Month: February 2014

X marks the spot

February 26, 2014

(image via outofthechrysalis.com)

I was floored by an X recently.

It was just one letter but its arrival stopped me dead in the corridor, late for class and gasping for air amid the tumult of the past week.

I hadn’t expected the X. Worse still, I feared it was a perfunctory one, tossed in at the end of the text message out of a sense of habit or duty.

It was an extraneous X.

Since then I’ve been increasingly vexed by valedictions.

From a birthday card X to a Twitter RT, via a text message XO, I’ve been struggling to sign off.

Yours, regards, best, cheers – the array is bewildering enough. Add in the affectionate-letter dimension, worse still an emoticon, and I’m treading a linguistic minefield, verbal ordinance exploding around me as I stumble through.

“It is,” as the poet and professional Yorkshireman Ian MacMillan explains, “sign-off chaos out there.”

We often struggle with endings. We don’t like signing off too abruptly, appearing cold or aloof, yet an overly familiar autograph also can also feel wrong. Do you X your commissioning editor in the same way as a favourite aunt? Would you use ‘yours’ with your dad?

And, if you X but get no X back, the missing letter speaks louder than any awkward silence, or tense drive home.

The cadence of the last line can lift spirits or rain on parades. It sets an agenda.

The Observer tackles the issue in terms of gender politics. Among Twitter users, 11% of women XO in tweets, compared with only 2.5% of men, it reports. The columnist Eva Wiseman suggests:

“Women … will read an X-less email as curt and stern.”

So has the time come to rewrite the rulebook for the new forms of correspondence we have to grapple with each day, a new lexicon for a black-mirror age? And just what is the etiquette for exchanging suitably knowing pay-off lines to selfies on Snapchat?

I looked to the literary world for guidance.

Armitstead Maupin, the writer and doyen of West Coast liberalism, enthuses about “hugs” but also often signs off with XO (the O of the hug softening the kiss of the X, he explains). But more than one XO, he warns, and that turns an affectionate coda into a clumsy attempt at a French kiss.

A prolific letter writer, Charles Darwin was often distracted from penning his 1859 tome On the Origin of Species by wrestling with the nuances of signing off affectionately in an era of starched Victorian sensibilities.

When our feelings change in a relationship, we face a valedictory dilemma. Darwin reflected this in his missives.

Writing to his wife Emma, Darwin describes the lancing of a particularly pustulant boil and his subsequent recovery, laid out on a sofa “groaning and grumbling, and reading the Last Days of Pompei.”

This, he writes, gave him time to reflect fondly upon “My own dearest, tenderest, best of wives.” He adds: “My dearest. I kiss you from my heart.”

As Alison Pearn, Associate Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project explains:

“It takes great skill to write a letter about your boils and yet make it sound hopelessly romantic.”

Darwin’s favourite sign off was ‘Yours affly’, an abbreviation for ‘Yours affectionately’.

I might just try it next time. But for now, back in the corridor, I simply delete the text message, head for class and try to swallow down the nausea of what feels like a hollow, not heartfelt, X.

There is, after all, nothing more tragic than an X from an ex.

Your view? Post below.

Gazetteer

Darwin Correspondence Project

The Verb

The Observer: The joy of x in texts, tweets and emails

Story of the week: Winter travels in the Snowdonia National Park, Wales

February 23, 2014

* I’m sick of winter. But the first daffodils are in flower in the park I can see from my window, so let’s hope this is the last winter story for a while.

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Psst. Keep this one between us, right?

Those people following the ant trail across North Wales in summer, well, they got it all wrong.

Of course they will find the Snowdonia National Park (eryri-npa.co.uk) is stunning in August and the infrastructure geared towards the Great British holiday, but they’re all missing the chance to see Snowdonia during the best month: February.

No, really. The roads are quieter, the scenery more striking, the wood-burning fires cosier, the Penderyn whisky tastes smoother and the tradition of Welsh hospitality even more relaxed.

If you’re looking for walking, scenery, fresh air and homely, unfussy places to stay and eat this winter, then beat the crowds by a good six months and bag the best of Snowdonia by going off season.

“Snowdonia is beautiful with the snow on the tops,” says Jacky O’Hanlon, a walking guide and owner of the Coed Cae B&B (CoedCae.co.uk) on the Mawddach Estuary.

“When the bracken dies down and the trees shed their leaves, you can really see the ancient stone circles and standing stones that give Snowdonia its strong sense of Welsh identity and folklore.”

National park

Snowdonia was Wales’ first ever national park, formed in 1951 to protect the natural environment, particularly around Mount Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales at an altitude of 3,560 ft (1,085m).

Today it remains the largest park in Wales and is characterised by the diversity of its landscape: 15 mountain tops over 3,000ft, 23 miles of stunning coastline, glistening lakes, cascading waterfalls and ancient woodland can all be found within the park’s 823 sq miles in northeast Wales.

