Archive for 2024
Glyndŵr’s Way, day 9: Llangadfan to Pont Llogel
We’ve had a comfortable time in the Cann Office Hotel, but it’s time to set off again, without the sun this morning, and move north from Llangadfan. We turn down a lane next to Pontgadfan, the chapel converted by Eleri Mills that I saw yesterday. By chance Eleri passes us in her car on the […]
Glyndŵr’s Way, day 8: Llanbrynmair to Llangadfan
Since Wales is hilly, and since its villages are very seldom sited on hilltops, it follows that walks away from them tend to begin with a long climb. This morning is no exception. After breakfast in the village shop – our host Mr M. runs a shop and café as well as a B&B – […]
Glyndŵr’s Way, day 7: Machynlleth to Llanbrynmair
It’s been a year since we finished the southern half of Glyndŵr’s Way, and here we are, C1, C2 and I, back in Machynlleth to start on the sixty miles of the northern half. Ca has kindly given us a lift from Swansea to Machynlleth, so we’ve time on the way up for a coffee […]
Ar y Ffordd Ddu
Nôl yn Nolgellau am ddeuddydd o gerdded ar Gader Idris. Ond mae ’na broblem. Er bod diwedd mis Mai, ar gyfartaledd, yn un o’r cyfnodau sychaf yn y flwyddyn, dyw hi ddim yn dilyn na fydd hi’n bwrw glaw o gwbl. Ac eleni, wrth gwrs, yw Blwyddyn y Glaw, a dyma ni yn nesáu at […]
St Illtud’s Walk: day 6: Y Creunant to Resolfen
We’ve now erased the dark memory of Day 5, back in November, and today the daylight hours are reassuringly long. So C and I feel up to tackling another inter-valley stage of the Walk, from Y Creunant to Resolfen. We should have done this as the coda to the last stage, but exhaustion and fading […]
Gweledigaeth mewn 4,525 o ddarnau
Yr wythnos ddiwethaf cawson ni’r anrhydedd o gyfarfod ag un o drysorau mawr Cymru. Enw traddodiadol y campwaith hwn yw Cwilt Teiliwr Wrecsam – er nad yw’n gwilt yn dechnegol, ond clytwaith, ac er bod y geiriau ‘teiliwr Wrecsam’ yn tueddu i guddio enw ei wneuthurwr, James Williams, 8 College Street yn y dref honno. […]
Stanley Spencer at Llanfrothen
1938 was a difficult year for Stanley Spencer. His marriage to his wife Hilda Carline had been in trouble for years. Divorce followed in 1937, though the two never lost contact. His relationship with the artist Patricia Preece, whom he’d met in 1929, had been close and obsessive – he commemorated it in several nude […]
Gwen John on foot for Rome
I’ve been reading Celia Paul’s painfully honest book Letters to Gwen John, a series of imaginary messages to her fellow-artist, dead for almost a hundred years. She shares many circumstances with Gwen, and feels many close affinities, both creative and emotional. In one of the letters, she describes a continental journey that Gwen made in […]
The problem of Vaughan Gething
The facts are clear enough. Between December 2023 and January 2024 Vaughan Gething, a candidate for the post of First Minister in the Welsh Government, was given a donation of £200,000 towards his campaign. No one in his position had ever before received such a huge sum. The donor was a firm called Dauson Environmental […]
Pwy oedd Llywelyn ap Gwynn?
Dechrau’r stori hon yw llyfr. Llyfr o’r enw Rambles and walking tours around the Cambrian coast, gan Hugh E. Page. Mae’n perthyn i genre o deithlyfrau oedd yn boblogaidd yn y cyfnod rhwng y ddau ryfel byd, pan oedd marchnad barod i lyfrau o deithiau cerdded a gychwynnai o orsafoedd trenau. Y cyhoeddwr oedd y […]