Dai's walk around Wales blog

TAKE CARE THIS SPRING WHEN YOU ARE ON THE ROAD - PLEASE WATCH OUT FOR MR & MRS TOAD

The common toad emerges from hibernation in late February and they make their way to their breeding ponds. On their journey they may have to cross a busy road, in this instance the road is quite quiet but the toads were unable to climb up the raised kerb on the opposite side. They were following the road in the direction of the traffic I would assume they were looking for a low point on the kerb to climb up and onto safety. The smaller male is riding the larger female and they will usually stay like this for a few days while mating, this status is called Amplexus. The female will lay her spawn in strings while male at the same time fertilises the long strings of eggs.

So I was cycling the other day on the road

When I spied with my eye coming the other way a toad

I checked him out and was quite amazed

to find a pair who seemed quite dazed

Out came my video cam to record the event

and they jumped into my camera their line was bent

I placed them on a safety verge

They were still together trying to merge

When I got home I checked it out.

Crossing the road they could have had a clout

Or maybe even flattened and dead

They were off to the pond where they were previously bred

Amplexus its called when they are fixed like this

To make little baby toads it would not go amiss.

Daddy is on top having a ride

While mummy below has no choice but to abide.

So take care this spring when you are on the road

Please watch out for Mr & Mrs Toad

https://youtu.be/LCtyZ1VX_9I

Tom Renouf - Black Watch

"Liberating Europe and Catching Himmler - My extraordinary WWII with the Highland Division"

I bought this book initially because Dad was attached to the Black Watch during the North Africa campaign in WWII. Tom Renouf did not serve in North Africa but he has interviewed members of the Black Watch who did and he uses their personal reminiscences to build a picture of the conditions for the Regiment during the battle of El Alamein which I have to assume that Dad fought based on his personal memories and service record. I read through pages 55 to 81 of the book which cover the battle and the remainder of the N African campaign for the Black Watch. Reading this section brings home the harrowing times my Dad must have gone through. The conditions were acutely basic with soldiers occasionally having to drink radiator water from the vehicles to quench their thirst and the incessant presence of flies who bothered everyone and whose numbers increased as did the rotting corpses on which they bred. 26 pages were enough for me to understand some of the suffering my dad went through when he was only 20 years old. https://youtu.be/JF63s0bheKUSad times indeed. - Ref: 20220311R-BK-renouf.tom.black.watch-L4LB

GARETH CYCLES 100+ MILES FOR THE HELP FOR HARRI, ABERDARE CHARITY

My dentist is a round trip of 59 miles so what better way to do the trip than by bike. On my travels I met Gareth Culliford who was riding 100+ miles for charity and another Dai Richards. I published a video mainly about Gareth's ride but also includes an interview with Dai Richards of Mountain Ash. I'm not sure how many miles Gareth completed but he reached his 100 and then I left him. Well done to Gareth and got luck to the Help for Harri charity in their fund raising.

https://youtu.be/JF63s0bheKU

Local activist Dai Richards says the area is in need of regeneration: “The focus, I believe, should be on creating jobs for tourism and driving the focus for the area towards this growing industry.”

“We probably have the best collection of accessible waterfalls in the UK on our doorstep, we are on the edge of the Brecon Beacons which is rising in popularity as a holiday destination. There is a new zipline just opened a couple of miles away … It’s a tourism revolution bypassing Glynneath because politicians and civil servants alike are too small minded to see beyond the rape of the land and the pollution of the world for greed and profit.”

On the way to my 3G ride today I came across Scott Rapsey who had caught this 10lb pike about an hour earlier and put it back to be caught again. (picture credit Scott Rapsey). Scott and his mate Grant were specifically fishing for pike and just after I came across them they found called me back and showed me a dead one.

We discussed the death of this fish and although it was possibly killed by another pike they suggested that this fish had been previously caught and put back but not handled correctly. I'm assuming that I see a lot of this on the sea shore with dogfish but this is the first time I'd witnessed a dead pike on the canal. Previously I'd seen another one caught and the chap who'd caught it said it was about the 7th time he'd caught that particular fish. I'm not going to discuss the moral and ecological issues here of fishing. People have always fished since they've learned to fish, ends.