Category: Community Groups

St Briavels & Allt Yr Esgair

St Briavels & Allt Yr Esgair

St Briavels

St Briavels is in the Forest of Dean and on the Agincourt Wales trail which tells the story of the people in the river Wye /Forest of Dean area that played a role in Henry V’s victory at Agincourt.

Early in the walk we found ourselves in woodland surrounded by English bluebells, the scent heavenly. The contrast of the new green leaves on the trees and the light purply blue of the bluebells is one of nature’s annual treats.

An open stretch of ground led us past a majestic avenue of trees and near the river Wye. The pretty, white, single track road bridge came into view just above Bigsweir. We entered Cadora woods, a term used to describe a series of woods which form a continuous line of woodland covering the slopes of the lower Wye valley.

The path led us through a tunnel of bright yellow gorse. A bench had a sweet dedication ‘This bench was made by Jack for his fiancé, Scarlett. She’s not dead she just really loves this view.’

We followed a stream through woodland. Two of our dogs played a bit of a game. A spaniel went into the stream, and the other dog patrolled the bank stopping the spaniel from getting up the bank, then suddenly backed off. We relaxed for lunch in the woodland above the path.

The stream widened, and its banks were blanketed with the white flowers of wild garlic, even rocks in the middle of the stream were smothered in it. Steps appeared in the stream, these were tufa. Tufa is formed when calcium and carbon dioxide in fresh water rises to the surface and is exposed to air. Carbon dioxide evaporates; calcium precipitates and the minerals coat organic material.

Returning to St Briavels, a cricket game was being played on St Briavels centenary playing field where there is a memorial to the fallen of the two world wars. As we walked through the village the air was scented with lilac, purple and white, and wisteria. Wild roses, ceanothus, and Queen Anne’s lace hydrangea were all in full bloom. It was close to May 4th, and in a window, we saw Yoda (of Star Wars).

Walk 6.5miles 1100ft Map OL14

Allt Yr Esgair

In the words of the walk proposer ‘A surprisingly lovely walk up Allt yr Esgair to the east of the river Usk with good cake and the option to go to Talybont to have tea and stroll along the canal to view the osprey nest.’

Allt yr Esgair was a Bronze age burial site (4,000 years ago), an Iron age hill fort (2,500 years ago). Esgair means ridge in Welsh and Allt yr Esgair is a 2km long sandstone ridge with panoramic views of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains.

We parked at the Venison centre with permission of the owners and took the Roman Road, a solid track which climbs gradually uphill with no steep sections. Either side of the track was a stunning display of white stitchwort with deep indigo bluebells, the air was heavy with scent.

Emerging into more open countryside gorse bushes appeared still surrounded by bluebells. The views were amazing Llangorse lake to the east, Pen y Fan and other hills to the west and the oxbow in the river Usk below us. Speedboats raced across Llangorse lake and later sailing boats appeared.

Llangorse is the largest natural lake in South Wales. Formed 11,000 years ago when the ice retreated, it would have been larger spilling over into the Usk valley at Bwlch. Mynydd Troed and Waun Fach dominate the skyline beyond the lake.

We met five different groups of Duke of Edinburgh award youngsters. An ancient hollow ash tree stood close to the path. Two people left us to look at the Osprey nest. We walked a circle at the top of the walk and then stopped for lunch choosing our favourite view – the lake or Pen y Fan. The return was along a path parallel to our outward route.

A woodpecker could be heard above us and someone with eagle eyes (and binoculars) spotted it, we stood still and watched for a short time. A kite flew high in the sky.

We experienced birdsong throughout the walk; it goes down as one of our best walks. At the venison centre, a welcoming team provided pots of tea and beer/soft drinks and cake. It is a farm shop and amongst other things they sell venison from their deer herd. A lovely way to round off the day.

Walk 7 miles 1300ft Map OL13

A Stroll with Derek

LIVING WITH CANCER STROLLERS

A Stroll with Derek

 

Living with cancer strollers, Cosmeston Valeways President, Derek Brockway joined the strollers at Cosmeston on a gloriously sunny day. Our Weatherman Walking brought along beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures as we enjoyed our walk around the lakes. Thanks, Derek, for joining us on our festival walk…and organising the sunshine.