It also remains hugely popular with some 11m visits each year according to the Snowdonia Society (snowdonia-society.org.uk).

Last summer Snowdonia was more popular than ever with the unveiling of two major new tourism projects in the region.

The Welsh Highland Railway (festrail.co.uk) was first opened in 1923, connecting the slate and mineral quarries that dominated a then industrialised North Wales. Volunteers saved the decaying track in 1997 and, six years and £30m later, a new 20-mile section from Caernarfon to Beddgelert is back in coal-powered action.

It’s a gloriously scenic route that cuts a swathe through the rural heart of the national park. The final seven-mile section to Porthmadog will open autumn 2010, joining up with the 13-mile-long Ffestiniog Railway route from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog to form the longest narrow-gauge railway in Europe.

The unveiling of Hafod Eryri, the low-rise, granite-built visitor centre and cafe atop Mount Snowdon, proved more controversial, however.

The new centre replaces the well-worn original summit building from 1935, designed by Clough William-Ellis of Portmeirion fame, which Prince Charles once famously described as “the highest slum in England and Wales.”

But the delayed opening has given way to grumbles about queues, a cafe that rapidly runs out of stock and a dearth of locally sourced materials.

The Snowdon Mountain Railway (www.snowdonrailway.co.uk), a feat of Victorian engineering, is the lifeline to the summit for supplies. Some of the original 1896 steam engines still complete the five-mile climb in around one hour. They transport 140,000 passengers each year, a further 250,000 people walking up one of the six trails to the summit of Snowdon.

Most take the longer but more moderate Llanberis Path, a10-mile round trip, running beside the railway track. Hafod Eryri is now closed until the snow clears, while the Snowdon Mountain Railway starts a limited service from mid March.

Snowdonia remains a hub for activity seekers off season with rock climbing, white-water rafting, mountain biking and pony trekking all popular pursuits. Two perennial walking festivals, one based around Barmouth and one centred on Betws-y-Coed, bring in the Gore-Tex and hiking boots brigade en masse.

The landscape is free to enjoy and yearns to be explored with clumps of yellow-flowered gorse, frothy, gurgling brooks, mossy bridges and isolated, grey-stone cottages cowering stoically below the mountainous slate runs of the hillsides.

Never mind if a sheep absent-mindedly wanders across the trail. Just stop and admire the ospreys or red kites circling overhead instead.

Heritage sites

For gentler excursions, the coastline features a World Heritage-listed chain of medieval castles (cadw.wales.gov.uk) with Caernarfon and Harlech within the national park, while Conwy and Beaumaris are within a short drive.

Exploring the nooks and crannies of the fairytale, Italianate village of Portmeirion (portmeirion-village.com), meanwhile, reveals another side of Snowdonia devoted to art, architecture and aesthetics.

Of all the places to base yourself, tiny Beddgelert is probably the most picture-postcard striking village in the national park. Built around an ivy-coated bridge, it positively oozes bucolic charm from between the stone cottages and flourishes of wild flowers.

It’s also home to one of North Wales’ favourite folk tales, the story of Gelert, the faithful hound of the 13th-century Welsh prince, Llewellyn.

The prince killed his beloved dog believing him to have savaged his baby son. In fact, the blood-splattered hound had saved the child from a wolf. Gelert’s grave, located along a gentle riverside stroll and marked with a stark statue, is now a site of minor pilgrimage.

Betws-y-Coed and Llanberis are the main hubs for visitors, but the former looks rather unloved these days, while the latter is increasingly the domain of coach parties and window shoppers marveling at the inordinate number of outdoor shops lining the main drag, Holyhead Road.

For a more grass roots taste of Snowdonia life, therefore, consider heading towards the south of the park and making your base around Dolgellau.

This imposing, stone-build market town, enclosed by looming mountains, feels properly Welsh – as it should for a region whereby around 65% of people speak Cymraeg as their first language.

Walkers love Dolgellau for the nearby trails to the summit of Cader Idris (2929ft, 893m), the lesser-known alternative to Mount Snowdon, while savvy mountain bikers flock en masse to Coed y Brenin Forest Park (forestry.gov.uk/wales) for some of the best biking trails in the UK. Better still, access to all the trails and facilities is, once you’ve paid for parking, completely free.

“Winter is when the panoramas open up. I love the coolness of the air, the flocks of siskin and the fallow deer, and the views across the park, especially from Moel Hafod Owen on the Volcano Trail, the highest part of the park at 1430ft (435m),” says the park’s Recreation Ranger, Graeme Stringer.

“The Family Cycle Trail is also particularly spectacular at this time of year as the high rainfall means the waterfalls are at their best.”

