Category Archives: Unlost Places

The Trouble With Pigeons

Last week, in between working in one place and attending a meeting in another, I found myself with a few hours to kill in Aberystwyth. Allow me to provide a brief description of Aber for those who’ve never been there: the town itself has more than the usual quota and variety of independent shops in its criss-crossing streets. Most of these slope gently uphill, tantalising you with glimpses of a sun-sparkled sea and then distracting you with a potential retail experience of crystals or ceramic puffins or batik clothing, all of which you had managed without having in your life until now. A quirky one-way traffic system torments the problem-solving skills of tourists but is probably beloved by the office-bound town planner who designed it and fair to say, it seems to have been embraced by locals who have a je ne sais quoi attitude to that old chestnut of who gives way to whom at junctions. Pedestrians find it easier than drivers to get to the sea front where a pastel coloured ribbon of tall Victorian buildings (mostly flats, B&Bs and Guest Houses) gaze languidly across the wide expanse of Cardigan Bay. In winter, ferocious storms sweep in from the Atlantic and those same buildings – as well as the road, the pier and the regularly repaired bandstand- are stranded victims to a battering of debris thrown up by mountainous seas. The mile long promenade borders North Beach, the castle ruins and South Beach, running from Constitution Hill at one end to the harbour at the other. On the day I was there the weather was sunny with a warm breeze. Knowing that more people frequent North Beach than South Beach, I headed for the latter and convinced myself that my day – which I supposed would be trouble-free – should start with a freshly made almond croissant and coffee.

Even though the photographs in this blog are of Aberystwyth, I’m going to digress (as usual) partly because that’s my modus operandi but also because some things need to be mentioned. This is not going to be a political post even though we have come to a point in history that I and many others have spent the last few years hoping and praying for. As I write this blog there has been a momentous event in Downing Street. On Thursday, 7^th July 2022, an expression of graceless egomania showed how, in the end, the real nature of all living things can become obvious to a watching world: dignity and self-respect are casualties of a mind led by self-indulgence and delusion; pretence falls away as each individual is finally seen for what they are and what they do. At some point a film was posted on social media of Larry the Cat (Cabinet Office Chief Mouser) hurtling across the road from Number 10 and launching a violent assault on a perambulating pigeon. Spoiler alert: the pigeon escaped in a flutter of feathers, Larry returned to the shiny black door pretending it had never happened or, if it had happened, it had been someone else’s fault . Like so many others in Westminster, his demeanour declared that he would remain unrepentant for as long as a television camera was pointing in his direction.

Which brings me to the trouble with pigeons, or at least the pigeons intent on forcing themselves into my little bit of the universe. We have been keeping poultry for over 20 years. There has been a natural population decline recently so the only current residents are Lola and Spock the ducks, and Dee the chicken. Twice a day they are presented with a shallow dish of corn which is left out for about a quarter of an hour and then retrieved to be placed indoors. In that short window of time however, wild birds line up to take advantage of what is basically an eat-all-you-want buffet. At least they do until PP (the initials stands for Professional Pigeon) turns up. PP is immense. Think of a cross between a sumo wrestler and a grey feathered extra from Jurassic Park and you’re getting close. The ground shakes when he lands. He has single-wingedly cleared the chicken run of rats. Crows, jackdaws and magpies – none known for their unwillingness to back away from free food – do emergency take offs and watch from a safe distance as PP attacks the corn dish as if he’s part Tyrannosaurus Rex, part Dyson. PP is here because Annie, known to our neighbours as “chicken woman”, has an uncanny knack of finding injured or exhausted racing pigeons and nursing them back to recovery by putting them in the garden shed and providing corn and water until they are fit enough to continue their journey. PP, knowing a cushy life when he saw it, refused to be discharged.

Sometimes, of course, the patient never regains health. That’s what happened with Juan. Juan not only flew off course but did so with a fairly spectacular head first impact into a tree trunk. When Annie rescued Juan he was barely conscious but she made him comfortable on a little bed of straw, dribbled water into his beak, took the reference number off his foot ring and made contact with the owner, a Spanish man living in Huddersfield. Annie had been a nurse for all of her working life and made her fair share of bad news phone calls to relatives but she’d never had to deal with someone as distraught as Carlos. Eventually it was agreed that Juan be taken to the local vet and Carlos said he would pay anything – any amount at all – to get Juan the very best treatment they could provide. (Call me cynical, and just as an aside borne out of years of cat and dog keeping experience, but that’s a very rash attitude to take to a vet.) Anyway Juan was duly delivered to the local animal hospital but by the next day, it was decided that he had suffered brain damage and would never fly again, let alone race. Even as Carlos was arranging an animal ambulance to bring Juan home to live out his days watching the comings and goings of his contemporaries from a little box in a Huddersfield pigeon loft, the inevitable happened. Juan was no more. Carlos was inconsolable. Annie knew this because the vet had rung her to ask what to do with the body and Annie had made another difficult phone call. Carlos paid for cremation, Juan’s ashes were scattered in our field and there is now, and forever, a little part of Yorkshire in South Wales.

Hang on, you’re thinking. This woman usually writes a blog about textile art and this month so far we’ve had a political cat attacking a pigeon, a sumo-wrestling corn-addict pigeon and a traumatic brain injured pigeon. Well, allow me to introduce you to the fourth member of this group: the photobombing pigeon. Back in Aberystwyth I had settled on South Beach to do a bit of field sketching. The first stage of using pebbles as relief went well. The watercolour paints I used gave exactly the effect that I was looking for to capture the atmosphere of what it was like to be sitting above the strandline of Cardigan Bay as relentless waves washed in and out, rattling the shingle and the shells. I positioned the sketchbook and paints for their obligatory snap shot. Just as I pressed the shutter button, this happened.

Anyway here’s the picture without pigeon.

And here’s the stitched sample it led to. So if you ever have a couple of hours in Aberystwyth (or Faberystwyth as it’s affectionately called by locals) and you’re not sure how to spend the time, just look for the photobombing pigeon. He’ll show you the best bit of beach to sit on, the best view to sketch and the best place to get a freshly made almond croissant.

Blame it on the Clangers

Proverbs are great for providing brief responses when you have to explain yourself or try to avoid the blame game at short notice. I’ve always thought that pride comes before a fall and calm comes before a storm have a pragmatic, I-told-you-so sort of wisdom to them. Now I’ve added another one to the collection: knitting Clangers comes before index finger tendonitis.