May Events

WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

May Events

Our meeting on May 7th was the AGM and the Committee and President were re-elected for another year.

Our June 4th meeting will be an open meeting, in conjunction with Pugh’s Garden Centre’s, with Roger Crookes as our speaker. Roger’s work these days is focused mainly in helping the teams and customers of Pugh’s Garden Centres, teaching gardening in a special school near Pontypridd, and connecting with gardeners from all over the world via his YouTube channel. Roger will be giving us a pictorial presentation titled ‘Enjoying the Power of Plants!’ celebrating many of the important (and sometimes surprising) benefits of plants to our lives. Entry is £5 to include refreshments and some seeds. There will also be a raffle. (See page 7).

We hope that you will be able to join us for this event.

Please ring 07881853032 for further details.

Carol Charlson (President)

Wenvoe Wheelers 10th Birthday!

WENVOE WHEELERS 10th BIRTHDAY!

Well, who would have believed that we would be celebrating 10 years as a cycling club back in 2016? I remember thinking I had better join since someone had gone to the effort of setting up a club where I live. There aren’t many of us who live in the village who are members, but we are now a club of around 200, most of whom live in Cardiff, Barry and surrounding areas. Most of our rides start at the Wenvoe Arms which is of course, our unofficial HQ and where we always have a warm welcome from Jenny and Digby. Indeed, on some Saturday afternoons you’d be forgiven for thinking it was our own clubhouse, with so many of us in the bar or the garden

We’ve been very busy over those last 10 years. We grew from a club of about 20 to 30 people, running two groups going out each Saturday morning to 4/5 groups now and around 60 plus riders. We have a social group who are the slowest and chattiest who do about 35/40 miles; our intermediate group who do about 40/50 miles; then our inbetweeners (so called because they are in-between the pace of the intermediate and steady groups) who do about 50+ miles and then the Steady group (speedsters) who will do anything over 60 miles at an average speed of 20 mph. Every group stops for coffee – otherwise there would be a mutiny, and we are always on the lookout for good coffee stops. Recent good finds are Colliers Rest just off the A472 and the Ynyswen Farm Shop just outside Treorchy where you can get a sublime ciabatta sausage sarnie. One of our favourites is Coffee Co at Ogmore which has a great cake and savoury selection, good coffee and a view! Our ride leaders are trained to lead our groups which involves a day in the classroom and on the road with British Cycling or Welsh Cycling and gives you a level 1 certificate.

Saturday morning rides can be a trip out to Llantwit Major, Ogmore, Porthcawl through the lanes or perhaps up to Llanwonno, Caerphilly via Draethen, or maybe out east starting from Newport Road to go to Usk or Monmouth. Further north, we can ride up and over the Bwlch (3 different ways) or the Rhigos which are significant climbs or something even tougher such as the Tumble just outside Abergavenny. We usually have a club weekender once a year which involves a 100ish mile ride on the Saturday an overnight stop and then a shorter ride back on Sunday. Recent destinations have been Hay-on-Wye via the Bwlch, Rhigos and Penderyn; Gloucester via the Gospel Pass; Portishead via Cheddar Gorge; Bath; Worcester; and the Mumbles. This year we are heading to the Isle of Wight for a complete circuit of the island but only the Steady group are riding there – as they are a bit mad.

We try and ride every Saturday morning but sometimes the weather defeats us and believe me there is nothing more miserable then fighting against a headwind in a downpour or hail (which is what we had for our 10th birthday ride on 11th April). What we really love of course is a nice sunny day with a gentle breeze.

We have a lot of members who ride abroad, whether just for fun or in a sportive event. A few are really intrepid: one of our members has done Paris-Brest-Paris – 1,200 km which has to be completed inside a certain time. Two of our members regularly do 400km plus events, last year’s mega ride involved starting in Italy and finishing in Finland inside the Arctic Circle.

One of the best things about the club is the friendships that have been made. It’s quite unusual I think to find ‘blokes of a certain age’ making new friends but that is definitely a thing in our club. We also have a healthy number of ladies in the club riding in all groups who have made lasting friends to the extent that many of us do stuff together outside of cycling, in actual clothes not Lycra.

