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  • Aberdare Park Charity Walk for Mental Health

    darren 6:21 pm on September 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: charity walk, event, mental health, rhondda cynon taf council, walking

    Via Aberdare News …  Anyone can suffer from a mental health problem. It is not selective to how rich you are, where you live or what you do for a living. People from all walks of life have the potential to suffer from mental ill health. In Rhondda Cynon Taf, 1 in 6 people are experiencing mental ill health at any one time – that is over 40,000 people.

    Rhondda Cynon Taf Mental Health Partnership is working together to raise awareness of mental illness in the County Borough by hosting a series of sponsored walks as part of world mental health week.

    Choose the walk that suits you best, the walks start at 11am and are taking place in the following locations on the dates listed:

    • Rhondda Mile at Gelligaled Park – 5th of October,

    • Cynon Mile at Aberdare Park – 8th of October,

    • Taff Mile at Ynysangharad Park – 10th of October.

    The mile can be walked, run, cycled, skateboarded, whatever you fancy. Come along as a group, as a family, alone or in fancy dress and the best dressed will win a prize. The routes are wheelchair accessible and are suitable for pushchairs.

    If you are unable to take part in the walk, why not come along and support the walkers or become an event volunteer.

    Entrance Fee is £1.00 per walker payable on the day, for more information on the Rhondda Mile call Paul Bargewell on 01443 688770, for the Cynon Mile call Angela Evans on 01685 875481 or for the Taff Mile call Nannette King on 01443 486856.

     

  • darren 3:10 pm on August 14, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: video squirrel sid wildlife

    Sid the Squirrel spotted in Aberdare Park today… looking much thinner than last year.


     

  • darren 1:36 pm on August 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: birds, conifer, grooming, humour, , park ranger, pigeons, trees,

    Fifteen pigeons sunbathing in the sun under large conifer tree behind the Park Rangers Office.

    They looked so content.

    They were lying partly in the shade and in the dry soil below a large conifer tree. Taking a dust bath one presumes.

    An hour and a half later and there are twelve left. Perhaps this is really a Pigeon School ?

     

  • On Aberdare National Park

    darren 11:18 pm on August 12, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: aberdare national park, history, kenya, lord aberdare, , nature reserve, size,

    This was originally posted on Aberdare Blog …

    Aberdare Park in Wales is around 50 hectares. Aberdare National Park in Kenya is around 77,000 hectares. The mind boggles at this scale.

    If our mathematics are correct, you could fit nearly 3790 Aberdare Parks into the Kenyan Aberdare National Park.

    Why did the Kenyans name such a vast nature reserve Aberdare National Park ?

    It appears that during the hey-day of colonial exploitation in Africa (in 1884 to be precise) the explorer Joseph Thompson gave the name ‘Aberdare’ to the Kenyan mountain range he discovered. He choose the name Aberdare as Lord Aberdare (Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare (1815 – 1895)) was then President of the Royal Geographic Society.

    Of course, the Kenyans, who discovered the mountain range many years before Thompson, called it something else. They called it Nyandarura, a name for a traditional rack used for drying animals hides and skins. The Kenyans farm areas of the fertile Aberdare lands and according to local sources, drums would be used, especially at the edges of the Aberdare forest to scare away elephants and other wild beasts and prevent them straying onto farmland and taking precious crops.

    Today a project is underway to erect an electric fence around much of the Aberdare forest. Newspaper reports from Kenya this week report that progress is underway and that they have already completed around 337 kilometres (or 210 miles) of electric fencing.

     

  • Aberdare Park Road Races 2009

    darren 5:38 pm on August 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 2009, road races, video, youtube

    Found a very recent video compilation on Youtube of the July 2009 Aberdare Park Road Races.


     

  • Share Photos of Aberdare Park

    darren 11:12 am on August 3, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: flickr, photos

    Share your photos of Aberdare Park on the Flickr Aberdare Park group

    http://www.flickr.com/groups/aberdare-park/

     

  • Blushers in Aberdare Park

    darren 10:54 am on August 3, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: blusher, education, fungi, wild food

    Spotted a group of fungi in Aberdare Park this week. Looked it up in a book on fungi and it seems they were the Blusher (Amanita rubescens)

    See Wikipedia article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blusher

    It’s a pity there are no ‘fungi’ wild food course being run locally… I would love to pick some wild mushrooms for eating but like many people am very wary of doing this without some expert advice.

     

  • In That Sweet Mood

    darren 10:48 am on August 3, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , nuts, poem, spirituality, wordsworth

    William Wordsworth’s poem Nutting reminds me of times spent in Aberdare Park.

    –It seems a day,
    One of those heavenly days which cannot die,
    When forth I sallied from our cottage-door,
    And with a wallet o’er my shoulder slung,
    A nutting crook in hand, I turn’d my steps
    Towards the distant woods, a Figure quaint,
    Trick’d out in proud disguise of Beggar’s weeds
    Put on for the occasion, by advice
    And exhortation of my frugal Dame.

    Motley accoutrements! of power to smile
    At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth,
    More ragged than need was. Among the woods,
    And o’er the pathless rocks, I forc’d my way
    Until, at length, I came to one dear nook
    Unvisited, where not a broken bough
    Droop’d with its wither’d leaves, ungracious sign
    Of devastation, but the hazels rose
    Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,
    A virgin scene!–A little while I stood,
    Breathing with such suppression of the heart
    As joy delights in; and with wise restraint
    Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed
    The banquet, or beneath the trees I sate
    Among the flowers, and with the flowers I play’d;
    A temper known to those, who, after long
    And weary expectation, have been bless’d
    With sudden happiness beyond all hope.–
    –Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves
    The violets of five seasons re-appear
    And fade, unseen by any human eye,
    Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on
    For ever, and I saw the sparkling foam,
    And with my cheek on one of those green stones
    That, fleec’d with moss, beneath the shady trees,
    Lay round me scatter’d like a flock of sheep,
    I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,
    In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay
    Tribute to ease, and, of its joy secure
    The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
    Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,
    And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,
    And dragg’d to earth both branch and bough, with crash
    And merciless ravage; and the shady nook
    Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower
    Deform’d and sullied, patiently gave up
    Their quiet being: and unless I now
    Confound my present feelings with the past,
    Even then, when, from the bower I turn’d away,
    Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings
    I felt a sense of pain when I beheld
    The silent trees and the intruding sky.–

    Then, dearest Maiden! move along these shades
    In gentleness of heart with gentle hand
    Touch,–for there is a Spirit in the woods.

     

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