We were due a change of weather fortune. Two out of three Christmas dates put smiles back on our faces, with their own special tales, and made an end-of-year to remember.

Christmas Eve:

As soon as I popped outside, I could feel how much milder it was. Breakfast at the metal table in night clothes before getting dressed was worthwhile. And I was treated to yet another glorious sunrise. And noticed that once again clouds, this time wispy diffuse grey affairs, began to build over the valley towards Llansawel, then drift East over Pen Rhydyfallen-isaf. Why have I never noticed this before (other than in my last post)? Perhaps I’m slowing down too much and making more time to stand, or sit, and stare.

Once up and going, an hour and a half of pothole filling passed benignly for once – not the best way to spend Christmas Eve morning, but sadly if I don’t do it in good time, it doesn’t get done, and very soon takes three times as long. One of the drawbacks of living here which as bright young mid-thirty year olds, we hadn’t factored into routine maintenance, or indeed the moral or legal concept of joint access responsibilities.

By now the cloud was building even more generally to the East, and mist was fringing the brow of Llethr Bledrig, but although grey, temperatures held up well with little wind. I wasn’t surprised to find that honey bees were out and about in the garden, visiting Daphne bholua flowers as well as snowdrops opening fully in this unusually warm Christmas air. We even had the very first early Crocus sieberi ‘Firefly’ not only above ground, but opening a little, and five daffodils open already, with one, the remembrance day flower, already going over. Exceptional phenology, exceptional weather. And the bank of peril was covered with extremely early primrose flowers.

Bees were certainly flying from the Darragh-trashed colony which I mentioned in the last post, and indeed all the other 4 colonies. This gave me an idea. For over 18 months I’d had 2 supers of capped honey, sitting, and rather vulnerable, in a cool outbuilding. In early December I’d finally got round to cutting out the comb. Since we only take enough honey for personal use, this comb honey was crudely pushed into old yoghurt pots and is sitting in a dead freezer, to (try to) escape the rats’ attention. The still honey covered, incredibly messy frames were returned to their storage, waiting for a suitable moment like this to get the bees to clean them up.  Along with Fiona’s big roasting dish which still sat piled with honey-soaked, wax fragment gunge in the kitchen. I’d been gently reminded that she’d need this dish the following day, so out it went, plonked onto an apple tyre about 10 feet from the colony. Nothing doing by lunchtime, but by the time we’d finished eating it was heaving with bees. By the end of the day it had been licked clean, and the now dry wax pushed around a lot, so keen were they to salvage every last drop.

How remarkable that a colony can mobilise so quickly and exploit such an unexpected resource even around the shortest days of the year. The temperature peaked at about 12 degrees C. Dusk saw several large starling flocks fly West, nearly overhead, before about an hour later 7 woodcock flew over the house roof and up towards the top hay meadow as I stood for just 10 minutes, just 3 feet from the back door.

This grainy picture, the first and best of many I took shows the unusual sight of a pair flying up together. I’m still waiting for other submissions to my woodcock-at-dusk archive. It’s a fiendishly tricky technical challenge in low light to get any image from my camera with a vaguely in-focus bird. Let alone being in the right place at the right time to see them. The real delight for me is just being quiet, waiting and then watching them silently, powerfully, fly past at speed at their precise crepuscular moment. Almost as soon as they stopped, a large bat flew down the rear track.

We finished off this quiet evening with our favourite selection of John Rutter carols and rather late in the season, a watch through of the Ballett Zürich version of ‘The Nutcracker’. It made it a peaceful day to remember, full of special and familiar moments.

At the risk of seeming elitist by even mentioning ballet in this blog, it’s still a globally extremely popular art form in the build up to Christmas. Presenting the grand Pas de Deux (dance for 2 soloists) from it as my contribution to our Agog gathering, I was a little surprised to discover that 3 of the 4 guys had never watched or listened to it before. Running it past others since, I realise I’m certainly in a masculine minority who loves what I consider to be a superb expression of multi-faceted creativity. I also realise I was very fortunate to be at Adam’s Grammar School in the days David Grundy was director of music. An inspirational energetic conductor of both combined school choirs and orchestra, I had no idea that he was also a composer in his own right. Something I’ve just gleaned from this brief obituary. I wonder how many other (unknown to him) students have enjoyed lives enriched by music following his musical tuition during their teenage years?

I’d discovered before we lost internet and power after the storm, that ‘The Nutcracker’ involved an initial story set in Nuremburg from an 1816 publication by Prussian author A.E. Hoffman. This was reinterpreted by Alexander Dumas in 1844, and then used as the basis of a commissioned project by the Russian Imperial Director of theatres. This commission to Tchaikovsky and his collaborating choreographer Marius Petipa, came along with a request that the ballet should form a double bill with a new opera, Iolanta. I was also surprised to read that after its premiere in 1892, some critics viewed this particular pas de deux dance element as ‘insipid’.