Pride

My default setting is to be contrary so when there was a surge of enthusiasm for decorating street furniture with regal yarnbombing to mark the Platinum Jubilee, I knew that I wasn’t going to just resist the trend – I was going to buck it. If I were the sort of person to tie knitted things in public places which – as it’s technically illegal (littering) – obviously, I would never do, then I would need to make something distinctly un-royal to attach to some hypothetical traffic bollards on a hypothetical main road near my hypothetical home. And so it came to pass that I obtained a book of Clanger knitting patterns and my worst nightmare was about to unfold.

To be fair I couldn’t just blame it on the Clangers: they didn’t cause the tendon in my right index finger to start screeching with pain every time it adopted the knitting position. No, it was the double whammy of knitting Clanger bodies on consecutive days then crocheting Clanger planets (one for each hypothetical bollard) in the evenings that really did the damage.

Fall

At the start of May, with my best and most important finger swollen and inflamed, I realised that any hope of a Clanger takeover of concrete posts was doomed. One afternoon I consulted Dr Google, applied the advised ice, rubbed in the advertised anti-inflammatory gel and rested as instructed. The morning after I was disappointed to find that none of these had cured my digital ills and as I had three dolls to make in as many days for the exhibition of Heritage Crafts at The Turner Gallery in Penarth, my finger was told to take one (or three) for the team. The five Clanger planets, one completed Clanger and a pile of pink woolly body parts were consigned to the UFO basket in my workroom – a harsh but necessary decision.

Calm

Mid May and all of the Protest Dolls were safely installed in Penarth for a month so it was time for me to turn my attention to my Unlost Places project. Unlost Places involves me visiting places in Wales which are atmospheric, mysterious and other-worldly, then making arty stuff to illustrate what it’s like to be there. As there isn’t a map upon which places are marked as “atmospheric”, “mysterious” or “other-worldly”, I think it would be a good idea to write a book about them (with photographs of my arty stuff for anyone who doesn’t want to read the boring bits).

Caldy Island

People who love Tenby say that everyone should go to Caldy Island. I don’t particularly love Tenby because I’m traumatised by the cheap hotel room I stayed in once. It turned out to be cheap because it was also the main fire escape for guests staying on the same floor, all of whom evacuated the building when there was a (false) alarm at 2 o’clock in the morning by forcing open my bedroom door. They traipsed past a stunned and terrified wide-eyed me who was clutching trembling blankets to my chin – like that was any sort of defence against what I presumed at the time was a zombie invasion. Anyway, my point is that as I don’t love Tenby, I should have heeded my instinct about Caldy, which was to not bother paying the £13 for a ferry ride and to have a nice ice cream and wander around town instead. But as I said earlier, I am nothing if not contrary so I went. It takes about 30 minutes to sail to the island and then weirdly, it’s like you’ve arrived on a film set that’s a cross between The Stepford Wives and The Prisoner. There’s not a single blade of grass out of place on the manicured lawns and it’s chocolate box pretty, with quaint little houses overlooked by an Italianesque abbey perched high on a wooded hillside.

I wasn’t looking for pretty, quaint or Italianesque so whilst everyone else who had been on the boat stayed in the village, I headed along a trail through the trees which was a bit more atmospheric but not deeply so. Still I managed to create some Unlost Places indigenous art and took a moody photograph before getting on the first ferry back to Tenby. Unsurprisingly Caldy Island is not going to make it into my book of creative maps.

Amroth

I’ll tell you what I like about Amroth. It’s a dead end. The road skirts along the beach making a lovely flat promenade for walking and then it stops, not even attempting to turn itself into a little lane that could lead over the headland to the hamlet of Marros. There’s archaelogical evidence that people have been calling Amroth home for thousands of years. Some locals say that the name Amroth comes from a little stream that bubbles into the sea here; others that it relates to a “rath” (Iron Age earthwork) high on the ridge. Amroth Castle is now privately owned and a rebuilt, re-imagined version of its 12^th Century origins. St Elidyr’s Church, a mile up a vertiginous track that runs from the seashore to the isolated hilltop farms, is also medieval and probably built on the site of an early Christian llan. And just as you’re thinking that all Amroth has to offer is a few cafes and shops, a bit of manageable Welsh history and a comforting air of nothing-to-do-ness, it turns out that there’s a sizeable chunk of industrial heritage too because of the anthracite mining that used to go on in the area. The exciting thing however from my point of view is that Amroth was/is also on a pilgrim route.

Follow the Wales Coast Path east and you pass through Marros to Pendine then on to Laugharne and Llansteffan. Take the ferry across the estuary to Glan y Ferri and before long you pass St Ishmael’s and join the pilgrim road to Kidwelly. Or if you climb the steps at the western end of the beach, the path leads you to Wiseman’s Bridge where there’s a woodland trail towards Kilgetty, Templeton and all spiritual points leading to St David’s. Apparently the effort of two pilgrimages to St David’s is equivalent to one to Rome but if for you, step climbing is beyond the pale – fear not! Amroth has an alternative. At low tide the sea retreats far enough for all but the least intrepid person to walk across the sands to Wiseman’s Bridge and even carry on to Saundersfoot, a mile away. When the tide comes back in, there’s a traffic free path along a disused railway line which gives a safer journey. It skirts the coast and plunges in and out of dimly lit tunnels either side of the lovely Coppet Hall beach.

When I write Amroth up to go in the book, I’ll do more research; I’ll put in more facts; I’ll take photographs of my arty stuff as illustrations. Which brings us back to my Clanger caused index finger tendonitis. How does a textile artist make textile art and a doll maker make dolls when she can’t stitch? Well, it turns out to be not that difficult if you have access to bondaweb

or if you learnt your doll making in the 1970s. I do confess to sewing the eyes onto the Amroth Pilgrim Doll but otherwise no needles were threaded in the cause of this blog post.

Storm

The invalid finger has another five weeks of sick leave to go before it is unleashed, hopefully recovered, on an unsuspecting world. Given that there are five planets crocheted but only three Clangers knitted, you might think that I have a decision to make. You might think that I should risk knitting another two Clangers. Or you might consider that I should buy some green felt and sew a Soup Dragon and some silver fabric to make an Iron Chicken. Well, it turns out that none of these apply because last week during one of those rainstorms which we get all too often these days, a woman who was texting instead of concentrating on driving swerved her new car across the road, aquaplaned and collided with the bollards. Luckily no-one else was involved and she wasn’t hurt. Inevitably though, the police were summoned and required an explanation of what caused such concrete carnage . Now imagine if I had managed to finish and position my pink knitted aliens and blue crocheted planets. Like some people, the texting woman wouldn’t have taken responsibility for her own actions – she would have blamed it on the Clangers.

