Just a little over a year on we are back in Gaiman….if feels good, familiar, comforting like a beloved blanket. Our first and most essential stop is with Luned and Tegai and we are immediately embraced into their lives once more as though we never left , Luned is amused by my beard and I […]
Thursday and Friday Still elated by the joy of discovering our potential PI50 location in Abercwmboi we arrange a meeting in London to discuss the matter, the man it charge is warm and the signs are good ! Fingers et all crossed for Friday. Following on from our conversation with Chapel guru John who gave […]
Tuesday and Wednesday We visit the next town of Aberdare where in 1865 a few of its people also left in search of the promised land in Patagonia. We head straight to the library and dive into the Wesleyan world ( and other denominations ) of chapels. Staggeringly, there were a 180 in the Cynon […]
Monday The day begins with great news, Sarah Ball has won Welsh Artists of the year, which is fantastic as she will be involved in PATAGONIA150; creating portraits from the stiff studio sittings of the Welsh settlers from the archive that I sawn in Trefelin, these photos are a stark contrast to the images of […]
Thursday Most of the day is taken up by a visit to Technium OpTIC (Opto-electronics Technology and Incubation Centre) a specialist innovation centre based at St Asaph Business Park in North Wales. It supports young science and technology businesses involved in the development of optical and electronic technologies, in partnership with Glyn Dwr University. We […]
Wednesday Just outside Corwen we stop to take a look at an unusual chapel that has caught my attention a few times, there’s no door and the inside has been totally gutted, soon to be transformed into a showroom for solar power panels, apparently. We head towards Rhuthin and the craft centre, I’d never been […]
Tuesday We head off for a spin around the surrounding landscape and whilst passing a huge lake I spot a curiously shaped contemporary like building between the trees and I realise what it is , it’s a memorial chapel for Capel Celyn now submerged at the bottom of the lake, along with the rest of […]
Sunday 02 I take the bus from Carmarthen to Bala (where I’d just completed the documentary Trysor Sir Gar / Carmarthenshire Treasure for Joio ) and begin the process of putting TIr Sir Gar and its many splinter projects to bed . I had dreaded the journey as it was a ‘ normal’ bus , […]
Monday We return to Porth Madryn to see the Glaniad museum that we missed last time, sadly it’s closed on Mondays but we follow a path to the cliff side and view the caves that the first settlers who disembarked from Mimosa on July 28, 1865, took shelter for several weeks. The ruins mark the […]
Saturday Driving back to Gaiman we decide to take the tarmac road rather than the gruelling gravel one which should take around 7 hours. We’ve been invited by Yvonne Owen ( president of Yr Orsedd ) to spend a night at her Chacra ( farm) as she wants to tell us it’s story and we […]