A Walk from Glaspwll.

Another wet day.

The rain didn't stop six of us meeting up in the hills for a walk from Glaspwll (Blue pool). (LL is a Welsh letter that has no equivalent in English phonics, kind of a blown sound with a little bit of sh in but not a lot.) Although I had blue lined the route using Google Street View I didn't have to find my way to this hidden valley just a few miles off the main road to Mach as I'm finally on the car share What's App group and was being driven by somebody else. So now I can phone, text and use What's App. (For everything else the PC is so much better.) I also inadvertently found the voice to text thingy  when I was asked to send a message to our walk leader while we were driving along. That was a bit of a surprise when I saw my speech suddenly being converted to text. Quite handy that.

Our meeting place was by the tiny Penuel Chapel built in 1822. An interesting account of the church history of the area and Penuel in particular can be read here on Welldigger's blog. That's D'Arcy the dog who came along on the walk too.

It wasn't too wet to begin with though as we walked up the hill into the woods we hit the cloud level. The rain became a lot heavier after that. Hence not so many photos as I put my camera away in my backpack. On went my waterproof over trousers as well as I opted to be a little too hot rather than completely soaked.

Through more woods and fields with a rainy stop to eat our lunch then we crossed the River Llyfnant which was in full spate. This short river flows from the waterfall at Craig y Pistyll, the highest waterfall in North Wales that we climbed beside back in February.

Even though it was still raining, note our leader's battered brolly, I had to take out my camera for some photos.

Near the end of our walk we called in at one of the sites of the West Wales bee Breeding Project, a collaboration between the university and a local honey producer. They are attempting to breed, by natural selection, bees that are hardier and more resistant to disease. After all minus pollinators and bees in particular we would be without most of our food crops. What we had come for was the chance to buy local honey at a reasonable price, much less than in the shops and garden centres where it is sold. All on a trust system, help yourself to honey and put the money in a jam jar.

I bought a selection of honeys which will make nice presents especially with the sloe gin which already has turned a rich ruby red.

On the way home when we stopped to drop somebody off a chap who trains sheepdogs and keeps a dozen sheep had half the sheep running down the road. One of his dogs flew down the road, got past the sheep before they reached the oncoming cars, turned them and brought them back all to the farmer who was still standing around the corner.

Even with my raincoat I was a bit wet when I got home so it was straight into the shower before some Duo Lingo and an evening of Strictly.