Holy Week Wednesday

We took advantage of a free day to drive back to the National Botanic Garden for a second visit on the same ticket, as you can return any time within the same week. Saturday was quiet, today the place was busy with lots of young families enjoying leisure activities geared for the school holidays. I guess on Saturdays, parents either took their kids to the beach or went shopping. Today, it was cloudy with occasionally sunny breaks, and perhaps a little too cold for paddling and sandcastles. It was lovely to hear crowds of children having fun, enjoying the open air, exploring the play park or the hay bale maze.

We followed one of the walking trails up the east facing side of the valley, and walked for nearly two hours before returning to the site restaurant for lunch. At different stages along marked routes there are interpretation panels explaining the sustainable organic cattle farming that takes place on the Botanic Garden estate lands and what this does to restore wildlife to the region, which has been suppressed in many other places by modern farming practices. We walked a short circuit of meadow and woodland rich with flowers and birds after lunch, and sat for a while enjoying the big walled garden before we headed back to Cardiff in good time for evening commitments.

Clare came with me as far as the town centre when I drove to St German's for the evening Mass. She was on her way to a performance of Bach's St John's Passion in St David's Hall. There were ten of us for Mass this evening. Purely by chance, as I started the car, the radio was tuned to Radio 3, and the first half of the performance Clare was listening to in situ was just coming to an end. I listened to the second half when I got home, while chatting to Rachel in a belated birthday greeting call. It was good to catch up with her latest musical news. And now, another attempt at an early night, bed!

      

An afternoon in the Garden (National Botanic)

We took advantage of a free sunny day to drive west this morning along the A48 and the M4 to visit the Welsh National Botanic Garden at Llanarthne. It's hard to believe we last visited six years ago, time has just flown by. Most of the early daffodils are now dying back, but later blossoming varieties are in full flower, and primroses are out in force, all offering patches of yellow differently shaded to the grass cover of the terrain. 

Many trees are in blossom, but leaves are still tiny, and for the most part, branches still have that bare wintry look about them. Despite cut-backs n public spending, the place looks well maintained and cared for, thanks to a host of devoted volunteers, as well as paid staff, no doubt. On such a lovely day, we thought the number of visitors would be greater that it seemed to be. Garden visitor numbers seem to be increasing across the country. I'd forgotten that the RHS show was taking place in Cardiff this weekend, however.

One notable addition to the landscape is a collection of giant hardwood tree trunks from Ghana's rain forests, each with histories and names as distinctive as their shapes. These are set in the ground on the south east flank of the giant domed greenhouse. They resemble giant artworks sculpted intricately from wood coloured elephant grey since the bark was stripped from it, leaving it to dry outdoors. They will stay were they've been installed for a very long time, as the wood is very durable, and not always susceptible to degradation by rainwater. There are photos here

I took a number of close-up photos of birds feeding off crumbs dropped from tables in the outdoor courtyard of the restaurant, also of vividly coloured tropical butterflies, kept in the large green house in a corner of the double walled kitchen garden. The greenhouse was there previously, although I don't recall seeing or photographing any butterflies at that time. There are photos here. 

We returned in time to cook supper and relax, before watching the latest Scandi Noir crime drama on BBC Four, Department Q. Sister June says it's part of a series re-run, so I reckon I may have been out of the country when it was last aired. It was complex, 'cold case' story, rather implausible, although I loved the maverick investigators. One character is a devout muslim, probably meant to be Syrian or Iraqui called Assad. That made me smile, being a direct assault on stereotyping Muslims and middle eastern names. A liberal effort to compensate for fallout from the blasphemous cartoon episode maybe?