Rambling Rose Red

 Last week we had a trip to Snowdonia. North Wales. It's a magical place, only a couple of hours from home, yet the landscape couldn't be more different. Our trip began with a stop at Llangollen, mid Wales, where the Pontcysyllte aqueduct can be found. It's the world's tallest navigable aqueduct, and you certainly need a head for heights crossing it! It has 18 stone arches, and took 10 years to build. Our base for the week was a cosy cottage in the small Snowdonia town of Dolgellau (pronounced (Dol - geth - li). We were glad of its cosiness. as the weather started to turn autumnal during the week, and was decidedly cool at times. We had two trips to the university town of Aberystwyth, which is on the coast. The new term was due to start, and there was a feeling of bustle and anticipation in the air.  There's a fabulous old part of the university on the sea front, which look kind of like Hogwarts. You can see it in the picture here, on the right, covered in scaffoldi...

 Early September, and the year is in balance. August, dull and wet as it was, has been chased out, and the sun has finally come out. We had a trip to Brimham Rocks today. As I left high school teaching last year, it's good for me to mark what would previously have been a time of stress, and end to days of freedom, with just the opposite. It's a strange landscape, up there where the soft Yorkshire Dales meet the bluntness of the moorland. It's other-worldy, and those ancient and precarious rock formations add to the eeriness.  I can only imagine how wonderfully atmospheric it is on a misty morning, a wintry afternoon, at sunset. First, we had a walk through the woods. It was a hot, sticky day, so it was good to get out of the sunshine.    Then we explored the rock formations on top of the hill. They have a feel of the Wild West about them. It was good to see them when there weren't too many other visitors. This one is a huge rock balancing rather improbably on a very ...