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Today’s a rare day: no waterproofs needed, and sun forecast for the afternoon. We set off from Llanberis and climb up the lane towards Waunfawr. On average, each day of the Trail crosses two watersheds, and this is the first…
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Snowdonia Slate Trail, day 1: Bethesda to Llanberis
I’ve had my eye on Llwybr Llechi Eryri, the Snowdonia Slate Trail, ever since it opened in 2017, and especially since two seasoned long-distance walkers, Eirlys Thomas and Lucy O’Donnell, told me in 2021 that it was one of the…
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The artist from behind
What’s happening when artists choose to portray themselves in their work? The self-portrait was an invention of the Renaissance, but it’s just as common today, in painting (Jenny Saville’s work, now on show in a big retrospective at the National…
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On the buses
A couple of weeks ago Transport for Wales invited people to come along to Swansea Bus Station to give their views on the routes that buses in the city should take, once TfW takes over full responsibility for decisions from…
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George Bowring: murdered by Welsh magic
The Victorian writer R.D. Blackmore, if he’s remembered at all today, is known for his three-volume novel Lorna Doone. It’s an adventure story, set on Exmoor in the seventeenth century, about the feuding and violent Doone clan and the love…
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Bye bye, Brinley
Doedd y newyddion am farwolaeth Brinley ar 3 Awst ddim yn syndod – roedd yn 96 mlwydd oedd ac yn fregus yn dilyn strôc – ond daeth ton o dristwch mawr drosto i, o feddwl yn ôl dros y blynyddoedd…
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Dawn dweud
Bu tipyn o sôn yn y wasg yn ddiweddar am sgiliau ‘dawn dweud’ neu ‘medrau llafar’, neu ‘oracy’, i ddefnyddio’r gair Saesneg anhardd – y gallu i fynegi eich hun mewn ffordd rugl a gramadegol, ac i wrando ar yr…
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The Tower of the Nets
How many Swansea people, when they stroll along the sea wall past the Observatory (the Tower of the Ecliptic) in the Maritime Quarter stop to look closely at the diminutive building that sits on its own on the other side…
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Deep in Carmarthenshire
If you’re in love with green – I mean chlorophyll-saturated green, the lightest and deepest greens that nature can offer – there are fewer better places to find it than north-west Carmarthenshire. To wander through the fields and woods on…
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Tigers and dragons
What connects the histories and cultures of India and Wales? As it turns out, a complex nexus of links that have intertwined for centuries and continue to do so today. This is the theme of Tigers and dragons, a truly…