains is a series of low humps which would still make landing a plane very risky. They resemble the henge monuments of 4000 years ago in terms of appearance, except that these are in straight lines rather than circles.

Last year, I may have missed these when walking over them; they are so spread out that they seem unconnected. It’s only when you see the bigger picture – literally in this case – that they make sense.

Rufus, oblivious of the history around him, enjoyed a good walk in the countryside.

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Slick

Poor old Rufus. Yesterday, with the prospect of thunder and lightning and with the knowledge that I’d be home early, I left him indoors. If he’d been out and there had been a storm, I don’t know where he would have ended up and that would have worried me all morning. So he had the run of the house. He was also booked in for a hair cut in the afternoon, so I’d have to race home lunchtime and get him, drop him off at the stylist and pick him up again several hours later.

Well, there was no storm and when I got home, I was late. Rufus didn’t really know what was going on as I tried to explain to him while letting him have a run in the garden and making a fuss of him at the same time. Within 30 minutes, I’d got him in the car and dropped him off. Poor old Rufus.

But when I picked him up again, he was looking good. And he knew it! With his fur shaved back to a smooth and short length, he was no longer panting in the sunshine. We headed home, paused long enough to change out of my work clothes and into something more appropriate and we were off again to Broadpool, where Rufus enjoyed a run, jump, paddle, bound, run again and (of course) a dip in a muddy pool.

This morning we headed off to Mynydd Betws for a longer walk. I’ve been reluctant to take him on longer walks recently because of the heat but now his fur was shorter, and the day was cooler, off we went. I was interested in the clouds that were around this morning. I’ve started a project to take infra red photos of clouds and looking out of the window before we left, there were great billowing cumulus clouds everywhere. I was a little nervous, as thunder was forecast for the day but the walks I had in mind would be okay, with plenty of advanced warning of an approaching storm. And it would give me a chance to snap more clouds.

There is a wind farm on Mynydd Betws and I’ve mentioned the location before. It’s a great walk, though, and we started off in the woods to the north of the Upper Lliw reservoir. Only the sound of birds could be heard in the woods and it was very tranquil and not too hot. We walked amongst the trees for a while and then off to the side, where there is a convenient gasp in the fence that allows us to reach a small stream. Rufus was in it before I’d managed to duck under the fence. I stopped to take some photos and Rufus let me!

Next, we went back to the car through the woods once more. I turned to check on Rufus only to find him sporting a cool new wool scarf. I think he must have caught his collar on it, and it stuck but he showed no interest in removing it. Not knowing where it had been, I took it off. A few minutes later, I turned to find he had now managed to get more wool on his nose.

We drove off to the wind farm on top of Mynydd Betws and walked out to one of the turbines. The skies were magnificent and I used the Infra red camera to capture a lot of the cloud forms, which were changing and developing minute by minute. While I was looking around I noticed a trig point shining in the sun on the next hill over. With no firm plans to follow, I decided to walk over to it and Rufus was more than happy to follow. Of course, he got there before me and was waiting patiently as I arrived.

Looking back to the car, which seemed a long way off all of a sudden, I noticed a big black cloud making its way slowly towards us. At the very least we would be soaked if that decided to unleash its contents on it. A big sign near one of the turbines had casually warned not to approach the tower if there was lightning about. We decided to make our way back to the car. The cloud was moving quite slowly and I was still tempted to stop and take photos so it took a little while to reach the car. As we did so, I felt several large blobs of rain on my face.

Driving home,. we passed under and beyond the cloud, which spent a few minutes trying to soak us. But on the other side there was sunshine and no sign of the expected storms.

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