Another cloudy day, but warmer at 21C. Pleased to say that I decided to renew the car tax for another year yesterday on time, though I'm not sure how cost effective a form of transport it is when we use it so little. It costs us about a thousand pounds a year to keep standing outside the house most of the time, just to use a couple of times a week mostly for convenience, and in town. I have established that our Polo is ULEZ compliant, so if Cardiff opts to establish a clean air city centre zone, there'll be no additional running costs. I estimate paying for taxis over a year would amount to much the same, although hiring a car holiday travel to places not easy to reach by public transport would add to the overall expense.
After breakfast I worked until lunch on Morning Prayer and a Reflection for Holy Cross Day two weeks hence. Lunch was quick and easy, consisting of the other half of a chicken dish I prepared yesterday with pasta instead of rice, while Clare had the second portion of the hake fillets she cooked yesterday with veg.
As I was entering the park for my afternoon walk, I was stopped by a man who asked me how to get to the City centre through the Park, so I accompanied him as far Pontcanna Fields, pointing him to Blackweir Bridge and the way into Bute Park and the Castle. Then he took off, walking faster than I. We chatted as we walked. He was an extravert African American and told me his name was Less (short for Lesslie) and that he was from California but had worked in Europe as a restauranteur for over than fifteen years, first in Norway then in Madeira. He'd fallen for a Welsh woman and that brought him to Cardiff, where he'd fallen out with her and fallen for another Welsh woman. All this in a few minutes walk!
On impulse, I walked down the Taff footpath to the Millennium Bridge and crossed over into Bute Park then walked right around the fence in Cooper's Field enclosing this year's 'Dinosaurs in Bute Park' kids exhibition with life sized replicas of over forty different creatures based on analysis of paleontological research findings, complete with calling sounds (based on the size of inner skull cavities), with a guess at their possible colours. The show last appeared here in 2021, after the first in 2018. Return in 2020 was ruled out by the pandemic lockdown.
In keeping with the ancient tradition of mechanical automatons, the necks, jaws and tails of the beasts are equipped to move on their own. Not exactly lifelike. Their roaring sounds hilarious, a cross between someone throwing up after a boozy night out, and an ancient toilet being flushed. Fun for children, fascinated with monstrous beats from an early age, but impossible for an adult not to laugh at the synthetic nature of their skin, and the noises they make. A family outing ticket for four people costs over forty pounds, plus the ice creams sweets and fizzy drinks. It didn't seem all that busy to me. I wonder if the show makes a profit?
On my way back home the grass mower was at work on the triangular meadow between Pontcanna and Llandaff Fields, left to grow wild unmown until now. The scent of cut grass in the warm air was a delight. It reminded me of my stay in Taormina at the end of 2012, when several of the largest palms close to the church were cut down to reduce risk on them falling in a wind and damaging the building. Palms aren't trees but giant grasses. When cut they exude the same sweet aroma.
After supper I uploaded dinosaur photos to the cloud and added them to the album of similar photos taken two years ago just after the show had closed and the exhibits dismantled for removal. Then I joined Clare in watching tonight's BBC promenade concert featuring the celebrated multi ethnic Chineke orchestra playing a mix of standard classic pieces and several of black composers of the 20th century whose work is being rediscovered and performed again. Such energy and coherence among the seventy strong ensemble, and a breathtaking young trumpet virtuoso making the most of his proms debut! A real treat, and then early to bed.
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