So if you aren’t familiar with this piece, I’d suggest that instead of watching a conventional classical version of the dance, it might be better to view this figure skating performance by a couple of Chinese dancers, Shen and Zhao. I discovered this by trawling through options, and figure skating isn’t something I’ve ever looked at since Torvill and Dean days. However this at-speed ice dance, with the Russian Mariinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev providing their musical accompaniment, entranced me. There are some bad aspects: the video is of poor quality, and you have to put up with some intrusive Canadian commentary. But the hairs stand up on the back of both our necks, every time we get this fix of competitively inspired, multi-nationally influenced magic.

Go on, all you ballet averse readers, challenge yourselves, and give it a go! It might rock your boat too.

 

Outside, it was indeed a still, and completely Silent Night.

 

___

Christmas Day:

Another very mild, though dank and grey morning. Out before breakfast, and after checking I’d beaten the bees to an early rise, I’d swapped the now cleared baking tray for the 2 empty supers.

By the time we’d completed family phone calls and a mini Zoom, we thought it time to stretch our legs so headed back to the forestry tracks at Abernant to get a better idea of how much storm damage there was on the tracks snaking around the slopes of Lan Ddu Cilwenau.

These images are pretty self explanatory, and give a hint at the damage. Video would work better, and may follow in time. Just standing and looking was best.

With more time to reflect, many thoughts have surfaced – the simplest of which was that all of this was simply the result of moving air. What we all rely on for life.

That the number of trees lost in this single violent event probably runs into many thousands. Emergency felling by the giant forestry machinery which tackles such tasks speedily opened the tracks, but has barely scratched the surface of the task. Trunks stripped and left piled at the trackside like so many bodies. In the worst affected zones, a tiny fraction of countless trees are still standing amongst the debris. The gloomy light matched the scenes. There is a certain irony that immediately after WWI, it was appreciated that there was a huge shortage of standing timber left in Britain. The Forestry Commission was established in 1919, with a Forestry Act and several of these trees seemed to be around 100 years old. Certainly all of this land was acquired by what has become National Resources Wales, many decades ago by compulsory purchase. Despite vociferous local opposition, headed up by D.J.Williams (1885-1970) and whose commemorative slate plaque rests on the side of the nearby Aber-nant farmhouse where he lived. I’m including some interesting quotes and resonances from this obituary, by Professor Hywel Teifi Edwards, which seem of relevance in this post:

“Born at Pen-rhiw, a farmhouse in the parish of Llansawel, Carmarthenshire, 26 June 1885, the elder child of John and Sarah (née Morgans) Williams. The family moved to Aber-nant in 1891 and he went to Rhydcymerau school, 1891-98. Between 1902 and 1906 he was a coalminer at Ferndale, Rhondda; Betws, Ammanford and Blaendulais. He resumed his education in 1906 at Stephens’ School, Llanybydder. After being a pupil-teacher at Llandrillo school, Edeyrnion, Meironnydd, 1908-10 he entered the Old College School, Carmarthen, 1910-11. In 1911 he went to the University College at Aberystwyth and after graduating and winning a Meyricke Scholarship in 1916 he proceeded to Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1918…

Basically he was a pastoral writer, the recorder of visual memories. He was in his middle age and early old-age when he produced the works which will be of lasting value.

Hen dy ffarm [transl. Waldo Williams , The old farmhouse (1961)] is his masterpiece, the story of cultivating the land of Pen-rhiw, creating a garden and orchard and then leaving because the hard work of winning the land brought ill-health and tensions within the family, preventing its continuation. Like every classical pastoral paradise, D.J.’s paradise, too, was destroyed, from within as well as from outside.

No man-made paradise can last, but man always needs a paradise to cherish.”

There seems a certain irony that these decade old trees, planted as a direct response to extraordinary mechanised human conflict, and destined for ‘harvest’ as a valuable resource should be devastated in one fell swoop by the gusts of Storm Darragh. Some will no doubt be salvageable timber. The hillsides however seem wrecked. There is no simple ecosystem natural regeneration route for such forest plantations.

I discovered that in 2019, the Forestry Commission commissioned the then Poet Laureate, Scottish born Carol Ann Duffy, to write a poem simply titled ‘Forest’, to celebrate this centenary moment. Not written for this local type of mainly coniferous forest, particularly, but well worth a listen. And then reflection, as any good poem demands.

 

With extremely good judgement, SinterKlaas managed to fit some wonderful items into our stockings. Not only LED lamps which slide onto our Makita batteries for our next power outage, but also what turned out to be a 2 hour video of well known Pas de Deux movements from ballets. All performed by the elite top dancers from the Royal Ballet (Rhetorical Q. Has elite become an inverted or mis-used word in recent times with negative connotations. Shouldn’t we celebrate the very best?)