Fancy being so self-delusional.

When history begins

Call me a wimp but whenever I see that the Met Office has issued a weather warning of any colour I think twice about venturing outdoors, and double twice about doing so in a car on a motorway. Last week in the brief hiatus between Storm Eunice (Red) and Storm Franklin (Amber) I had a text from someone saying that they were on the M4 going to a wedding at Margam Abbey and a little post-traumatic stress shiver ran down my spine. Not because of the weather and not because of the wedding but you know the way I’ve got history in most places in Wales? Well, Margam is no exception.

It’s not the memory of the map reading course I did at Margam Park. That was the day that I began my life-long tendency to combine navigational misjudgements with an air of unwarranted confidence that has bordered on – and sometimes achieved – recklessness; it was the day I ended up thigh deep in a rancid, smelly drainage sump on the north slope of Margam mountain when I should have been outside the castle on the southern side. And it’s not about the winter “Feeding the Deers” event where I suffered concussion thanks to an unfortunate incident with a trailer load of turnips. Or the Christmas 5K run where I was beaten into last place by an inflatable Gingerbread man. It was not even the Margam Eisteddfod when the car I was being given a lift in was impaled by a tractor with one of those spikes used for spearing big bales of hay – except that the tractor driver mistook Eifion’s brand new Audi for animal fodder, stabbed through the front grille of the car, the engine and the radio, with the metal spike finally stopping between Eifion in the driver’s seat and me in the passenger’s seat. I’m not going to go into more detail about any of those things because none of them is what gives me history with Margam.

Have you ever wondered when history begins? On this occasion it was the late spring evening in 1996 when I decided to go on an advertised “Archaeology Walk to a Local Church”. The year is important because it was pre-mobile phone time however that doesn’t excuse my rash behaviour in actually joining the group when I found out that the local church in question was Margam Abbey, a good 20 miles away from where we met up. Gary (walk leader who looked about 16) had failed to mention on the posters that we’d be driving to Margam to start the walk. 1996 was also pre me-having-a-car time so I squidged in a mini with 4 elderly women who didn’t know each other and – apart from the fact that they all had ordered similar pastel coloured rain jackets from the same catalogue – had nothing in common. Also they didn’t know what the evening would entail but they all separately knew Gary (from church, from his mother, from the shop where he worked on Saturdays and from being a dinner lady at his school) and had come along to support him because he was a nice boy. By the time we reached Margam Country Park it was about 7 o’clock in the evening on what had been a warm, dry and sunny day. The warden of the park was just closing the gates but when Gary said he’d arranged with the council for a tour of the grounds, it was agreed that the park would remain open for another half hour. In retrospect, what Gary should have done was not insist that the group’s cars were left in a layby on the main road because if we’d all stopped inside the park, the warden would have realised that we hadn’t left when he locked up the gates for the night. Anyway what’s past is past and hindsight is a wonderful thing etc so let’s get back to the history lesson.

We had a little wander around the medieval ruins near the Orangery and then walked through a gateway cut in the high stone boundary walls which led into the cemetery of Margam Abbey proper. This is where Gary’s arrangements worked because a local bloke called Stan was waiting to show us the inside of the church, point out things of interest and particularly direct our attention to the collection box where donations would be welcome. As Georgian churches go, Margam Abbey is a pretty stonking example and if you’re in the area, well worth a visit unless what you want is an archaeology walk in which case it isn’t. I was sitting on a pew coming to this conclusion when the raincoat ladies shuffled over and said that Stan had suggested they went round the back to see the extra statues and why didn’t I join them. Perhaps I’ve led a sheltered life but I didn’t expect the extra statues round the back to be the mausoleum where the incredibly wealthy Talbot family had seen fit to commission post-mortem images of themselves carved in shiny white stone. And I also didn’t expect the carvers of said statues to have been so forensically accurate in their portrayal of the facial expressions of each Talbot as they had met their doom. Theodore (hunting accident) was caught writhing in some horrific death spasm and I don’t imagine his marble memorial brought much comfort to any grieving relatives. After much tutting, the raincoat ladies and I eventually made our way back into the Abbey and found to our surprise that apart from the whispy glow given by a small sanctuary candle, all of the lights were off and the building was empty.

“Stan?” called Pastel Pink raincoat. “Gary? Anyone?”

Pastel Green rattled the handle of the main door. “Locked,” she announced. “We won’t be getting out that way.”

“Surely they wouldn’t have gone without us?” I said. “Surely Gary would know we were missing?”

Pastels Violet and Blue didn’t seem to be engaged in exit strategies and had started collecting the needlepoint kneelers and arranging them on pews as pillows. Violet patted me gently on the shoulder and said, “You’re young, yet,” and Blue added “cwtching down here we’ll be, like as not, so time to get comfy-womfy.”

I wasn’t prepared to spend the night with a quartet of nearly identically dressed geriatrics if it could possibly be avoided, particularly ones who were grammatical anarchists with a tendency to make up words. I grabbed the sanctuary candle and found the small side door by which we’d entered the Abbey, the one which led into the cemetery. It was unlocked as was the gate in the high stone boundary wall which led us back into the grounds of Margam Park. By now it was dark so I offer a couple of points here which may be of interest to anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation: firstly, it’s never as straightforward to find your way to the exit of a country park after nightfall as it is in daylight; secondly, the deers of Margam own the place once the gates are closed and wander everywhere looking for turnips; thirdly, you might not realise that the multitude of luminescent yellow lights that surround you are actually deer eyes staring in your direction and some of your party may scream, faint or wet themselves; finally scaling ornamental ironwork gates designed to keep bouncy deers in is not an easy task for anyone but elderly ladies in pastel coloured raincoats may be motivated to find hitherto unknown gymnastic abilities when they notice that a stag is bearing down on them at speed.

I subscribe to the philosophy that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it so none of the photographs in this blog are of Margam cos I haven’t been there in years. And as I’m not going back any time soon please accept these images of Llangeinor Mountain (once owned by the medieval monks of Margam Abbey) and the donkeys who live there as a substitute.

