It's in the trees!

I give myself a kick up the bum this morning and finally headed out to the trees I have been meaning to photgraph all months. Whilst I was diappointment that the woods had received a bit of a clear with a few of the trees having been chopped into logs, there were still a couple of the trees I was looking forward to finally photograph them.

These tree outgrew their iron girdles (designed, I think, to stop farm animals eating them as saplings)  many years ago. 

My aim achieved, Me and Mrs E settled ourselves in the snug of the nearby Gower Inn pint for a cheeky pint.

With the early afternoon weather being unusually clement, we worked off our pint by taking a walk through the woods behind the pub car park.

This is the site of Trinity Wells, the first Baptist Church in Wales:

The Killy-Willy stream leads to another great Gower Hamlet, Ilston and past a fantastic ancient Yew in a medieval graveyard. But not for us today.

The Killy Willy Stream

A Family Night Out

Spent a lovely Saturday out with the family as my daughter was down from Norwich with her bf. Started off with a stroll around Mumbles, making the most of the mild evening.

Went for a high-class drink then at the Gin & Juice, where we tried their delicious Die Hard cocktail.

After that, we all headed down to Swansea Arena, where we watched the very funny Jimmy Carr.

I thought I'd close this post with some pics of the inside of Swansea's most controversial bridge, which connects the arena with the town centre, as it was my daughter's first time seeing it. I'm a big fan of the interior of the bridge but wish the exterior was painted more of a copper colour.

We got home around 1ish in the morning had ate our around the table at 1.30am lol. Loved the company and the evening.

tsuchinshan-ATLAS

With the clouds offering no more than a 50/50 chance of seeing comet tsuchinshan-ATLAS, we decided to head out to try and see it. It has rained heavily since my last failed attempt and to see it as tonight was the last chance of capturing it on a mobile phone camera for 80,000,000 years.

We drove out to Pengwern Common, near the house where my Gran (on my father's side) used to live, our moods dampening as the clouds gathered heavily over the horizon. But then, not long after arriving, they broke ranks, and, hey presto, the comet was revealed! 

While the comet had dramatically diminished in size and visibility over the last few days, it was still a fantastic feeling to finally catch a glimpse of it, especially as tonight's viewing was a now-or-never last-ditch attempt!

Thank U Welsh Water

Not a bad start to the week 😀. The office closed before lunch due to an incident at Welsh Water. This spare time really was a godsend as it gave me a whole five extra hours work on my Gower Beaches book. There is now just 9 days left to complete the project, but I only have 7 more beaches to correct, plus an introduction to write. Its looking more and more likely I am actually going to complete this book on time!

The Pressure's On

10 days to complete my Gower Beaches book! Will I get it done on time? You bet your life I will.

Fall Bay

I finally revisited Fall Bay yesterday evening after a gap of over 2 decades. The path down to the beach was perilous, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unable to undertake a lot of scrambling. That said, when we finally reached the sand, we found we had the whole bay to ourselves for the entirety of the sunset. And its moments like that which always make me leave Gower to the tourists in the summer months.

I had hoped to capture a pic of comet  tsuchinshan-ATLAS, not seen since neolithic times, but as you can see from the later pics from Rhossili, the clouds over the horizon, where it was positioned tonight, put paid to that ambition.