Falling water and Canadians

No, the Canadians weren’t falling, thankfully.

This weekend was a jolly spiffing weekend, chaps. Friday Jon and I left work and headed back to his place for a relaxing cuppa before I headed back to Senghenydd. This didn’t turn out quite as described since Jon had some visitors – Dora and Richard (apparently known as the Dorichard unimind) from Canadia[sic]. We had an extremely fun evening chatting away and pottering around Cardiff Bay for a while (Dorichard: links on this page for you guys). I have to say that I really, really need to go and visit the Senedd properly and see inside. It’s a truly amazing building and the design elements are stunning – especially the surrounding streets – I adore the “Wind Hedges” outside (see info about the artwork). The architect, Richard Rogers has truly done us proud on this monument. (NB: The Richard Rogers site has probably the best images, not unsurprisingly).

The Saturday started slowly, and I popped into town to pick up the guys. After a spot of Heart-attack-on-a-plate (full English breakfast!), we headed up into the mountains gently. Our first stop was the Brecon Beacons Visitor Centre where we admired the view and planned our walk before we took in a spot of lunch. Then we headed off to the Ystrafellte area, parking up near Clun Gwyn Farm to head around the paths that tour the waterfalls of the area. We didn’t set off until almost 1500, but knowing the area and weather I knew that we were in for a nice summer evening and there were plenty of routes back if we needed to cut things short. We took the forest trail down to Sgwd yr Eira, where Dora and Rich were delighted to be able to take photos from behind the waterfall. Rich taught us all quite a few things about the flora on the way – he’s a biologist and I was fascinated by some of the stuff he was talking about, especially lichen.

We headed around the various falls at a gentle pace, and finally ended up at Sgwd Isaf Clun Gwyn, which was truly stunning. I think this is where our recent callout was as there was significant evidence of typical damage caused by the downdraft of a helicopter (lots of little broken branches around the floor, along with a small tree). We spent some time here, taking photos and paddling in the cool river. We headed up along the gorge and as we approached Sgwd Clun Gwyn Uchaf,  and Louisa appeared – Mal needed to borrow some toys for his role playing game that evening. We headed back to the cars, surprised to find that it was 2000 already.

A quick discussion in the car and we decided to head back to mine for a BBQ. On the way, we came to a sudden halt, as I spotted what I now know to be common Cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium) and asked Rich for a quick identification. This stuff is great, it only grows in areas which are so wet you don’t want to go there (unless, like Jon, you like bogtrotting…or even bogswimming). An otherwise slightly-damp area (which is pretty much most of the Beacons) can immediately be spotted as a no-go area when there’s a bunch, or a line of these growing down the middle of it.

So after a quick stop in Tesco’s to pick up some meat, we headed back to my place for a BBQ – Tesco’s, by the way, do some cracking BBQ stuff. We sayed there the night and I dropped Jon and Dorichard back in Cardiff the following morning. I headed back to the house to clean up and generally sort some stuff out, complete with almost half a kilo of prime Canadian salmon. I was bouncing when Dorichard gave me that as a thank you. Thanks guys!.

Sean got back from his friends’ last night and finally had internet access again so we talked for a bit. It was wonerful to hear his voice again, even though his mic seems to be giving up the ghost. He’s updated his LJ and Flickr sites with loads of cool stuff, looks like he’s thoroughly enjoying himself out there. He’s going to be with Matt for a while until he heads over to Elaine’s, so his internet access is probably and hopefully mostly uninterrupted for the rest of the trip. I was quite surprised just how much I missed talking to him this week – even if it was only a few words over IM.

This morning, even though it’s raining, my hayfever has kicked in with a vengeance again – I’m blaming cleaning for this, as I probably stirred up large quantities of dust and pollen. I’m semi-seriously considering wearing a dust mask to carry on cleaning, or maybe I can acquire a respirator from somewhere. 🙂 Joyously, I’m running exchange maintenance this morning to try and iron out some problems that we had over the weekend. I’m just glad that I built a two-server system so I can take one down with the minimum of fuss.