My Best Mistake

Between Then and Now

My favourite song at the moment is Divine Comedy’s “The Best Mistakes I’ve Ever Made” – partly because it seems to be playing every time I switch the radio on, partly because I think Neil Hannon’s writing has a beautiful message and partly because it’s got a nice tune that even a musical numpty like me can hum along to. Indeed I was humming it as I walked around Llangattock in Powys last Sunday so I want to apologise to Neil for the misappropriation of his lyrics in this blog and I want to reassure you that using photographs which relate to my now rather than my then may seem like a mistake but it’s not.

I kind of like remembering

I think we all know how much I love maps so it will come as no surprise that I have a fairly large collection of dog-eared, creased, water-stained, falling-apart OS maps of various parts of the country. Some are of places I’ve visited, some of places I intend to visit and some are of places I know that I’ll never get to in reality so a map is the next best thing. One of the best ideas to float through cyberspace recently has been the development of Slow Ways – a project to develop a national network of walking routes that will eventually link up villages, towns and cities throughout the UK. The Slow Ways website was showing up a few routes passing through Crickhowell but there was no information about Llangattock (a small village on the opposite bank of the River Usk), which is where I was. Next on my go to list of useful websites is Coflein, the online catalogue of archaeological sites in Wales. It announced that I was in close proximity to both Ffynnon Cattwg and Llan-Wysg holy wells. If I had brought the right OS map with me, I might have been able to find them. Undaunted, I picked up my mobile phone and set off towards the canal towpath.

Things that never worked out right

I joined the Ramblers’ Association back in 1986. It turned out that in my group at that time the average age of members was about 70 and their average level of fitness was Joe Wickes on amphetamines. I was an overweight, shy and generally breathless 20 something. Think (very) round peg in a square hole and you’re almost there. My first outing with them was a walk along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. The coach which took us to the start point was full of Berghaus clad geriatrics and there was only one empty seat on the bus – it was next to me. We finally arrived at Broadhaven beach and George the walk leader insisted that everyone form an orderly queue to use the toilets. Obviously because of my junior status and the fact that my 20 something year old bladder still functioned within optimal parameters, I was placed last. Eventually my turn arrived, I went into the middle cubicle, sat down, did what was required, stood up, flushed the loo and opened the door. No, actually I didn’t because the handle came away from the door leaving it stuck firmly in the frame.

Muddles and Miscommunications

“Hello?” my shy little voice quivered. “Hello? Anyone there? The door’s stuck and I’m locked in.”

Outside I could hear George the walk leader issuing advice about kit, and route, and first aid, and let’s do a head count, and who’s missing because we’re one short. I got down on my hands and knees and pulled the bottom of the door as hard as I could but it was jammed fast. There was the unmistakeable sound of a rucksack being thrown down on the concrete path and then George’s annoyed voice shouting “Roll Call!” By this time I had resorted to making bird-like “Cooo-ooo!” noises because I wasn’t brave enough to go loud with words or bang on the door. Eventually George identified who was missing. I heard women chirrupping “It’s the new girl”, “wonder where she went” and “she was very quiet on the bus”. Meanwhile the men were split between “is that her down by the sea with the three dogs?”, “she can catch us up, it’s her own fault” and “what time does the pub open?”

The Wasted Tears

Of course finally I was found; George was ex-army and he wasn’t going to leave anyone behind. In a rescue operation worthy of any Steven Seagal film, one chap climbed onto the wash basin, slid swearing into the taps a couple of times but then was hoisted by the ill-placed hands of George’s lieutenants at such speed that he ended up straddled across the top of the cubicle door with a wincing jolt.

“Jesus Christ Boys! Not so fast!” he yelped, “let me get straight!” and he wiggled himself into what I guess was a more comfortable position before slithering down the panels to stand next to me. Very close next to me.

Can I just say at this point that if you’re a woman reading this, you already know that cubicles in ladies’ toilets are – at best – snug and you will be able to imagine fairly easily how the overweight, shy, 20 something me reacted to being jostled and jammed between a toilet and a toilet roll holder by a bloke I’d never met before.

“Alright, love?” he said. “Not upset are you?”

“How’s it going, Ron?” came George’s voice. “Are you in? Is she upset?”

“She’s being brave, aren’t you love?” answered Ron. “George, you’re going to have to give the door some welly. It’s stuck fast. Christ knows what she did to it. Stronger than you look, aren’t you love?”

Throw the past out

Ten minutes later and I was outside. So was the door, door frame and side panels of not just the cubicle I had been stuck in but of all three which had once formed the inside arrangements of the ladies’ toilets at Broadhaven’s public conveniences. Everything was placed in neat piles on the ground as if plumbers were expected at any moment to see to installation. Ron came out of the building wiping his hands on a rag and shouted “I switched the water off at the stopcock – it will all drain away soon enough. Christ knows what those women had tried to flush. Just as well the door jammed because that was going to back up something awful sooner or later.”

“Let’s say no more about it,” replied George, looking at the all the women, not just me, with distaste. “Least said, soonest mended.”

Ron regarded the 4 panels, 3 doors, 3 toilet seats and bits of plumbing ephemera that littered the grass.

“I don’t think the council will see it that way,” he said.

I don’t regret a single day

Even though I had lost any hope of being welcomed into the group as one of them, I stayed with the Ramblers for a couple more years before deciding I preferred walking alone. Are you wondering why this episode was one of the best mistakes I ever made? It’s not because I decided I should learn how to read a map so I wouldn’t be dependent on the Georges of this world and it wasn’t because I never again would allow myself to snivel in front of the likes of Ron, however kind and well-meaning Rons are. No, it’s because to this day my ability to go for hours and hours without needing to use a public lavatory is the stuff of legend and if anything, my bladder functions at a higher level of efficiency now than it did 40 years ago.

I prefer now

Thanks to a suggestion from Rebecca at Girl on the Trail I bought myself a subscription to the Ordnance Survey on-line thingummy wotsit as a Christmas present. This means that for as long as my mobile phone is at hand, working and charged I can use an app rather than unfolding and refolding a vast and uncooperative sheet of paper. No more thumbing the map to tick off features as I pass them – I’ve got a little red arrow that moves as I do, a little red arrow that takes me to medieval wells and a little red arrow that points out the nearest toilets. It’s so slick, it’s so easy, it’s so now – and it leaves so little room for any more of the best mistakes I’ve ever made.

