Risca, to the north-west of Newport in Wales, is not a tourist town by any means, but it is borded to the north by the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, and to the south by the Ebbw River and the Sirhowy Valley, so it is easy to devise an interesting walk, in our case about eight miles.
It’s a very long time since I last visited Whitby, on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. The very first time was well over fifty years ago when my old school chum, Robinson, P, and I passed through on the now-legendary Lambretta trek of 1965, when we rode from south Essex to Edinburgh (and back) for the, then, nascent Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (It was worth it – we were sensational!) I only remember the brooding Abbey ruins which, apparently, helped to inspire Bram Stoker’s page-turner, Dracula, and the name of a local photographer, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, who documented Whitby life in monochromatic Victorian and early twentieth-century times. It is a large busy town, with a fishing fleet, harbour, beaches and many restaurants, pubs, “tourist” shops, and steep twisting paths and lanes, amongst which is Demeter Cottage, where we stayed for a week.
Demeter Cottage
We parked in a forest clearing in Bargain Wood, north of Tintern in Monmouthshire, and walked south on the Wye Valley Walk, crossing the river at Brockweir. Then back up the river to Bigsweir Bridge, up into Cuckoo Wood, around Llandogo and back to the car. About eight miles. Lucy still running her socks off right to the end.
What an embarrassing, unnecessary shambles this chaotic exercise has been. All to negotiate separate deals with countries with whom we already trade via the EU. And to “secure our borders”. Apart from our only land border, which we’re determined will be completely open.
Ever since the M4 motorway crossing the River Severn was built in 1966, there has been a bridge toll. Although this didn’t stop us going to Wales for the day, or longer periods, we were less inclined to pop over for a short visit when it would cost us an extra £6 or so. Now, though, the toll has been abolished, opening up new possibilities for, for instance, brief dog-walking sorties. Here we are, more-or-less opposite Portishead. The newer bridge, the “second Severn crossing”, is in the distance.
We’ve avoided the annual trudge to the local muddy field where we buy our Christmas tree. I must admit that this is more at my suggestion than Sal’s. I’ve long suspected that she has a thing for the farmer who has the fir franchise in these ‘ere parts, ever since, a few years ago after a fruitless attempt on my part to haggle the price, I heard him whisper, sotto voce, “don’t bring your father next time”.
So, while we were walking Lucy around Ashton Park this morning we picked up a piece of fallen tree which has now been placed in a cleaned-up carboy from the garden with some lights and minimalist baubles. No “needles” to vacuum up from the car and house; no problem with new-year disposal; no guilt about the senselessness of growing a fir tree for a few years solely to cut it down to transport it into our homes to support our tat for a week or two. Bah!
A new “walk” for us (that is, a documented, publicised route rather than just going where the fancy takes us with a map or local knowledge) is the Bristol Skyline which, perhaps not surprisingly, follows the high ground around Bristol, mainly to the south of the city.
A colony of greater horseshoe bats lives here near Claverton Down, south of Bath.
It will be one hundred years since the end of the First World War in a few days time. Local school children have made this river of poppies, out of bottle tops, on the space in front of our house.
Martin's Mag. 
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