Ty Rheinallt Farm

"Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light."
Helen Keller

A circular route today, beginning with a bus journey to Abergavenny - 45 minutes and standing all the way, shades of my journey from London a few weeks ago. A was waiting to collect me at Abergavenny.  Like others before him, probably concerned I'd get distracted and wander off somewhere if he wasn't there to meet me, for a walk closer to home today, a wander around the hills above Blaenafon. The dilapidated remains of an old farmhouse - Ty Rheinallt farm - early in the walk turned the conversation to the industrial heritage of the surrounding landscape and family history. According to online sources Rheinallt is a Welsh variant of Reynold, which itself derived, via English, from Old Germanic words. One of the locals had told A of the family who once lived here, and A's family lived in the area too. My mother's family grew out of a similar landscape in Rhymney and my father was born into the gritty industrial chaos that was boomtown New Tredegar. We are walking in the footsteps of our ancestors along tracks and pathways that they followed, and the remnants of their lives - and deaths - are often strewn along these paths, reminding us of times long past but not forgotten entirely. The landscape into which we are born shapes us and has profound effects on us, physically and psychologically. So I find it stimulates creativity to walk in a landscape that resonates with the timescale in history that I'm researching and writing about. The view from the top of Coity tip across to Pwll Du illustrates how the landscape was plundered through its' industrial age, and how efforts have been made to reclaim something of the wasteland in the aftermath to restore balance to the area. As we passed garn lakes, a 40 acre local nature reserve created from the colliery waste, a red kite momentarily appeared overhead - a bird that was once on the brink of extinction in Wales is now a more common sight around here. The heritage centre in Blaenafon is always worth a visit for lunch to round off a walk, and today is no exception before I take my leave of A and head in to town to get the bus home - with a added luxury of a seat!