Cefn Onn out of season

Another cool overcast day with pancakes for breakfast, after a long time in bed with far less sleep than I need to face the day. The news is mainly about Labour's huge victory in the General Election. The majority is almost as large as the one that brought Tony Blair and his team into power, though the turnout was comparatively low, perhaps an expression of disillusionment on the part of many, not only with the political parties, but the whole system of government. Labour has the elected members but with the overall vote share lower than hoped for. Notable government players in the drama of the past five brexit dominated years have lost their seats, punished by the electorate for failing to deliver promises made, or for their personal wrong-doing. A sentence passed on lying populist politicians and politics in my opinion. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

At the end of the morning we went up to Cefn Onn Park for a walk with our cameras. It's a spectacular place to see in spring when the rhododendron bushes are in full bloom, not so much in so-called summer, apart from hydrangea bushes and flowering trees with the same shaped blossom in several different colours. It's a long time since we last visited. The top section, known as The Dingle has had a lot of work done on it, and now includes an elevated tree level boardwalk, accessible to wheelchair users. The main pond looks magnificent and well maintained with reed beds and giant leaves of the rhubarb family on the far side away from the path. Very photogenic any time of year.

It rained earlier and the cloud remained unbroken, but under the canopy of trees the impression of being in the corner of a temperate rain forest, with lichen clad trees was quite vivid. Apart from dog walkers and the occasional parent with a small child, we were the only visitors except a group of Chinese young men. 

We returned home for lunch and then I slept for over an hour. It rained, so we didn't go out. I worked on the video slide show for next week's Morning Prayer instead, and uploaded it to YouTube before supper. Afterwards, once the rain stopped Jas and I went for a walk with our cameras down to the river and back, but as the light failed earlier due to low cloud, her attention was taken by the appearance of snails, mostly on garden walls, and quite different from snails back home in Arizona.

When we returned I watched an episode of Danish crimmie 'The Sommerdahl Murders', an attempt to tell a tale of a mid-life crisis police marriage breakdown and the tragic death of an exploited illegal immigrant. The investigative aspect was good. Not so sure about the other side of the story.