Trip to Wales: Big Pit

Last week I wrote about one of my day trips out in Wales (which didn't involve shopping), when I got to visit Gigrin Farm to watch the red kite feeding. The day after that trip, my Mum and I took a trip to Big Pit.

Big Pit is situated in Blaenafon and is classed as a working mine and allows visitors a chance to experience a real life mine. Entry is free, although parking is £3.00 for the day. Mum and I arrived a little before 12pm and it was about 4pm when we finally left.

The buildings there are as they were when the mine was used for mining coal, now the former miners working there take groups down underground and tell them about life in the mines both in the recent past and much further back. That's right, you don't just learn about the mine from a tour guide who never did it; your tour guide has worked underground and what's more, the tour takes place 90 meters underground!

The first thing that happens when you arrive for your underground tour is that you're kitted out in hard hat (very useful, there are some very low ceilings underground and I'm only 5' 2"!) with a head light and (though they don't tell you what it is at the time) a canister containing enough oxygen for an hour. Once we were underground our guide told me that canisters like the ones we were carrying had saved his life underground twice! Luckily there are no photos of me in my underground gear, though I'm sure I looked very fetching.

As it's a working mine, even though it isn't mining coal any more, there are some rules you must follow before you are allowed down the pit. There are no batteries allowed underground which includes mobile phones, cameras and watches. I was a little bit miffed at having to divest myself of my Fitbit, especially has I must've walked a good three or four thousand steps, at least, under there. But I suppose I'd rather not blow myself or any of the party up either, so I was willing to make that small sacrifice.

You travel down the mineshaft in a proper lift, controlled by a massive wheel and engine room (we did go for a wander around the engine room when we came back up from the pit). It was fascinating walking around under the ground. The thing that stuck with me most of all was when we were talking about what life would've been like for children in a mine over a hundred years ago. The tour guide had us all turn off our head lamps and hold a finger six inches from our faces, then he turned off his head lamp and you couldn't see a thing. He explained that the children who worked in the mines could have spent hours in darkness so thick they couldn't even see a few inches away.

We also saw the places where the pit ponies would have been stabled and learned about how safety procedures changed as rules and regulations were brought into effect. It was fascinating.

The mine is situated partway up the side of the hill so when we were back above ground Mum and I strolled up the hill to the canteen before exploring the former showers. They have an exhibition there which shows what life was like for the families of the miners, how their equipment changed over time, great mining disasters in Wales as well as the mine's medical room.

It was a really fascinating trip out and one which I'd definitely recommend for anyone who will be visiting the area; as long as you don't mind the dark and small spaces.

Wordless Wednesday: Out

Books 31 & 32 of 2015: Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien & Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Later this week I'll get back to posting about what I got up to while I was in Wales, but first, here's a belated book review post. But before I get on with reviewing books, thank you to Stacey @ Stacey's Books for the copy of Ender's Game which I won in a draw at her blog. It was waiting for me when I got home from Wales and I really enjoyed reading it.

Week 16 of the Reading Challenge was to read a book by a favourite author that you haven't read yet. It just so happened that I'd managed to pick up a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's Unfinished Tales in a charity shop just a few days before the week started. It was perfect.

Unfinished Tales is kind of like those special features you get on a DVD or blu-ray; the deleted scenes or the little featurettes that give you a glimpse at what might have been in your favourite film or TV series. It's exactly what it says it is, a collection of unfinished stories, or bits of chapters which never made it into his finished books. Sort of like a look into what might have been in Middle-earth.

I found this really interesting. It's a book I'd wanted to read for ages but just never got around to picking up a copy of. I did find it a little bit repetitive in places, owing to it including a couple of different versions of the same story. Stories like that of Turin, which are included in other books as well, like The Silmarillion. The simple fact is that Tolkien just wrote several different versions of many of his stories and rarely decided on a definitive version of any of them. But reading the different versions kind of gives you a glimpse into what he had in mind for his characters and events.

My favourite story in the book was the story of Aldarion and Erendis because that was brand new to me. For me that was like that little gem that you find in the library or bookshop; the book by the author you love that you didn't even know existed.

My other favourite was a chapter from The Lord of the Rings that was never included. It basically featured Gandalf talking about how the events of The Hobbit came to happen. It was perfect because Gandalf sounded just like he was supposed to, but he was saying things I've never heard him saying before.

This is definitely going to be a book that I revisit again and again in the future. I suspect that I'll pick out more new things on a future reread.

The following week's Reading Challenge was a book which was recommended by a friend. I did the simple thing and put out a request for book recommendations. I got a good few suggestions and in the end I decided to go with Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, mainly because the movie had come out and I wanted to make sure I'd read the book before I saw the film.

Warning! Here be spoilers!

Gone Girl is a story of two halves. A husband tells the story of his wife's sudden disappearance, interspersed with extracts from the missing woman's diary. It quickly becomes evident that not all was good in their relationship. As might be expected, the husband soon comes under suspicion and it's thought that he might have murdered his wife. Except things are definitely not as they first appeared and neither party is innocent.

