Cathedral Tower

There is a strange sensation when you walk into a commercial art gallery and, almost from the first breath, know that you are in the presence of quality. It is a relaxation of muscles that you did not know you were holding tense. The same thing happens when an assured musical performer plays the first three notes, or a charismatic actor makes an entrance - in the latter case, they may not even need to speak a line

Even returning to a place where we have been several times before, and I know I like, my sub-conscious forgets the experience of being there, and goes through the same cycle of tension and release. Among many affecting pictures, ceramics, wood-carvings and hand-sewn tapestries, one piece stood out: someone is melting down iron nuts and bolts, then fashioning the molten metal into sculptures. In this case they were gannets, 25cm long, four of them in various stages of a hunting dive, as they bend their wings further and further back, anticipating immersion; the four were hung from the gallery ceiling in formation, perfectly conjuring the focussed, murderous energy of such a dive

Around 300,000 people per year visit St David's, a city with a population smaller than our home village. The 12th century cathedral is the main draw - idiosyncratically built in the bottom of the deeply incised valley of the river Alun, to make it hard for raiders to spot from the sea (and just as hard for tourists until they are directed towards it)

Very few explore the surrounding landscape, which I find etherial, eerie and extraordinary. It is flat, marshy land full of rivulets and pools, with few trees, bathed in a strange light due, I think, the presence of the sea on all sides. Here and there, some of the most ancient rocks in the country break the surface of the sodden ground in weird, angled, shattered outcrops. The whole is overlooked by three larger, conical hills on the near northern horizon, from which I imagine ancient deities keeping a sardonic eye on the strivings of the puny creatures below. Today was the perfect day to experience the atmosphere, as low cloud dipped to meet the mists rising from the trickling wetlands below

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Several people reacted strongly when I mentioned in a past blip the shock of being confronted with extreme two-tier pricing in the local supermarket. I'm delighted to see that the UK Competition and Markets Authority is one of my blip followers, and have now announced an enquiry into the matter. I did not know until now that you have to be over 18 and a UK resident to have the right bit of plastic, which fact alone makes it unacceptable in my opinion. (We haven't been back, by the way)