Gallery of memories

As it promised to rain for much of the day, we drove out to St Fagan's museum of Welsh life, now celebrating its designation as Museum of the year. After from a walk to the Gwalia Tea Room for a snack lunch, we spent most of our time in the two exhibition galleries, interesting arranged with artifacts reflecting mainly 19th and 20th century life in Wales. They are a marvellous asset to educationalists, far more interactive and engaging for youngsters than any museum in my childhood, soon after it first opened. It was lovely to see so many things displayed belonging to my early life, reminding me of growing up in South Wales. I think Clare and Ann felt the same.

In the evening, I watched a beautiful Pedro Almodóvar movie 'Julieta' on BBC 4 iPlayer. It was in Spanish, and I was surprised to find how well I could follow it with the help of subtitles, as well as I can a French film. Years of daily language drill on DuoLingo are paying off, even though it's fifteen months since I was last in Spain.

The film tells the story of the life, loves and losses of middle aged woman, estranged from her only daughter, who disappears from her life aged 18, with the film ending as they are reunited by a similar loss in the daughter's life more than a decade later. It's a  sensitive closely observed portrayal of intimate human relationships, echoing in a contemporary way, many stories of families in 20th century Spain, broken by extreme poverty and the ideological divisions of the Civil War, without reference to them. The tragic losses here are not due to violence, but illness and accident, but the impact is similar. 

It made a refreshing change from the dominant theme of unmasking criminal conspiracy in today's diet of on-line drama.

St Fagans May Pole Fiesta

After my clinic visit yesterday morning, I went straight into town to meet briefly with Laura again, before she returns to Romania tomorrow. I was pleased to learn that she had been able to visit the Chapel of Rest where her friend Sheila's body is awaiting her funeral, and pay her last respects. We didn't have long, as I had to go home and get ready to go to Llandough Hospital for my MRI scan, but it was good to have an opportunity to talk once more. 

Clare drove me there and dropped me off. In just over an hour I was finished and waiting for a bus to take me back to Canton on the main road outside the hospital. I learned that I can expect to hear about the scan results in three weeks. I wonder if the surgeon will hear earlier than this?

This morning we drove out to St Fagan's Museum, our first visit for two years. Last year saw the 70th anniversary of its opening. Already a major re-development of the main building was under way, and now it's open, and being touted for a national award, shortlisted with several other museums for their innovative educational work. There's a new entrance hall, large and spacious like an airport departure check-in area, and exhibits upstairs in new and renovated galleries. Whole groups of historic artefacts have been re-located here from the museum in the town centre. It's very impressive and today, on a bank holiday weekend, car parks were almost full and the place was full of families out for the day.

First, we visited an open air arts and crafts fair where I was very much attracted to the work of an unconventional wood turner, Bernard Dite, a one time East Moors steel worker, who uses a lathe and other hand tools to sculpt irregular chunks of wood into a variety of dishes, bowls, vases and flasks, taking advantage of existing flaws, different grains and colours to reveal beautiful patterns which would otherwise never be seen. His artistic creations are refined and some of them extraordinarily lightweight. On impulse, I bought two pieces, one to be a fruit bowl, another for a salad bowl. We might have spent that amount of money on a weekend meal for two, but now we have a feast for the eyes that'll be with us at table every day instead.

On the lawn outside a team of folk dancers and a small band were performing. Later these moved to Gwalia Green, the open area around which many of the historic village shop buildings stand. At two, a May Pole was ceremonially brought in by the men among the dancers, dressed by the women, then erected and danced around for half an hour, drawing many of the younger spectators into the dance. It was such a delight, and the weather was just perfect for it. My photos are here

All of this was an unexpected pleasure. It more than compensated for the bout of stomach cramp that came upon me as we were walking around. Clare had cooked pancakes for breakfast, using a couple of eggs. I didn't think about this when I ate them, and they weren't indigestible, but slowed normal digestive process right down, as my bile duct no longer works with normal efficiency. After half an hour of unpleasant pain and nausea, and drinking a fair amount of water, the sensation passed, and we were able to resume our tour of the grounds, and glimpse some of the new features.

