Countryside discovery

We walked into town yesterday morning to buy some cushions at John Lewis. Clare found material to match the new front room curtains, and has been busy sewing covers this past few days. The result is pleasing to the eye. In the afternoon we walked our usual route across to Blackweir bridge into Bute Park for a cup of tea at Ty Haf before returning home. Then I drove out to Ely for a bereavement visit and prepare with the family the funeral service I'll be taking on Tuesday, one of two  I'll be taking this coming week.

This morning I drove to Llantriddyd church to celebrate the Eucharist. It's the first time in a month I've had Sunday duties to perform. Last time I was here, the snowdrops and crocuses were out. This time the churchyard was a sea of daffodils and primroses. There was a new grave too, the orgnist's husband having died and buried there recently. Bravely philosophically, she was back at the organ console about her normal duties, surrounded by caring loving friends and fellow worshippers.There was a congregation of twenty, quite remarkable for a small country church which isn't in a village.

From Llantriddyd I drove along the ridge road to Llancarfan for the second Eucharist of the morning, where the church is in the middle the village. There was a congregation of just a dozen. It's a church in which some mediaeval frescoes have been recovered from beneath layers of whitewash on the wall of the south aisle. There's scaffolding in place at the moment as conservation work is in progress. It's rather a nuisance, given that Fr Derek Belcher's induction service will take place here on Wednesday evening. The building is however more than double the size of Llantriddyd with a broad central aisle and choir, revealing its monastic past. As early as 650AD, St Cadoc founded the first monastery here. The centre of learning he established didn't survive the Norman invasion, but the church was rebuilt around 1200AD. It has few stained glass windows, so Spring sunshine lit the sanctuary and gave an added measure of serenity to the occasion.

Not knowing the area very well, I drove back by a different route south towards Barry, to explore the countryside, along lanes both broad and narrow lines with well trimmed hedges. The occasional view over a ridge revealed a rolling wrinkled landscape of small wooded valleys with upland fields of open pasture and occasional houses, all well spread out. The villages are tucked into the valleys, not easily visible from above, so it give the impression of being a slightly remote area, hidden behind the coastal plain of the Severn estuary, more so than the broader expanse of the Central and Western parts of the Vale of Glamorgan.  Once I found a main road back into Cardiff, I was surprised at how much traffic there was for a Sunday lunch time, and the last part of the journey home took me longer than expected, after those quiet country roads.

We went for another stroll around Thompson's Park in the afternoon, enjoying the lengthening hours of daylight and sunshine. The magnolia tree by the pond is now revealing its glorious blossom in the most exotic of colours.