Deceptions of Solitude

My exhibition Unlost Places II (Deceptions of Solitude) is in the Art Pane Relief windows at The Workers Gallery, Ynyshir, CF39 0EN between 20th September and 3rd October 2021. So in a departure from the usual tongue-in-cheek stuff, this month’s blog is for those people who can’t get to Ynyshir or for the ones who want a bit more information about the artwork.

About Unlost Places

Unlost Places is a project which uses various methods of creative expression to map the metaphysical features of landscape and in particular, the spiritual legacy that lingers in ancient places. Unlost Places I reflected on the Iron Age hillfort of Mynydd-y-Gaer on the Glamorgan Ridgeway. Unlost Places II is centred slightly further west on Mynydd Llangeinwyr.

Mynydd Llangeinwyr

Mynydd Llangeinwyr is not a mountain by any commonly accepted measurement of altitude but those who live on its slopes or in its shadows happily dismiss the evidence of spot heights and contour lines on maps. Mynydd Llangeinwyr may be more aligned to “the high, steep hill” of a dictionary definition but when you cross the ridge in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims or stride along the Old Garw Road, rutted by generations of drovers, when you pause at the Bronze Age Burial Mounds of Bryn-y-wrach and look across the long, empty horizons and grass strewn slopes and know that thousands of years ago some other soul stood where you stand and saw the same things, then who is to say there is only one way to define a mountain? Unlost Places II consists of interpretations of Mynydd Llangeinwyr through the prism of the existence of two individuals – the eponymous Gwrach of Bryn-y-wrach and St Ceinwyr who is remembered in the spring, church, llan, mountain and village that bear her name.

Art-Pane-Relief Window Gallery

Both windows follow the same premise:

textile art to represent an aspect of the physical landscape together with bells to indicate the presence – real, imagined or potential – of the numinous or spirit of place
a collection of small dolls which illustrate the journey through life that all individuals undertake and which leads some to consider the possibility of a greater scheme
the poetic tercets (3 lines, 7 syllables in each line) end with the phrase “deceptions of solitude” giving credence to the possibility of such a scheme
a larger doll to embody the female protagonist associated with each place
textile art which reflects upon the spiritual legacy in the location

Window One – Bryn-y-Wrach

The Last One

Hand embroidery on machined appliqué, various fabrics. The usual translation of Bryn-y-wrach is the Witch’s Hill. Less well known is the tradition that the last sheaf of corn to be harvested was known as the Gwrach. It was left standing in the field as shelter for the spirit of the land over the winter months. The following spring the Gwrach would be ploughed into the soil to ensure a good harvest.

The Barrow Wights

Stump dolls, various fabrics. Barrow Wights are described in folklore as small, scurrying creatures who tempt passers-by to enter the realm of the fae or otherworld.

Gwrach

Poetry

Text printed by hand onto hand-made paper with a collage of watercolour painted leaves. Three composed poetic tercets describing the enduring legacy of folklore traditions.

Y Wrach

Doll

Doll with hand embroidery on machine appliqué, needle-sculpted face and an internal armature for support. According to folklore, all crossroads were haunted by a witch who appeared as a beautiful woman. Having ensnared a traveller, she would turn into a crone or hag before disappearing. The traveller would never be seen again.

Crossroads

Textile Art

Hand embroidery on painted canvas. Illustration of the concept of genius loci – the spirit of place.

Window Two – Llangeinwyr

Llan

Textile Art

Free form knitting. Contrary to popular opinion a “llan” is not a church but a stone-walled enclosure. The original llan lies to the north of the current churchyard and it was in this field that I threw a ball of wool down the slope then walked after it, knitting as I went. The finished piece contains field debris such as moss, dried grass and tufts of sheep wool.

Pilgrim/Prayer Dolls

Stump Dolls

Stump dolls with crewel embroidery stitches. Haptic experiences like the handling of beads are associated with prayer and contemplation in many religions. The patterns on these dolls are finger traceries which fulfil a similar purpose.

Ceinwyr

Poetry

Text printed by hand onto hand-made paper with a collage of watercolour painted leaves. Three composed poetic tercets relating to the stories surrounding St Ceinwyr.

St Ceinwyr

Doll

Doll embroidered with medieval stitchery, needle-sculpted face and internal armature for support. Tradition links St Ceinwyr with the Mountain Ash tree so this is depicted on both sleeves and the panel of the doll’s skirt. St Ceinwyr was said to have the ability to turn snakes into stones and many ammonites were found near the places she lived. These spiralled shapes are stitched into the fabric.

Numinous 9

Textile Art

Hand embroidered collages set on a mirrored background. The underlying concept which links both windows is that Christianity imposes a pattern and order of behaviour to replace the colour and texture of self-hood. In exchange the individual has the promise of a heavenly existence. The collages of Numinous 9 represents the 8 stump dolls – highly coloured in Window One, monochrome and simplistic in Window Two. The ninth patch and the mirrored background reflect the viewer both metaphorically and literally.

Parting Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed a browse through Unlost Places II (Deceptions of Solitude). I suspect next month’s blog will be less intense mostly because I am spending October cat-sitting, harvesting the garden, walking a half marathon and catching up with all of my mentoring clients who have patiently taken a back seat while I’ve been stitching all day, every day recently. Plenty of potential there for tongue-in-cheek stuff.

Art in Unexpected Places

Back in 2018 I decided that what I really, really wanted to do was a PhD. I’ve got a degree in Creative Writing and an MA in Contemporary Crafts so naturally I thought I should apply to do a PhD in Geography. I wrote a proposal based on Unlost Places and badgered some very pleasant (and extremely patient) academics to find a supervisor who would be prepared to let me wander about the ancient tracks of Wales writing poetry, sketching and piling stones into land sculptures. For various reasons (mostly to do with not having £25,000 going spare) I never actually applied to study. It turns out that this was no bad thing on two counts: firstly, since March 2020 wandering opportunities have been limited and secondly, I have come up with several other potential PhD research ideas.

One of these is called “Art in Unexpected Places”, although it will have a suitably intellectual subtitle when I get round to writing the proposal. It all started on one of my local walks in the first lockdown (one hour, once a day) when I was seeing how far I could get before having to turn homeward and saw this outside a local farm.

