Sunday 2 January 2011

2010 - Wales and even more London

In March I made the first of two trips this year to visit Bev in Newtown in Wales. Weatherwise it was a bit dreach but that's a poor excuse not to go out and appreciate the country side a little and if Wales has plenty of anything, it's countryside. The river to the right there is the Hafren (the Severn in Welsh). It is named after the princess Hafren who, legend has it, drowned in this river. Below, a suspicious character is photographed by the river (Bev's dog Giz can be seen there too having a bit mouch about)


The remains of the Bryntail lead mines and the Clywedog dam towering over them.


Behind the dam, the Clywedog resevoir

 

This half timbered house in Newtown is typical of some of the older buildings in the area - a lot of other buildings are painted up to look half timbered


Ye Olde Nat Weste


This morsel is a local cake called bara brithe - this particular piece was bought from Fiore's cafe on the Newtown station platform.


My second visit to Wales was in August and can be found here.

I can't quite remember when I took the following pictures but it was very early in the morning when I stepped out of Embankment tube station in London to see Cleopatra's needle. There was plenty of sunshine for that time of the morning so it must have been fairly far into the year - didn't stop it being chilly though.


The needle is flanked by a pair of sphinxes


The above sphinx was a victim of the first ever air raid on London on the 4th of September 1917 - you can see some of the damage below.

My new camera half way through the year enabled me to take pictures of things that were previously too far away. As you walk from the statue of Eros in Picadilly towards Leichester Square, just after you've crossed the road (not while please), turn round and look up and you'll see the following statues - I really need very little excuse to show you them again.
 



At Paddington station on the way home, a lost bear and me.

5 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

I love Wales, I had a lot of holidays there as a child and a couple as an adult, lots of coutryside as you say. Your photos are lovely, specially the misty lake

Dave Wenning said...

Wow, Wales looks just like here until you get to the buildings and those wonderful ruins. I would have put those shots in the Cascades, dam and all.

Sandy's witterings said...

Misty lake pictures were very much order of the day Juliet (I have some matching misty mountain pictures to match). Tis a lovely part of the country though - until I was into my 40s, I'd only a childhood holiday in Rhyl to go on and that's not going to give you quite the same image of Wales.

Dave, it's the type of scenery that pops up in a lot of places in the world from time to time - there are bits of Scotland look very similar.

Zia Wolf-Sun said...

Yes Sandi...lol...lovely statues at the top of Eros! Truly delightful! Lovely pics from Wales and I did like that one of the old lead mines...that dam is HUGE!!

Sandy's witterings said...

Dam it's huge - I've seen the dambusters - we didn't stay there all that long.