In the evening we went to Chapter Arts to see the movie 'Red Joan', a thought provoking piece about a young scientist who leaked secret atomic research material to the Russians in her twenties, and was finally unmasked in her eighties, based apparently on a true story. Brilliant acting from Judy Dench as the old lady and Sophie Cookson as her younger self. Well with deferring the final double episode of 'Follow the Money' until tomorrow.
    

St Fagan's outing and Chapter Arts performance

Today, we took Saralee for a walk around the Museum of Welsh History at St Fagan's. The place is in the throes of a major makeover, thanks to new funding from the Heritage Lottery fund and the Welsh Assembly Government. It's six years since we last visited there with Kath and Rhiannon, so a few more old buildings have been added to the collection apart from the current refurbishment of the main entrance and welcome area.

After a siesta and early supper we walked to Chapter Arts Centre for a performance in the Seligman Studio of a play by final year students from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama called 'Three Days in the Country' by Patrick Marber. It re-tells in condensed form the Russian classic comedy by Turgenev called a 'A month in the Country'. It was very well presented by the company of young actors, not an easy thing to achieve, given the age generation differences between several of the key characters in the drama.

The theatre space is usually a gallery, long and narrow, adapted on this occasion with a long central stage with the audience on each extended side of the oblong, accommodating about sixty people. An interesting arrangement which brought the audience right into the heart of the dramatic action. A challenge the players succeeded in rising to.
  

Midsummer sadness

The longest day of the year, warm, bright and sunny despite clouds decorating the sky interestingly. Clare had to go and help at the Steiner School summer fair. I went for a walk and later joined her to have lunch at school and chat with various people. Then we drove out to the St Fagan's National Museum of Welsh life for a walk around the delightful and beautifully maintained italianate gardens of St Fagan's Castle, busy as ever with people enjoying one of Cardiff's best free visitor venues.
 

On the way out, through the gift shop I found and bought a newly published Gomer Press book of photographs, with text in English by Damien Walford Davies and in Welsh by key bi-lingual Carmarthen writer Meredydd Hopwood. It's called 'Poet's Graves', a black and white photo expedition to the last resting places of seventy one Welsh poets from antiquity to yesterday. Each picture is accompanied by vivid poetic prose in both tongues, It may sound like a morbid theme, but it's a beautiful statement about people whose seminal words have best defined landscape over centuries. Many of the places portrayed I have visited at one time or another, being a cleric and having spent seven years in ministry visiting parishes in the length and breadth of our 'Gwlad beirdd a chantorion'. This book gives me both pride and pleasure in being a native of Wales.

After supper, we settled down to watch the final episode of the last series of Wallander recounting the detective's last case before he has to retire, victim of early onset Alzheimer's disease. Throughout this series the portrayal of his decline has been a tribute not only to the acting of Krister Hendrickson but also to the sensitivity of the production team in airing one of the crucial issues of our time.
 

The series ending was sad, but nonetheless impressive - not in a pool of blood in a final shoot-out - that would have been a cinematic way of stating that violence has the last word. Wallander retains his dignity, and is seen at peace surrounded by family, yet he has freedom and independence, until presumably he can no longer look after himself. In the parting shots he is not not yet ravaged to helplessness by the disease, but left in the winter of life on the cold ocean shore. His eventual dying and death lie outside the story of his achievements as a champion of truth and justice. In dramatic terms, this fictional character, so real in many ways, is allowed to defy the maxim: 'If it can be seen, it must be seen'.  We're none the worse for that.

It's so good to have a dramatic production that speaks about the blighting effect of Alzheimer's on a gifted individual in an age when more people are getting older and living with sickness and weakness for longer. The prospects for old age are nothing but scary when you start losing your powers, and society is a better place when this is universally recognised, understood and provided for. I wonder if any of the perpetrators of violence both great and small ever consider what may happen to them before making victims of others?