Mountain Ash Today

Amidst so much building work and retail rot, Mountain Ash is irresistible.

Do Play with your Food

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese Proverb.

Give a man a salad and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to make a pretty face with a salad and you keep him amused for a lifetime. Aberdare Blog Proverb.

As Flies to Wanton Boys

The tragic events of the past week in Trecynon near Aberdare has challenged our Community in many ways.

Why … ? There are so many “why?” questions to ask ourselves in Faith.

The streets of Trecynon are knitted together tightly.

In Windsor Street the Doctor’s Surgery, the Cub Scout Hall, the Church Hall, the Church, and the Police Station are all neighbours to each other.

It is difficult to accept that in the very midst of our community where we take our sick, let our children play, and worship that such a wanton act of violence should take place.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the wife and family of Father Bennett as they come to terms with their severe loss.

Trees Fallen at Aberdare Girls’ School

The trees in front of Aberdare Girls’ School were felled today.

They were over 50 years’ old.

Dying for a Smoke ?

• Every year, around 114,000 smokers in the UK die as a result of their addiction
• Smoking kills around six times more people in the UK than road traffic accidents (3,439), other accidents (8,579), poisoning and overdose (881), alcoholic liver disease (5,121), murder and manslaughter (513), suicide (4,066), and HIV infection (234) all put together (22,833 in total – 2002 figures).
• Smoking causes thirty per cent of all cancer deaths (including at least 84% of lung cancer deaths), 17% of all heart disease deaths and at least 80% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema.
• Stopping smoking reduces this excess risk – stopping before age 35 can reduce a smoker’s health risks to the same as those of a life-long non-smoker

* Photograph and statistics by National No Smoking Day

* Information on the Welsh Smoking Ban which comes into force on April 2nd 2007

Aberdare’s Surgeon to Old Shoes

A chance encounter in Weatheral Street, Aberdare today : whilst taking a photograph the gentleman with white hair walks into view and smiles for the camera.

Russell Bowen is Aberdare’s Surgeon to Old Shoes. Perhaps we should call him the Surgeon General as he is the most senior cobbler in Aberdare and has been in the business of mending shoes for decades.

In times past, local craftspeople made and mended shoes, and therefore there were cobblers in every town and village.

Nowadays the majority of our shoes are made thousands of miles away, mostly in Chinese factories. Few of these shoes are built to last or be repaired.

Smiles under the Sun and the Cardiff Beggars

This man entertained thousands of Welsh people today for he spent the afternoon sitting on a bench in Queen Street, Cardiff singing his heart out.

The sun shone on Cardiff today and it felt like summer in the mid-day sun.

Today there are more beggars and homeless people in Cardiff than in many decades past.

Aberdare’s MP Ann Clwyd raised the issue of homelessness at this year’s March 1st St David’s Day Welsh Affairs Debate in the House Of Parliament, saying :

I have been shocked recently in Cardiff to see people sitting on the streets, by lifts, wrapped up in blankets, begging.

It was nigh impossible to walk down a single street without passing someone squatting at a shop-entrance begging.

Cardiff has changed so much in the past few years, but the chasm between the richest and poorest in society is wider than ever.

How long since we last spent some quality time in Cardiff ? An exchange from the Pen and Paper shop in Royal Arcade sheds light on our problem.

Do you know where Lears the bookshop is ?

Lears closed six years ago.

We shared the sun with the statue of John the Third Marquis of Bute overlooking Cardiff Castle, with a copy of Noam Chomsky’s Necessary Illusions at hand for company. Even the stern figure of old Butey seemed to want to smile in the glorious sunny Cardiff that was Friday, March 9th 2007.

Aberdare Work of Art in Bricks

Aberdare throbs with installation Art exhibitions.

The Arts Council should take more interest in the Valleys.

A free installation art exhibition was held recently in Whitcombe Street, Aberdare, at the back of Woolworths and nearby Croci’s Cafe.

The name of the exhibition was ‘Labourer fills Skip… Brick by Brick’.

The Artist in question wished to remain anonymous. He spent around two days preparing his exhibit which lasted but a few fleeting hours.

An inspiring exhibition.

Click on the thumbnail photos to see larger version

Bed of Crocuses at Aberdare Park in early March

Dechreuwch bob blog yn Gymraeg

Bws yn teithio rhwng Aberdaron a Phwllhelli. ‘Drychwch ar yr hysbyseb… Cyngor da, ie ?

St David’s Day at St John’s Church in Aberdare

The daffodils around St John’s Church brighten up Aberdare today, and it is perfectly timed for St David’s Day, Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant, the patron Saint of Wales.

Photos of the flowers at St John’s Church in Aberdare on St David’s Day 1st March 2007