Compared to the rugged Gwydyr Forest, another Forestry Commission Wales site near Betws-y-Coed, Coed Y Brenin is a more multi-purpose centre, its 9,000-acre extent including a visitor centre, seven mountain biking trails, a new geo-caching trail and a series of colour-coded walking trails, some of them accessible by wheelchair and pushchair.

A brand new high ropes facility from Go Ape (goape.co.uk) opens Easter 2010 and a junior version of the course is planned for 2011.

Foodie favourites

Aside from activities and heritage sites, Snowdonia is also winning over a new generation of fans for its burgeoning food scene and boutique accommodation.

Wales has made great leaps in terms of quality since the dark days of Seventies surly B&B owners and the formica tablecloths. Snowdonia is one the regions to propel the momentum forward.

Places like Ffynnon in Dolgellau, Castle Cottage in Harlech and Plas Tan-Yr-Allt near Tremadog have brought boutique-style accommodation to the region without loosing the warmth of the local welcome. The restaurant Mawddach, The Purple Moose microbrewery in Porthmadog and upscale cafe Plas Derwen in Betws-y-Coed all fly the flag for the excellent local produce, such as beef, lamb, cheeses, ales, cockles and lava bread.

A recent addition to the roll of honour is Graig Wen (graigwen.co.uk), a triumvirate of B&B, yurts and holiday cottages with a rock-music motif in the southern Snowdonia.

Owner Sarah Heyworth is a convert to exploring Snowdonia off season. She says: “The variety of the landscape invites different levels of engagement throughout the seasons – from the rugged uplands of central Snowdonia to the nature-filled estuary walks of the southwest.

“I love the quietness of the place in winter, the closeness to nature and getting outside to pick sloes for gin. Simple country pleasures.”

Close to nature

Snowdonia still keeps those simple pleasures alive, but it also offers an increasingly sophisticated vision of Wales. Activities are thriving, new places to stay and eat exploding across the region and new blood proudly keeping the traditions alive.

A visit in winter, away from the crowds and the traffic jams, is the best way to discover Snowdonia as a place of nature, history and harmony.

Debra Harris, chair of Discover Dolgellau (discoverdolgellau.com), a cooperate of local tourism businesses promoting the attractions of the destination year round, sums it up:

“There’s something quite ethereal about Snowdonia in winter: the light, the frost-shrouded landscape, the sense of being the only human around.”

“I find it,” she smiles, “really quite spiritual.”

* This story was first published in Countryfile magazine in 2009. Liked this? Try also A Treasure Hunt in Southern Snowdonia.

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Story of the week: Exploring prehistoric sites on the Gower Peninsula

February 16, 2014

* The Dylan Thomas centenary is dominating news around Swansea and the Gower this year but here’s an archive story with a different theme – prehistoric sites.

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Autumn sunshine over Gower.

The combination of the warm-air micro climate, swell-lapped Blue Flag beaches and majestic 15-mile sweep of coastal peninsula ensures the car park at visitor hub Rhossili Bay is packed as we arrive – and this is October.

The Gower Peninsula was designated the UK’s first official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1956 and it clearly remains as popular as ever. Walkers pull on their boots and surfers wriggle into wetsuits around me, but I’m here for something far more esoteric: stones.

Big piles of stones, in fact.

I’ve come to preview Andante Travel’s Archaeology of Wales and the West tour, which guides amateur archaeologists to some of the best prehistoric sites in Britain, many of them dotted along the coast of Wales.

The tour is perfect for anyone interested in history but put off by images of a fusty, academic ant trail that alienates anyone who hasn’t seen every single episode of Time Team. This trip is about bringing history to life and Andante even provides a folder of cheat-sheet notes for each site on the itinerary.

Just as well. I couldn’t differentiate the Early Upper Palaeolithic Period (35,000-20,000 BC) from the Earlier Mesolithic (10,000-8,000 BC) even if Tony Robinson was jabbing me with an Iron Age flint.

The Gower leg of the tour focuses on the first Homo sapiens reaching Wales, people who are physically identical to us today, and covers the period from Palaeolithic to the end of the Bronze Age around 2000 BC.

The era marked a major evolutionary jump for man with the first cave art, music and stone-crafted tools. Cave-dwelling nomadic humans from eastern Europe came to Britain via a land bridge from northern France. They would spend much of their day hunting, gathering and dodging the wooly mammoths, which wandered the pre-Ice-Age landscape of modern-day South Wales.

They also staged a lot of ritual burials – hence all the stones.

Today sites like the Paleolithic cave at Minchin Hole and the Neolithic, oval cairns of Sweynes Howe in Rhossili Bay are a rich source of clues to our ancestors with animal bones, basic tools and early weapons offering hints to their lifestyle.