 

And talking of Lycra, I guess you will have seen us in our blue and white kit. We get our club kit from Pactimo who make it to order and over the years we have had several design refreshers with subtle variations on the previous design. We are very pleased with our 10-year anniversary jersey which is a colour reversal i.e. blue on white, we think it looks great.

So, Happy Birthday to us! Here are some pictures of our recent birthday party at the Church Hall with one of our members providing the pizza – thank you very much to Backyard Dough Co. Absolutely fabulous pizzas, if you want to know

 

 

April Events

WOMEN’S INSTITUTE

April Events

Due to the Church Hall being used for the Maundy Thursday Supper, we held our April meeting on March 26th and, after some initial mishaps with the paints, members showed their creative sides and, judging from the laughter and lively chatter, an enjoyable evening was had making Easter sun catchers.

Our next meeting is the AGM on May 7th when the Committee for the next year and President are elected.

Please make a note in your diaries of our June 4th meeting, at 7.30pm. This will be an open meeting with Roger Crookes, who has been working in the gardening industry for around 50 years, giving us a pictorial presentation titled ‘Enjoying the Power of Plants!’ celebrating many of the important (and sometimes surprising) benefits of plants to our lives. Watch out for further details.

Visitors and prospective members are always welcome to our meetings. Please ring 07881853032 for further details.

Carol Charlson (President)

Picking out the Positives

WENVOE FORUM

Considering Tomorrow Today

Picking out the Positives

So many stories, reports, opinion pieces and forecasts clamor for our attention and nag at our emotions. The news, it seems, is always bad and the potential consequences are always predicted to be dire either economically or environmentally and often both. It’s hard not to join in the weeping and the wailing so here is a positive story in the twists and turns of the road to electric vehicle dominance.

As has happened before, the sudden recent turbulence and the exposure of our dependence on the reliability of supply in the oil market, has raised consumer interest in electric vehicles. On previous occasions interest has subsided once the crisis was passed but this time “experts in the field”, policy makers, civil servants and academics suggest that for many consumers, the figures add up and the move to electric vehicles for the private car has passed what has been described as a tipping point in lower and middle income economies with the exception of China where government policies and interventions have been a significant factor.

This tipping point is fuelled by a number of factors with overall cost and convenience of use being high on the list. A 2025 report from BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation, indicated that in much of Europe the lifetime cost of owning electric vehicles was already lower than their petrol/diesel equivalents for medium sized cars and cost savings for 1st, 2nd and third owners would very soon extend to small cars in response to market demand. Improved batteries and the development of the charging infrastructure have given the individual more confidence in their electric vehicle for greater distances travelled. It is also possible to use your EV as part of the household electricity system and smart use of its battery can reduce bills and help make best use of solar power generation if you have it.

As an individual one can feel heartened that it seems likely that now EV purchases are good economic sense for households who can also feel better about their carbon footprint and lower the air pollution not least in the vicinity of their own home. There are of course currently some other factors to address in the transition from fossil fuels to electric cars. The mining of required chemicals is often dangerous and not well regulated everywhere, the effect on local economies based on car manufacture can be badly affected if the transition is not well managed. But overall the transition to electric vehicles is seen as a positive step for the environment.

This article has been informed by a discussion paper from the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics (Elliot, Harper and Nguyen-Tien)

To join our Facebook group, please ‘friend up’ with the GwenFo account @ https://www.facebook.com/gwen.fo.1 and then jon the Wenvoe Forum @ https://www.facebook.com/groups/635369267864402

Some further information and updates, blog site https://wenvoeforum.wordpress.com/. Any Wenvoe community member is welcome to join the Forum meetings, via Zoom, which are normally held 19.00 on the second Thursday of each month. E-mail gwen-fo.forum@gmail.com if you wish to join

Barry Docks to Penarth Marina

Barry Docks to Penarth Marina

It was Easter weekend and we stayed local to avoid traffic. We started opposite the household waste centre in Barry, at Hayes point, on the edge of an exposed industrial area but walking through a gap in the verge we found ourselves on rocks at the top of a beach. High tide was recent, and the sea was lapping not too far away.

No-one else was near as we made our way east and looked back over the grey Bristol Channel towards Nell’s point in Barry, which with Friars point creates the sandy Whitmore Bay. Although it was cloudy the sun was peeping through small patches of blue sky and glinting on the sea. We passed the new flats at Hayes point and Ty Hafan children’s hospice, the latter being easy to spot with the colourful dog sculptures on the side of the building facing the sea.