When restrictions eased in the summer I did some lane walking in West Wales and found other examples of hand-crafted roadside art.

I know that it is much cheaper to make a sign than buy one but I had the impression that there was more than cost involved for the West Walians. I think there was an element of affection for the subject,

an opportunity to show a sense of humour,

express some individuality

or just be creative.

So next time you’re thinking of downloading and printing off a rainbow for the kids to colour in, bear in mind that I might be walking past and my PhD will need something a bit more original in the window if you want to be included in my research. And incidentally, even official signs can be quirky and original – this one on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path is one of my favourites and probably will get a whole chapter in my thesis.

If you’re a pleasant (and extremely patient) academic, I still haven’t got the £25,000 but feel free to get in touch. There’s bound to be a funding stream somewhere we can tap into.

River, Ford, Duck

Photograph by Mrs B in the Hills

“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and its current is strong; no sooner does anything appear than it is swept away, and another comes in its place and will be swept away too.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Thanks to Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis, rivers are attracting a lot of attention at the moment. Here in Wales, being the first high ground that the Atlantic weather systems hit on their west to east trajectory, we get more than our fair share of rain which leads to a surfeit of rivers. The Rev. Eli Jenkins’ list was by no means complete as it misses out, amongst others, the Severn, Usk and Wye:

“By Sawdde, Senni, Dovey, Dee,

Edw, Eden, Aled, all,

Taff and Towy broad and free,

Llyfnant with its waterfall.

Claerwen, Cleddau, Dulas, Daw,

Ely, Gwili, Ogwr, Nedd,

Small is our River Dewi, Lord,

A baby on a rushy bed.”

(Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas)

Field Sketch

My childhood memories are scattered with river references: in warm weather we’d paddle in the Afan where it flowed across Aberavon’s sandy beach or dare each other to crawl along the gas pipes that straddled the Ffrwdwyllt in the Goytre valley. Occasionally, we’d be taken on a family outing to the Pontaber Inn on the Black Mountain, where a little bridge crossed a babbling stream that ran through the beer garden and, in Sunday best dresses, we’d lean over and play Pooh sticks. Our local nant was dammed by work parties of children every June so that we’d have a makeshift lido right through the summer holidays. Whilst none of us grew up to be civil engineers, we all knew that obstructing the flow of water downstream would create flooding upstream.

Paddling

As a result, when I looked over the ancient stone walls of Crickhowell Bridge a few weeks ago and saw this, I felt qualified to get in touch with National Resources Wales and say that based on my experience, the tree in question was not going to dislodge itself and float away without help. Now, not being local to Crickhowell, once I got a nice message back from National Resources Wales saying the matter was being referred to their Incident team, I stopped thinking about the tree but not about rivers, and not about the things that get swept away by them.

The path to Llangattock runs close to a little brook and as I stopped to take this photograph of snowdrops, a dead duck floated past on the fast flowing water. For some reason – I think it’s to do with the fact that the duck was stretched out, lying on its back with wings at its side and I’ve been reading too many books about Viking boat burials recently – I have been unable to erase the image from my mind. I suppose we should all be glad that my camera was pointing at the snowdrops or you might now be having the same problem.

Returning home the following week I got an email asking me if I wanted to submit a piece of work – art or poetry – to an exhibition. It was to be on the theme of ‘Rivers’ and as I live close to the river Ogmore which starts with a mountain spring before plunging over a bare rock cliff as a tumultuous waterfall, I thought, yes, I can do that. I did a field sketch then composed a poem called ‘Leap’ in my usual 7 syllables a line, 3 lines a verse format and sent it off. When it came to the stitchery however, all I could see was the dead duck and as I was pretty convinced that the exhibition organisers didn’t have a drowned bird in mind when they decided the title, I thought I had better go and find some different inspiration.

map of route walked

You may recall that last month’s blog ended near the Mynydd Portref wind farm. It’s a short distance from there along an old pilgrim path to the small village of Glynogwr where a lane opposite Llandyfodwg Church leads to a winding brook called Nant Iechyd. There are two ways to cross the water – a small footbridge over it or the Dimbath Ford straight through it. It’s a route which I run regularly and is home to one of my pieces of transient land art. A small detour into a wood on the west of the lane leads into a hollow way and just before the trail putters out into wide green meadows, I built this piece of sculpture and decorated it with one of the many crab apples that litter the ground. It was at grid reference 942888 but Storms Ciara and Dennis may have altered that.

land art

It’s always tempting – but rarely right – to use blue to give the impression of water, especially if you’re not working figuratively. With the drowned duck still at the forefront of my imagination, I went for a less romantic, maudlin palette. Also I didn’t have much blue wool in my stash whereas there seemed to be a lot of muddy browns and greys. As usual, my free form knitting began with a ribbed edge and drifted off into long straggly bits which gradually got infilled and joined up until they formed a single piece.

I had picked, sliced and dried some of the Dimbath Ford crab apples to use as beads and set them to dangle on invisible thread down one side of the hanging.

I’m quite pleased with the result; the colours are very evocative of a floody river, the textures are great and best of all, I have nearly (but only nearly) erased the image of the sodden bird as the river swept him away to his final destination. Now all I have to do is decide on a title for the artwork so it can be submitted for the exhibition. Do I go with Time like a river? Dimbath Ford? Or Epitaph for a Drowned Duck?

“Learn from a river; obstacles may force it to change its course, but never its destination.” Matshona Dhliwayo

In Rainy Autumn

“And I rose in rainy autumn and walked abroad in a shower of all my days.” Dylan Thomas

Fed up of this rainy autumn? Then let me take you back to a hot summer day instead,. It’s Friday the 28th of June. Even the usually muddy waters of the Towy estuary are glistening under a blue sky; no whisper of breeze disturbs the green-leafed trees that edge the railway track between Kidwelly and Carmarthen. As the train passes through Ferryside (Glan-y-fferi) station I glance out of the dust smudged window at the silhouette of Llansteffan Castle, perched on a hill above the opposite shore. I make this journey quite often and that glance towards Llansteffan Castle means it’s time to stop working, put my books in my bag, collect my belongings and get ready to leave the train.

