From Books to Bluff - a photo on Flickriver

            It’s only a four mile journey up here from the quiet pleasures of the famous town of books that lies somewhere in the folds of the landscape below and out of sight.  Hay on Wye, known far and wide for its literary festival and town centre with more than its fair share of bookshops is full of charm, set above the River Wye on the border of England and Wales.  I hadn’t been here since 1988.  “Are you a bibliophile?” came the unexpected interrogation from a well-spoken, tall and erudite looking middle aged man.  “Erm, well yes I suppose,” was the response from the self-conscious twenty-two year old who’d just found a dusty old copy of Malcolm Allison’s autobiography nestling on a brimming bookshelf.  He was an accomplished football manager from the distant past if you’re not sure - Malcolm Allison, not the erudite man - I can't account for his achievements I'm afraid.  All these years later an only slightly more self-assured fifty-five year old returned to the town of books with his partner in an elderly Renault Master campervan.  A love of books overshadowed by an aversion to shops found him sitting along the river hoping (and failing) to spot a Kingfisher somewhere along the banks of the Wye, while his partner trawled the charity shops before seeking him out, slightly crestfallen.  “It’s not like Redruth here,” she said.  It was true.  What she can pick up for a pound or two in the forgotten towns of Cornwall apparently costs the price of a decent meal here.  But then it is a place that has that quiet and un-showy sense of affluence about it.  It’s a town that has its own identity – not just because of the plethora of overflowing outlets to please all of those bibliophiles, but also the complete absence of the usual identikit high street that makes so many of our towns indistinguishable from one another these days.

Oh dear I’m starting to sound like one of those old people who only derive pleasure from complaining about things.  I was hoping that wouldn’t happen to me.  Does this seeping sense of creeping nostalgia for something that may have only ever existed in our imagination overwhelm us all as the ageing process creeps up like a burglar in the night?  Let’s move on, and take the campervan to the entrance of Forest Road, where the ascent to Hay Bluff begins.  By now I’ve suddenly remembered with no small degree of alarm that I forgot to switch off the gas bottle before driving out of the enormous car park.  So many small things to remember when you drive these houses on wheels with all of your belongings in them, and keeping the fridge running by changing from one of its three methods to the next each time you move is important if you want your tea to taste like tea in the morning – I really need to make a list and glue it to the steering wheel.  Fortunately, there’s plenty of space at the roadside to stop and correct my error before Brenda explodes extravagantly with us reduced to toast inside – space that will rapidly diminish as we climb the ever narrowing single track road along those seemingly endless four miles.  At least in Brenda we’re bigger than just about everything else that might be passing the other way, which thankfully brings a sense of deference to most of the drivers coming towards us.  A friendly wave and a thank you for reversing your car into a wall to let us past and we’re off again, gradually slowing on the ever-steepening lane until suddenly the landscape broadens out and we find sheep all around us, grazing perilously close to the edge, moving out of the way reluctantly just as I come to a halt for fear of hearing the thud of soft tissue and hard bone against the front bumper somewhere beneath us.  And by degrees we make the last few hundred yards to the car park, a space in which it would be too easy to sit in the van drinking tea and eating the entire supply of Haribo that’s meant to be reserved for hiking up the slope which now sits at our back, as we look at this view.  

As the evening falls and we discuss whether to collect a curry from the takeaway in town on the way back to our campsite later, the light begins to play on the not too distant slopes of the Brecon Beacons.  It’s cold and windy outside, but this is why I came here and I drag the camera bag and tripod from their respective cubby holes, deep in the bowels of our home from home.  From here we can gaze at Pen y Fan, Southern Britain’s highest point, which towers over the landscape around it.  We were there just a couple of months earlier, and we’ll be there again next year no doubt.  For now we’ll just enjoy this moment, and discuss exactly what we’re going to have in that takeaway curry.  As long as there’s Peshwari Naan and an Onion Bhaji I’m generally content to agree to whatever else I’m told we’re having.  I know who’s boss around here after all.

Taken in: UK / Wales / Llanigon (show map)

Taken on: October 1, 2021

Tags:

Hay on Wye

Hay Bluff

Black Mountains

brecon

Brecon Beacons

Wales

landscape photography

landscape

Cymru

Powys

Pen y Fan

Great Britain

Britain

blue hour

panoramic

panorama

outdoor

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Sets appears in: • Book - Landscape • Wales more » • Mountains • Brecon Beacons « less

Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Flickr Social Club more » • Flickr Social • A VIEW « less

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, f/16.0, 0.4 sec, 94mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens:	EF70-200mm f/4L USM
Aperture:	f/16.0
Exposure Time:	0.4
Focal Length:	94mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 10.4 (Windows)
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