Sanatorium park revisited

Lovely sunny weather again all day, not quite warm enough for me to go without a top coat although many people I see on the street are wearing tee shirts and no jacket. Clare's study group came for a session after breakfast. I prepared the slide show for next week's Morning Prayer, then went out for a ten minute walk before getting ready for lunch, a joint effort between Clare and I, involving smoked salmon and spinach, brown rice and steamed root veg. While the latter were cooking, I recorded the Morning Prayer audio until the dinner bell summoned me to serve the food. I recorded the Reflection after we'd eaten.

Today's walk took me to Victoria Park on the way to Sanatorium Park which runs alongside the river Ely. I discovered a footbridge on Cowbridge Road East crossing over the Taff Vale railway line. On the other side of it is a railway bridge that takes you under the main line to Swansea. The bridge leads into what must be the most recently completed section of the housing estate on the site of the old Wiggins Teape paper mill, a site which took decades to decontaminate before it was safe to build houses on. A number of uniformed secondary age children heading past me for home reminded me that Fitzalan High school is half a mile away down-river.

The Ely used to be prone to bursting its banks, but new houses have been built a metre or so above the flood defence berm, itself set away from the river by trees and vegetation. The front line of houses look as if they have been built with a garage and utility rooms at street level and accommodation upstairs. The strip of grassland land from berm to riverside vegetation has a cycle path, benches and picnic tables, plus a line of newly planted trees, a pleasant linear park thick vegetation conceals the river, making it impossible for children to fall in. Very sensible design practice for a housing area in a flood plain.

The new park runs for about a quarter of a mile to the point where it enters the existing Sanatorium Park and a woodland area which is being developed over the next decade to include fruit trees, though not, it seems in a orchard, but wild in an endeavour to promote biodiversity. Interesting.

On the way back home from Leckwith ward through Canton, I called in the Coop after phoning Clare to check if we lacked any groceries and bought things she hadn't been able to get when she was out. I cooked garlic mushrooms for supper. Afterwards I watched a couple of episodes of the Belgian hostage drama 'De Dag'. By nature it's a long drawn out affair seen from all sides of those involved, perpetrators and victims, and it's far from a straightforward affair as the story unfolds.