A REFLECTIVE MOOD

Every day when I wake, I wonder if there will be anything interesting to photograph and waffle on about, especially on mornings like today, when the weather forecast for Wales last night was ... well ... dire. Derek our weatherman told us cheerfully about thunderstorms and flash floods, even the risk of hail storms. So I woke listening carefully.

The birds were twittering and tweeting (avian style) and a peek outside ... dry ... great!
I was in a reflective mood today, wondering about whether I would run out of things to "Blog" about in such a relatively small area and worrying if I was becoming too repetitive with some of the subjects I cover in my posts. I was feeling very stiff and yes ... grumpy!

A few hours later once the morning joints had been greased and felt more mobile, we set off up to the moorland in the vague hope of seeing some grouse ... not a sign ... just sheep.

These two had obviously escaped the big gather and retained their thick warm fleeces, no bad thing considering the heavy front, fast heading our way and yes ... we got caught in it, so had to take some time sheltering under the protective canopy of a lovely old beech tree.

We had a good viewpoint over the valley below, the old dismantled reservoir and the newly naked hay fields looking so bleach pale against the lush greenery of other pasture.

Somewhere in the far distance, shrouded by mist was England and roughly as the crow flies (supposedly in a direct line, ha-ha) there was a very busy city hosting The 2012 Olympics. It all seems so far removed from rural life here, where the only races seem to be harvesting against the clock or dosing & inoculating the flock in time to save future problems.

To our left as the rain dripped off the leaves of our beech shelter, the deep head of the valley, from which if one walked far enough one could reach The Brecon Beacons and a valley I love ... The Elan Valley which in a good autumn can look almost as stunning as a Canadian fall with all it's glorious colours. But not on a rather grey day, like today.
The rain eventually passed over and we headed back through knee deep wet rushes and heather to where we'd parked. The daft dog was exploring all the rain fresh scents and rolling around in the soaking heather, a canine version of a car wash! That's when I spotted this fairly unusual sight ... a lovely, shining white heather.

That was it for the rest of the day until I realised we needed to get a few bits of essential shopping and just as we headed towards town, the thunder drum rolled the intro to a real humdinger of a black clouded front heading our way. Diving into the store I watched through the huge windows as the rain came down in absolute torrents, and people in summer dress and sandals almost waded across the car park. Having got the necessary items I joined others under the canopy of the store to watch the clouds cross over as if in an Olympic race themselves, they were moving that fast and we watched and waited for it to pass over, which it did followed by clear skies and sunshine reflected back off the now quite deep pools of water in the parking areas. We headed towards home but took our chance stop off for a short walk to visit a memorial site. The Six Bells Memorial Miner.
On the way to visit the commemorative  statue, I noticed this Magpie Moth caterpillar.

I will dedicate a whole post to this  amazing memorial another day with more details ..

Against the clearing clouds it stood out as a dark almost beseeching silhouette.

But what really caught my eye today was the sun shining just behind the steel constructed 20m statue named "The Guardian." It seemed like a brightly shining, solar halo. An even more intriguing image attracted my attention as we walked around the edges of the small rush edged pond.

As I wrote earlier, I was in a reflective mood today but this made me realise that one never knows at the waking start what will happen during the hours before bedtime.