As with many traditions we keep going with the routine of tree, decorations and putting out the stockings without ever wondering about the origins of these practices. It seems we should rather be putting out shoes on December 5th or 6th – St. Nicholas’s Day/Eve, which is what happens in several European countries. (Perhaps this date will be known locally in future as Darragh’s Eve?)  The U.S.A. and Britain have merged St. Nick/Father Christmas’ presence with the real Christmas story, sowing seeds of confusion into the minds of many, myself included.

One dance movement in particular from this video caught our ear and eye, as we watched it that evening. Concerto, which is Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet, set to Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto. Danced here by Marianela Nuñez and Rupert Pennefather. Who would have thought that the following morning I would enjoy my own personal reprise of this striking scene, in orange.

 

Boxing Day:

Another morning for a chilly early switch of super boxes with yet more honey bounty for the bees. And another breakfast outside beginning with Turner-esque scenes before the sun broke through.

And as I watched and tried to frame a photo, a large bird flew powerfully, and high, towards me. A kite, but in the cold windless conditions, not gliding as they often do, but working hard to make fast progress. Kite, jet, iron dragonfly, golden sun, all briefly aligned. A magic moment. Later the dragon’s breath shifted and by mid-morning had cleared from the valley bottom to allow us to walk the other route to Pwllcwmbyd to survey more downed trees: this time mainly oaks.

As we returned, I checked out a fully in bloom isolated gorse bush for signs of life. Sure enough half a dozen honey bees were collecting both pollen and nectar. Back home, the box was buzzing with more bees than on the previous 2 days. So I’m hoping that this might have allowed them to restock their stores, depleted by the 9 days they were essentially open to the elements. This particular colony has a direct link back (through two different captured, and re-housed swarms), to the first bee colony we acquired in 2018. So I know that they have excellent survival skills. It will be a wonderful start to 2025 if they survive.

With still mild temperatures and clear blue skies, we took lunch outside. Possibly for the first time ever on Boxing Day!

Before the day had finished with its own special moments, I’d nipped outside at 9 pm for a last pee. With my Beanie LED turned on, at lowest power, and in complete stillness, I was enveloped.

Not in invisible mist, as would normally happen with brighter illumination, but clouds of distinct tiny water droplets which drifted this way and that in sinuous Brownian patterns. And swirled as I shifted my head, and my breath created countercurrents in the air above me. They didn’t extend further than a few feet, as the dim light waned into complete darkness. But it was a magic moment. A counterpoint to the violence of air I’d mentioned earlier.

A benign, water laden comfort duvet over me which felt restorative. Fiona witnessed it the following night, and was equally enthralled.

Perhaps the four magpies which had been in strangely subdued voice, but had been flitting repeatedly between dead tree crowns during the day, were losing their influence.

One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for death

At which point I’ll leave the keyboard, after including my own recently written poem below, and wish any early readers a very Happy New Year. And hope that it brings you many delights. Whatever those might be.

__

 

Beeched Whales     

Forgotten faces tamed this land, unshaken hands banked soil and stone.

Whips collected, spaced and set, or mast crop saved and sown.

The bend and straight still clear, but how’s and why’s and when’s, unknown.

 

Seasons slip, and years slide by, lime-green, racing, rusting shows.

Your annual livery clock ticks slow, December’s decades come and go.

 

Unknown stewards, guardians of this little fort above King’s Cross,

Sheltered here from winter’s worst, stopped marvelling, ignored the moss,

Had other crises, joys, desires. Misjudged your goal, your lofty spires.

 

Until you’d outlived all: the crumbling cottage, slates and walls

In fast decline. Beyond, your splendour clear to all who passed and blessed

Those distant unknown souls – cathedral architects; imagined or unplanned.

 

Yet none foresaw the brutal end; those violent gusts, those sylvan screams

Knocked ninepins, arching alley bowled. Your rooted bank peeled high,

As low and wet, felled trunks lay still. Beeched whales, now doomed to die.

 

Stop, gasp, and wonder at this scene, remember those who had their dreams

Not knowing this would come to pass. Pocket now that flat smooth glass.

Pause a while and let your fingers stroke, with tenderness explore the seams

 

That link our worlds: roam moss-green bark, trace chainsawn rings, grasp lance-tipped steel.

Think Leonard’s lines. Imagine Darragh’s roar. The rip, the tear, the wet field’s

Shocked reverberation. Beyond six senses, drained. Return again, again, again. And feel.

 

 24/12/2024

(For ‘Leonard’s lines’, you could listen here, around 5.53 in, if you’re impatient.)