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, 7th 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.