At Sully the famous dinosaur footprints were away from the footpath. Before long the line of bungalows that skirt the beach were in sight and the day was getting brighter by the minute. A Millenium plaque presented by the W.I. to the left of the path helpfully oriented us and showed the directions of many places in the area such as Cardiff, Llancarfan, Steep Holme, Burnham on sea and Flat Holme.

We passed the open spaces around Sully sports and social club and then had to head inland to get around a caravan park. Our return to the coast was the muddiest stretch of the day but at least it was soft underfoot. As we returned to the coast Sully island came into view and we could see people on its beach who must have been out there for some hours and possibly overnight – we guessed they were fishermen. The temptations of the café and the Captain’s Wife public house were safely passed as we continued.

Lavernock point beckoned with the 20-acre nature reserve which surrounds a second world war anti-aircraft gun battery complex. A variety of plants and butterflies thrive here and Lavernock is a good place to observe migrating birds. In the autumn flocks of swallows, redwing, fieldfare and finches can be seen. A wooden bench with a leaf on its back support and a carved inscription to Colin Vyvyan ‘ a volunteer who loved this nature reserve’ was unusual.

We were planning to have lunch on the beach but decided to head for the church instead as a breeze was coming off the sea. We basked in the heat of the sun as we ate and then explored the information available. This was where Marconi and Kemp exchanged the first radio messages across water between Lavernock and Flat Holme on 11th May and Lavernock and Breadon Down on 18th May 1897.

From here Penarth is north and we stayed on the coast, meeting more people as we neared the clifftop car park. Just before the clifftop café, we headed inland to take the Penarth Railway path, which follows the route of the old Cadoxton branch line,between Cosmeston and Penarth town centre. At one point there is a row of interesting terraces either side of the footpath each terrace has a different name.

During the walk we saw a surprising number of plants including blue borage, purple honesty, and lots of blackthorn with its white flowers.

Once in the busy centre we kept away from the shops and climbed streets leading to the top of a hill where there is a small garden dedicated to seafarers. Tall Iroko posts with holes drilled form ‘Bee hotels’ for solitary bees. Large stones have images of tattoos associated with sailors and a plaque explains their significance: Swallow guarantees a safe return; Golden dragon is the international date line; chicken and pig protect from drowning; anchor signifies stability, loyalty and honour; heart and dagger signify a lost comrade.

 

A view of Penarth Marina and Cardiff Bay with the expanse of the sea opens from here. St Joseph’s park is a traffic-free route connecting Penarth, the Marina and Cardiff and we descended through it to the Marina where our leader and his wife invited us to enjoy homemade cookies and chocolate cake adorned with Easter chicks with our teas and beers. A splendid end to an interesting walk

Walk 7.3 miles 500ft. Map OS151.

“An Equal Music ” By Vikram Seth

 

“An Equal Music ” By Vikram Seth

He was a student in Vienna ten years ago, his name is Michael. He is a violinist who was in love with Julia, a pianist. Their paths separated; she got married to someone else and after ten years she enters into the life of Michael once again. It’s a story of Michael and his music quartet, and it’s a story of Michael and Julia and their love.

If you are a music lover, then this book will be for you; Seth talks about so much music throughout – there’s Bach and Schubert and Beethoven and Mozart and their musical pieces in great detail.

If you aren’t a music lover, you can just enjoy Seth’s poetic prose and his descriptions of London, Vienna and Venice. This is a moving story of two musicians who love to make music and love. There is always a constant threat of loss which maintains the book’s melancholy. They feel it. They make music from it. They move forward together and alone, but joined forever by their music.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of this novel is the way in which it manages to convey music through language. One Page Turner loved the way Seth writes about music and the way he integrates music into the lives of the characters (all professional musicians).

The book is very informative about music and quartets and about Bach and many other composers. Some felt the music descriptions were tedious and difficult to understand. Others thought Michael was not a likeable character, especially regarding his obsession with Julia. Ultimately this is a love story, a tragedy, a loving tribute to chamber music and insights into the world of performance and maybe a book for classical music lovers.

Scores ranged from 5 to 8, with an overall average of 6.

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