CROESO I CYMRU (25/11/11)

Today we have moved to Wales. We have gone foreign for the first time in a year or more. The title means Welcome to Wales…………Should the ‘C’ in Cymru be a ‘G’? I just took it from the road sign a couple of minutes down the road, I am only just dipping my toe into a foreign land. I exclude the dogs because they are happy wherever they are. A bark or a yip is much the same in any country.

We were out at dawn at yesterdays stop. Andrew treated me proud to a grand meal last evening. I’m still full of cold so wasn’t the best of company but it is good to meet bloggers. Blogging is a sociable occupation for unsociable and gentle folk. I’ve met a quartet and have never been disappointed. Thank you Andrew……….If you want to know who he is, he’s the magic artist at video editing……….The link is on yesterdays post.

Blakemere Moss at dawn.

The dawn was rubbish but I spent thirty minutes watching these Whatdo youcall it’s. Three separate lots of them flapping about, splitting and combining again, wonderful they are, they are Peewits……….I’m not totally ignorant. I’m also not a very good snapper because this is the only image in focus of a dozen I took.

We are now just outside Chirk. I’ll do a map tomorrow when I’ve seen the castle and the viaduct. The town looked fine as I passed through so will give the immediate few square miles a good doing in the next few days.

This is an MDF plant it produces medium density fibreboard. (Dwysedd canolig ffibrfwrdd) For Welsh speakers I’ve translated it. (Mae yn y cromfachau). How is Google translator doing? It’s your fault if it gets it wrong! A great language loads of double consonants but if you speak a bit falsetto it is not too hard to imitate. I’m not speaking to you Welsh I’m helping the other nine hundred and ninety nine percent out. I lived with a Welsh speaker donkeys years ago. It is a reasonable and poetic language, the wrdd is wood and said pretty much the same as normal……….sorry, as in English, my English not the queens.

These are the gates to Chirk castle. Wonderful wrought iron gates. They look a bit mediocre but that’s because the National Trust have painted them white. Also this is the longest edit I’ve had in a long while …..A nightmare to stitch the four images together. The caps on which the Griffons stand aren’t wrought but cast I didn’t go to look but suspect like the griffons or wee dogs, whatever they are, are cast using the cire purdue process which goes back to Roman times they called it Cire Pudta  Romans were fond of consonants ….lost wax, in English.

A wonderful gate that made me forget I’m poorly. I just took these on a lie of the land walk.

Proper wrought iron gates have to be constructed like this. A mirror image of one face reconstructed on the other. The French look after theirs, Go here DEEBEE is for ever wandering Paris and taking pictures of gates. I’m yet to be convinced that some of the Froggy gates aren’t cast iron but they are still wonderful……… I’m refering to Paris France………for you Texans. The French paint theirs black and guild them with gold leaf. Makes a world of difference. I love this stuff. So much work by artisans and they could reproduce a mirror image of it. The definition of a craftsman.

Now  I am going back to fungi. These are big ones………….I am going to catalogue this autumns fungi and bang them up to I Spot…….It’s a British Open University web site that has lots of folk that know, not only what I’ve found but what it is.

    I have a problem, the problem is I’m a bit thick. I would go for a funnel cap or to use the Latin Clitocybe. Sounds posh but what sort?

I think this one is a club footed Algerac. It looks a bit on the funnel cap stamp but there again it looks different. I wish I were a misogamist.  There is so much variation I doubt I’ll ever become a naturalist.

Have a great weekend.