great orme cemetery

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 15 April 2024].}

With all the to-ing and fro-ing between my trips to Llandudno, Delamere and Glasgow (and pet-sittings in between), I got ahead of myself by posting a photograph of St Peter's Church in Delamere last Sunday when I should have rounded out the week with a #SepulchralSunday entry for Llandudno first.

No harm done, though.

Here's one of my photographs of the Great Orme Cemetery Chapel. The cemetery sits just outside the churchyard walls of St Tudno's Church, down the hill from the summit.

of gorse

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 March 2024].}

Kissing's in fashion.

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friends in high places

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 17 March 2024].}

I returned home from a week in Llandudno, Wales, on Friday.

After sitting Meg and Mog in Minera in October 2021, the Avanti West Coast (AWC) leg of my journey back to London was cancelled. I contacted them to see if I might be eligible for partial compensation, even though I had a flexible ticket to allow me to catch alternative trains from Chester to London. I arrived only half an hour later than scheduled, though I had to stand in a doorway with my suitcase on an overcrowded train from Stafford to Euston when I'd had a reserved seat on the original train.

They initially issued me two vouchers for free first-class advance single travel anywhere on the AWC network within one year of issue.

Because of my finances and life, I didn't try to book them until the last day they were valid, with fingers firmly crossed I would be able to use them. That's when I found the voucher codes didn't work.

It was an issue on their part, so AWC reissued the vouchers, and they randomly issued me a third voucher. I'm still not entirely sure the third voucher wasn't a mistake, but who am I to argue with free travel?!

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Once again, finances and life meant I waited until the last minute to use the vouchers. This time, all vouchers worked the first time.

I booked tickets based on quick searches for accommodation and suitable dates for leave from work, pushing things out as far as possible. I honestly didn't know if I could afford the accommodation for each or even one of them.

Ultimately, for my first trip away, I found a suitable studio flat in a converted house a short walk from the centre of Llandudno (let's be fair: everything in Llandudno is a 'short walk' from the centre) on Airbnb.

As the flat was listed by a company, not an individual, out of curiosity, I looked for it as a direct rental. I found it only slightly cheaper via the Finest Retreats website, but I also found a one-bedroom flat in the same building on their site for the same price.

Green versus blue.

Blue is my favourite colour, and a studio flat was sufficient for my needs.

But the green flat had floral wallpaper. It would allow me to create new wallflowers self-portraits.

You can guess the decision I made.

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I shared several mobile photos from my trip on my Instagram during the week. But I have copious photos I took with my Nikon D700 during the week, which I'll share early access here in due course, including the wallflowers self-portraits I took on one of my "rest days" when the weather was not so great.

While staying in Llandudno, I walked the length of Marine Drive, the road that circles Great Orme, a limestone headland jutting out into the Irish Sea just behind where I stayed.

On the first day of walking around Great Orme, I could hear sheep baa-ing above me soon after passing the toll gate. The signage told me to expect sheep and goats along the way and warned me against approaching them.

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The first time I heard them, I could only just see them above me (the photograph above).

At a later point, I turned to look back to where I'd come from and saw some sheep on a ledge above the road (as shown in the other three photographs).

A couple and their small child were coming around the curve of the road behind me. I caught the father's eye and gestured to the sheep, thinking he would point them out to his child.

Instead, he responded in a blasé fashion, "Yes, they're everywhere". I mentioned I had heard them further back but could barely see them. He commented on my camera's lens as if my only interest was photographing them.

Maybe he was a local, and it was all in a day's walk for him. Perhaps he was having a trying day.

But I thought to myself (and maybe muttered under my breath) that I hope I never lose my sense of wonder like he had seemed to.

I hope I never find sheep and goats hanging out on a ledge well above my head or below the road on sheer cliffs and grassy outcrops utterly and unspeakably ordinary and uninteresting, even if I lived in a place where I saw it every day.

What a dull life that would be.