An Early Christmas Grotto

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Despite the gloomy weather, Stella and I forced ourselves out of the house today for our weekend exercise. After half hour's drive into the countryside, we parked up at the top of a pine woodland, where, within minutes of leaving the car, we were both overjoyed that we had mustered the needed willpower to leave the house.  

Walking down the woodland path, something bright caught our eyes from a small hollow in a bank below a pine tree. We had to step into a small ditch to get in closer to our find, but we were well and truly rewarded for the slight inconvenience. For, parting its curtain of pine branches, we found ourselves peering into a little magical Christmas grotto, festooned with the most glorious Amanita muscaria mushrooms I have ever seen!

"What have we here then?"

Seeing these bejewelled beauties through the canopy of pine needles reminded me of an old article I wrote on the tradition of decorating Christmas trees with imitation Amanita muscaria mushrooms. Upon our return home, I dug out the old manuscript of this article. Written many moons ago, the thing needs a good, solid polish, but I can announce that my next project will be to publish my short illustrated essay - Santa was a Shaman! 

I do love they way nature walks inspire and get the creative juice flowing :)

Late Morning with the Furry Girls

Friday, October 22, 2021

Having a late morning in bed, working on my new Some Place Different zine.

Someplace Different

I am having fun working on this new impromptu project, brought on from my recent walk around Twmbarlwm. I have a title for the project now- Some Place Different and will be psycho geographical guides to interest places I have visited. I am still working on specifics on the project so, if you are interested in the progress of this work, watch this space and follow this tag [Some Place Different].

A Thankyou to Amber

The paperback of Gobble arrived today. I am well happy with the way it looks. Whilst I usually provide the artwork and photography for my publications, the honours for the art in this book goes to my daughter. Thank you, Amber xxxx

Mynydd Y Betws Wind Farm

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Keep Out!

 

Given the terror that awaited us down this path, I think the warning should be a little clearer!

Halloween Funko 2021 #5

 Can't quite believe that I haven't added this particular character to my horror pop funko gallery. He did make an appearance a while back in a slightly different gloves tho [see earlier pic here]. Anyway, i got him out of his box today and snapped this quick pic of him for your delectation:

Farewell Twmbarlwm, (well, kinda...)

My imagination literally amok during the few hours I spent exploring Twmbarlm. It's a place I had not even heard of until the morning I decided to look for somewhere new in South Wales to explore. But its a place that will linger in my mind for a long time to come...

Locally known as 'Twmp', this mystic tumulus is also more widely nicknamed 'The Nipple' given the hill's appearance to a breast, and is, in fact, an Iron Age hillfort, constructed by the Celtic Silues tribe [more info here].

Twmbarlwm Summit, aka 'The Nipple'

It would have been amiss of me not to climb Twmbarlwm's 419m summit and share a few images from its height, so here they are: 

One of the defensive ditches on Twmbarlwm

The place is stepped in folklore, much of which I still haven't ha the opportunity to study (I will leave a few links here if you are thirsty for this info right now.

http://www.twmbarlwm.co.uk/category/legend/

https://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2986/twmbarlwm.html#folklore

I will leave Twmbarlwm there, for now. But I will be returning to the place - maybe not physically, but creatively very, very soon :)

Twmbarlwm ~ Into the Woods

The woodland looked more than enticing from the summit of Twmbarlwm. So much so that it would have been impolite to ignore the invite:

Twmbarlwm Summit, view from the woodland

A growing carpet of shamrocks

My walk through the wood was dominated by a solitary tree, which lay uprooted by some previous gale. The tree appeared like a fallen leviathan of the beast and my hungry camera devoured the scene with real gusto:

I spent quite a while investigating the fallen beast, and completed my exploration with a look at it large root system, which had been upended in whatever foe of a gale had toppled the large tree. There, snuggled in the gloom of the earth and tangled roots, I found this beauty of a fungi had found itself a new home:

I ran into a bit of trouble leaving Twmbarlwm Woods - a bit of a tricky situation with locals filling the entrance/exit to the woodland with dozens of bin bags, which they ceremoniously set alight. I luckily made my escape at the onset of the fire, squeezing past the growing flames into the entrance clearing, where I found myself amongst some youth mass gathering. They had obviously decided to make this their meeting place for their evening enjoyment, and they seemed genuinely shocked to see me emerging from their humungous camp fire and appearing amongst their midst. There was no further trouble and they were all apologetic and I moved swiftly on...

Butter Fingers - Twmbwrla

Sometime I prefer the nicknames I give to certain fungi, rather than their official names. Take the following fungi, for example - Calocera viscosa aka the Yellow Stagshorm, photographed in Twmbwrla. Butter fingers is surely a more apt title for these rather lovely woodland life forms.