I stand up, hear my phone hit the floor (because it was on my lap not in my pocket) and spend valuable moments in an undignified scramble between my seat and the one in front. By the time I retrieve my phone, Carmarthen station – which was ten minutes away – is now much closer and I have a flurry of anxiety at the possibility of missing the opportunity to get off the train, instead being swept towards Milford Haven, Pembroke Dock or Fishguard. (I should say that I have visited – intentionally – all of these towns and would be happy to do so again. It’s just that if I’m aiming for Carmarthen, that’s where I want to go.) Today I am taking advantage of the town’s integrated transport hub to get me to my destination. Or I would if I could be bothered to wait for the bus at the railway station. I can’t, so walk across the wonderful Pont King Morgan Footbridge to catch the 227 bus to Llansteffan village.

As well as its castle and the titular church, this place was home to the late artist Osi Rhys Osmond and it’s where Dylan Thomas spent much of his childhood, later inviting the world to share its magical innocence through his poem ‘Fern Hill’. These are the sort of things I should know about before travelling somewhere to make an art map but one of the flaws in my exploration technique is that I tend to visit a place first and do the research afterwards. Then, of course, I need to go back so that not only do I have context for my wanderings but I will have also worked out where the best coffee and cake is to be had en route.

Anyway, back to the plot. The number 227 bus takes about 20 minutes to reach Llansteffan and then carries on to Llanybri. When you’ve never been to a place before, the best plan for choosing where to get off a bus is to wait for some local to ding the bell and shuffle to their feet. This tried and test method means that I soon find myself at the corner of Water Lane. The bus trundles off uphill and out of sight. Not surprisingly Water Lane leads down to the the river but before you get to the Towy itself, some town planner has thoughtfully arranged a surfeit of car parking places as well as neatly cut verges and picnic benches. I walk down the road, nosing over low walls into people’s gardens, looking for ideas and comparing the growth of their roses to mine. (Mine are better.)

The river has disappeared behind a nature reserve of marram-grassed sand dunes. Maps giving instructions about where, when and how dogs are allowed to be walked, to defecate or merely to exist confuse me because they (the maps) have been orientated through 270 degrees so you have to lean at an extreme angle to make sense of them. Not having a dog with me, I don’t bother. After a bit there are more car parking spaces; benches alongside the pavement give a view across the estuary expanse that is as impressive as it is unexpected. Who’d have thought there would be an immense, golden and tropical looking beach? Hardly anybody by the look of it.

There’s a footpath to the castle signposted from the corner of the car park. After a few hundred metres it forks: right is The Old Road (sic) which leads into the village with its artisan bakery, pubs and church; left the path goes steeply uphill to the castle. When you climb to the top and survey, breathless, the panorama across the bay, it’s easy to understand why – before the Normans got here – there had been an Iron Age Hill Fort and a 6th Century Promontory Fort. Right up until it ended up in the hands of the Tudor dynasty, Llansteffan Castle was a target for and site of conflict between the English and the Welsh princes.

I don’t stay at the castle long because there’s no shade inside the walls from the sun which now high in the sky. I go back down the path and follow The Old Road to the village. An elderly man is strimming undergrowth in the walled graveyard – the Llan – that surrounds the church of St Ystyffan. It’s a grade II listed building of white washed rubble stone, the oldest parts of which are dated to 13th Century although it’s likely that it was a site of Christian worship from the 6th. St Ystyffan was a contemporary of St Teilo and there are other churches in Wales dedicated to him, particularly in Powys. It’s lovely and cool inside the church so I take my time admiring the medieval stonework and the beautiful stained glass windows. Outside the strimmer putters to a halt and doesn’t restart. Either man or machine thinks hard work and the midday day sun don’t go together. From the church I walk back up The Old Road, this time veering off before the castle slope and going through an iron gate.

A woodland path leads to St Anthony’s Well, now little more than an arched hollow with an empty niche but once known as a healing well with pins and pennies left as offerings. A series of stone steps takes me onto the scorching sands of the beach. The cool, shimmering waters beckon me and I can think of nothing better at this moment than a paddle in the shallows. Until, that is, I find that between me and the Towy are the remains of many, many dead jellyfish.

I retreat to the beach cafe for an ice cream and wait on a bench for the arrival of the boat which will take me back to Ferryside. When I make maps, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to convey the poetic and metaphysical features of landscape through stitch. Now I’m going to have to find a way to express jellyfish mortality too. In the meantime though, this is the stitched sketch I made of the walk in the countryside around Llansteffan:

The best bit of the whole day, however, was the view of Llansteffan from the Carmarthen Bay Ferry.

Art in a Native Land

“Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.” Sir Walter Scott

Before we left Scotland I was determined to see the famous stone circles of Kilmartin. For some perverse reason our sat nav decided to ignore the obvious route of the A816 and instead took us on a panic attack-inducing, twisting, narrow lane towards the village of Kilmore – aptly named, we thought, especially after we encountered a full size bus hurtling towards us, the driver of which had more faith in his braking ability than our nerves could cope with. Eventually we got back to the main road and as Kilmartin Glen opened up, we stopped at Carnasserie Castle.

Kilmartin Glen From the bottom of the hill, it looks like one of the ubiquitous stone towers that scatter the Scottish landscape but as you climb the slope, it becomes clear that whoever built this was sending a very serious message about power, ownership and the consequences of threatening either. The tower is five storeys high and can be climbed. If listening to the sat nav had been our first mistake of the day then deciding to take the spiral, unlit, un-handrailed, slippery-with-age stone staircase to the top of Carnasserie Castle – while carrying an acrophobic Jack Russell terrier – was our second. The views across the vast expanse of the glen were magnificent and certainly gave an indication as to why this landscape attracted the attention of stone circle builders. Once we’d recovered from the climb, however, there was the terrible realisation that what had come up, had to go down.

stones at carnasserie castle There are few better ways to calm jangling nerves than doing a bit of watercolour painting. Once on terra firma I tried to capture the colour of the castle stones which from the bottom of the hill look a dour grey but up close are the most delicate pink – quite lovely if you are in a post-traumatic state.

Stone circle

Kilmartin was everything I had hoped to see in terms of landscape archaeology. There are standing stones, stone circles and burial chambers everywhere. Probably the biggest disappointment was that we arrived shortly after a coach load of American tourists, many of whom were of the opinion that the best way to appreciate the work of neolithic man was to lie on their backs with their legs stretched up on the sides of the monoliths. Whilst I don’t have a problem if this is done out of spiritual necessity, it did mean that photo opportunities were limited.