“The Gower coast is rich in caves and tombs from pre history to the medieval period,” explains Elizabeth Walker, Curator of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Archaeology at the National Museum Wales, Cardiff. We’re sipping warming coffees at The Bay Bistro & Coffee House in Rhossili, the majestic sweep of the bay to Worm’s Head extending from the terrace where we catch some autumnal rays.

“Some are associated with legends, some offer scientific insights into our ancestors’ lives, others reveal the landscape and the effects of early climate change.”

A skeleton in the closet

I start my journey of discovery not spluttering sea spray on Gower but studying a red-ochre-stained skeleton in a glass cabinet in Cardiff.

The Red Lady of Paviland Cave is the earliest known, formal human burial in Britain and a mere 29,000 years old. Her ladyship, found in a wave-washed cave in Gower’s Rhossili Bay, is just one of the exhibits at the National Museum Wales’ Origins Gallery, a visit to which starts the tour with a crash course in the history of its and a vivid showcase of Wales’ archaeological wealth.

The Red lady currently lies in state in Cardiff without her head. More worryingly, a study in the 1980s’ proved she is, in fact, a 23-year-old bloke.

The trip to Gower the next morning is a study in autumn colours. The narrow roads are lined with rows of rusty-orange trees, sheep graze the dewy-verdant fields and wet leaves form a slippery makeshift carpet as we stop to clamber up a bank to the little-explored Cat Hole Cave.

The accompanying burial chamber, Parc le Broes, is a long, narrow expanse of interconnecting, dry-stone-wall chambers first excavated in 1869. Driving on round the coast, we don’t care when we get stuck behind farm machinery on a tight bend.

There’s no hurry with the sideshow of Gower landscapes from the window.

From Rhossili’s sturdy, stone-built church, the path leads us on a one-mile yomp across muddy National Trust heathland.

The summit of Rhossili Downs is littered with burial cairns and drop-your-Welshcakes views across to the wave-blasted outcrops of Bury Holms and limestone Worm’s Head. Paviland cave, now inaccessible without coastguard permission, is also visible.

Around 8,000 years ago the sea was some 11km further out and these outcrops inland hills.

Access is now limited by the tides and controlled by the coastguard, although little boats do still venture to explore the caves when conditions are good. But the only visitors granted a free run are the razorbills and guillemots soaring overhead, and the seals bobbing in the swell.

Elizabeth once abseiled into a Worm’s Head Cave excavation from a watery platform like a regular Little Miss Indiana Jones. She shrugs.

“I’ve got a thing about stone implements.”

The north face

After a comfortable night at a local restaurant with rooms, we set out the next day for the village of Reynoldston, where the rugged, untamed northern uplands offer a new perspective of Gower. The views look across the cockle fields of the Loughor Estuary to Llanelli to the north and the Brecon Beacons to the east.

The key site on the north coast is a colossal, 25-ton glacial boulder, forged into the capstone of the Neolithic burial chamber.

I consult my notes to learn the capstone would have originally weighed up to 35 tons, while Elizabeth spins the yarn behind the fast facts, explaining that, according to legend, the giant King Arthur cast the pebble from his shoe and it settled on the northern slope of Gower.

Arthur’s Stone, combined with a walk along the headland to nearby Cefn Bryn, a series of Bronze Age ring cairns, proves to me that life as an amateur archaeologist is not all hard and fast answers, especially where the less-documented prehistoric period is concerned.

Visiting the sites and studying the findings of excavations offers clues to our ancient ancestors, but many questions are still unanswered. Why, for example, was Arthur’s Stone was built over a natural spring when most burial places are dry sites? Nobody knows – yet.

“I’ve walked a lot of Gower and I’m always fascinated by uncovering the ancient folklore and legends,” says David Kelly, owner of Gower restaurant with rooms Maes-yr-Haf.

“People think of Gower as scenery and the beaches but exploring the ancient sites helps us connect to our past.”

Andante’s tour heads north from Gower, taking in medieval castles on the north coast around Caernarfon, and exploring both industrial-heritage and ancient-Druidic sites around the coast of the Isle of Anglesey.

By moving through different periods of history, each section led by a different expert in that era, it builds a sense of evolving cultural identity in Wales from prehistoric man through to the attempted revolution led by the Welsh nationalist hero, Owain Glyndwr.

During my time I’ve learnt that the Wales, and especially Gower, is a stunning place for an autumnal sojourn, that early man was remarkably in tune with nature, the seasons and the elements and, most of all, that a big pile of stones is rarely just a big pile of stones.

“It’s what lies beneath. Every monument has it own character and its own story to tell,” says Elizabeth.

“We were always drawn towards the sea as humans and monuments to the dead are also monuments to people from our past.”

“For me,” she adds, ” archaeology is all about people relating to people.”

* This story was first published in Coast magazine in 2009. Liked this? Try also Blogging the Dylan Thomas centenary.

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