Rear view of Rosslyn Chapel

More history lay in wait at our next destination as we briefly visited Rosslyn Chapel, rightly feted because of its stupendous carving but disappointingly famous because of its involvement with the plot and film of The Da Vinci Code. We made the mistake of being there on a weekend in the school holidays. If you’ve never been, Roslin (the village) is about 10 miles south of Edinburgh and you should make it your life’s ambition to get there. Definitely a place for the bucket list but don’t stop at just seeing the chapel – there’s a lovely castle and some terrific walks through historical battlefields around the village too.

silhouette of bamburgh castle

Next day we drove to Bamburgh where the massive castle overlooks the wide, golden-sanded beach and from there we headed to Gilsland, once the outer limit of the Roman Empire. It was here that I intended to make my next piece of Unlost Places art. The idea came in two parts: the first is captured in the photograph at the very top of the blog. Nailed to the fence to the left of the tree was a dead crow. Doing this is an old farming way of warning other crows to stay away from the field.

Chained stone The second part of the idea came when I saw this stone. Here in Wales we chain standing stones too. It is said that doing so stops the stone from wandering off and taking the path with it.

water colour of stone

This was the first time that I had done performance art as part of Unlost Places and my recitation of a poetic tercet whilst standing in the middle of a Northumbrian lane probably frightened off more crows that the old farming way. Being so close to Hadrian’s Wall meant I was spoilt for choice when it came to making a larger piece of artwork. Until, that is, we passed the Temple of Mithras at Carrawburgh.

knitting

Creative Knitting is always a bit fiddly and you can never be sure it’s going to work out until the very last bead is attached or French Knot stitched. And to those who think that maps are drawn with lines on paper all I can say is that for me, on a damp Tuesday afternoon in May, standing in the Temple of Mithras in the bleak landscape of Carrawburgh, this is how I understood my native land.

wall hanging

A Walk Through Dalriada

“Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.” Charles Reade

Oban

The historical kingdom of Dalriada was first settled by Irish raiders and eventually came to include much of what is now known as Argyll. You can’t walk far in the area around Oban without coming across reminders of a past which sowed the seeds of Scotland and Scottish character. This 11 mile walk from Oban to Sutherland’s Grove Forest (near Barcaldine) followed part of the Caledonian Way cycle route, most of which is traffic free or on quiet lanes. If, like me, you start by going down the old carriage road towards Dunollie Castle, you’ll pass Fingal’s Stone. Legend has it that that Bran used to tie his faithful hunting dog, Fingal, to this piece of volcanic rock. It was just starting to rain when I got there so rather than get the paints out, I came up with a tercet.

Fingals stone Dunollie

“From the west he will call through

time. Scenting the air, Fingal

waits – still, listening, ready.”

Beach

The weather was improving as I left Dunollie Castle and turned north. By the time I reached Ganavan Sands with it’s wide sandy beach, the clouds were lifting with the sky promising a weak sunshine for the rest of the day . I’d wanted to visit Ganavan Sands because it hosts a parkrun . I wasn’t going to be in the area at 9.30am on a Saturday to do the whole 5K so I followed part of the route across the dunes and heath towards Dunbeg.

Dunbeg sketch

I’ll confess that cycling doesn’t hold much in the way of attraction for me but if I’d had a bike on this stretch of the Caledonian Way, I’d probably have ended up walking anyway – there were some seriously steep slopes! Having made the summit, the track wound downhill through a magical woodland. The hillsides were covered in ancient oaks that clustered and curled together, gossiping secrets as the light breeze filtered through their drapes of lichen. Occasionally a hidden crow splintered the silence with a loud C-a-a-a-r-k! Field sketching and walking always combine to make wobbly paintings but I think it’s a great way to capture a mystical atmosphere of place.

Dunstaffnage

I diverted from the path at Dunstaffnage, home to many of the ancient kings of Scotland and where in the past the iconic Stone of Destiny was kept. This was the place which was once the centre of Dalriada and for many people, it is where the ideal of a nation called Scotland was born.

Dunstaffnage bluebells

Wandering through the bee-humming woods and past the ruins of a stone built chapel, was like walking through a lake of bluebells.

Pebble painting

I came to a pebbly cove which is now home to a piece of Unlost Places art. I drew the image with a waterproof feltpen so the sea shouldn’t damage it too much – for a while, at least. I don’t suppose my pebble will ever be found on a beach where they are not only in infinite supply but constantly moving in and out with the tide but I like to think that it was my gift to Dalriada.

Caledonia Way

The Caledonian Way goes past some magnificent lochside scenery and walking is a wonderful way to appreciate the landscape. I took this photograph when the Caledonian Way had curved behind some trees and away from the road. I could hear cars hurtling along, their drivers having no idea of what they were missing. From Benderloch I walked on quiet lanes towards Barcaldine where I encountered the first of the day’s midgies.

Orienteering course

Not even midgies could stop my heart from lifting when I realised that Sutherland’s Grove Forestry was home to an orienteering course. My joy was complete when I found a map that someone had left on a bench rather than taking it home or putting it in a rubbish bin. Following the orienteering course took me through some of the most picturesque parts of the woodland but even if it hadn’t, I loved chasing through the trees looking for controls and when I couldn’t find them, remembering that I’d always had a tendency to overshoot my intended location by misjudging my stride length. Some habits die hard!

Wood carving In some of the glades, there were creatures sculpted in dead wood that could have inspired (or been inspired by) The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. A troll – presumably caught out by the May sunshine – was lurking close to a bridge over a narrow gorge.

Sutherlands Grove

Higher up the slopes the scenery was even more dramatic. It’s an area associated with the Celtic legend of Deirdre who escaped from Ulster to this part of Dalriada with her lover, Naoise of the Red Branch. This photograph is looking towards Beinn Lora which translates to Deirdre’s Hill.

woven tree hanging

In Wales, we call the gathering of wool tufts from hedges and fences gwlana. I used gwlana and pickings of forest litter to create this piece of weaving which I left hanging from a tree in Sutherland’s Grove.

Dalriada

Unlost Places is a project about mapping the metaphysical features of landscape, using art to express what it feels like to be a certain place. Just before I started this walk through Dalriada I’d stopped off in a shop in Oban and bought a pack of textured threads. Since then, I’ve worked with my poetic tercets, field sketches and stitched samples to create this map of my walk using Free Form Knitting, Crochet and Weaving.