Even now, nearly a year after reading it, I can't help but flip-flop about how I feel about this book. I would definitely like to read it again, though I think due to the twist in the tale, it might lose some of its impact on a second reading. I'm curious about watching the film to see how it plays out the story, compared to the way the book is written. On the one hand, I think the story was pretty clever, but on the other hand, I feel a little bit 'meh'. I'm not sure if a reread or film viewing will help me decide one way or another.

The book is divided into different 'parts' and my opinion seemed to change depending on which part I was up to. In the beginning I didn't find either character particularly likeable, then I got to Part Two and I thought that was kind of the point. But then by Part Three I was just angry with the both of them. It's a strange way to feel about a book that you sort of don't want to put down while you're reading it. It's definitely compelling.

I have to admit as well, I'm not so satisfied with the ending. There was all this build up and then it got to the end and they were just going to carry on together and have a baby. It just felt a little disappointing. Again, I guess that was kind of the point, that they both knew that they had this big secret that only they were in on, but it didn't give me the closure I needed from the story.

As I said, I really need to see the film of this one, and possibly read it again. I'm curious to see if my feelings towards the book change at all.

Weekly Rundown: AWOL

That's Away Walking Over Lunch.

Sundays are usually the days when I get my blog posts uploaded and organised but today I'm out walking with friends so no time to get my posts sorted.

I'll get things in order this week so check back later to find our what else I got up to while I was in Wales.

Here's a sneak peak:

Red Kite Feeding at Gigrin Farm

One of the things my Mum had told me about before going to Wales was how they had gone to watch the Red Kites being fed and what a spectacular sight it was. It was one of the top items I added to my list of things to do whilst in Wales, so on the Monday, that's what we went to do.

Gigrin Farm plays host to hundreds of Red Kites and has ever since the early 90s when the RSPB learned that the farmer there was putting food out for the birds. Now the birds are fed every day at 2pm (they feed themselves when they wake in the morning, so they do not come to rely on the farm for their food by feeding them at this time). When they farm began feeding the kites there were only six roosting on the farm, now they attract over 400!

Before we went my Mum showed me an article about the farm in a magazine. It showed a photograph with innumerable birds swooping and flying; I studied it carefully, convinced that someone had done a nifty copy and paste job on the same three or four birds. They hadn't. Even seeing that photo didn't prepare me for what the kites feeding would actually look like.

When it was nearing the time for the birds to be fed, we strolled up to the bird hides and got ourselves comfortable. Although it wasn't particularly warm, it was a lovely dry and sunny day. The skies were lovely and blue and we could already see loads of kites flying around.

They brought out a tractor full of meat (kites are carrion eaters) and no sooner had it started to be shoveled onto the ground did the birds start swooping. And there really are no words to describe the numbers of birds that flew down. Think of the way that wasps sort of orbit a bin in the summer, the way they fly round and round without hitting one another; that's what the red kites are like, but a lot more graceful and with none of the risk of being stung!

It was incredible watching them swoop down on the food. Some of them would pick it up and pass it straight to their mouths without even pausing in flight. It was fantastic.

It was also very hard to photograph, as you can see from my slightly blurry photos. My main strategy was just to point the camera in the general direction of where the birds happened to be at that moment and then just keep on snapping. I got some good photos but I also got a hell of a lot of out of focus ones.

I'm not sure just how long we spent watching the Red Kites but although they thinned out a little there were still loads flying around when we decided to leave to do the farm trail walk. This took us right up the hill at the back of where the kites came to feed so at one point we were higher than them and able to look down at them still swooping there. They were still flying around there when we left.

It was definitely a brilliant experience and I'd wholly recommend it if you ever get a chance to go, whether it's to Gigrin Farm, or somewhere else similar.

Wordless Wednesday: Crown

Books 29 & 30 of 2015: The Guardian of Athmore by Zachary Gephardt & The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

I got my first Kindle somewhere in the region of about four years ago (give or take a couple of months). I'd completed a course at work which gave me a £100 bonus and Mr Click told me I should use the money for something just for me. I got a Kindle touch which I only replaced a couple of years ago because I was looking for something with more capabilities for getting online.

Ever since I got that first Kindle I've spent time looking through the free Kindle downloads on Amazon and picking up the ones which appeal to me. Usually I'll pick a genre and just work my way through it, shamelessly judging books by their covers or their titles. But I noticed that there are a lot of books sitting on my Kindle that I've never actually gotten around to reading, so starting last year, I began going through some of the books I've had the longest and making an effort to read them.

The Guardian of Athmore by Zachary Gephardt was one of those books. In fact, it was the one which had been on my Kindle Fire the longest without being read, so I decided that since it didn't look too long, and I was in the mood for something a bit fantastical, I'd give it a shot.

It's the story of a girl called Diana Anderson who finds herself spirited away to the world of Athmore on the way to her birthday party. Suddenly it's up to her to save Athmore, which will in turn save Earth, by finding the Soul Gem to help restore order.

This book really appealed to me and I can see why I chose to download it. I love the idea of ordinary people falling into very unordinary worlds. I like to see how people figure out the rules of the world around them and what the people in these places make of them. And I desperately wanted to enjoy this book.

Unfortunately, I didn't.

It was a really hard book to read, mainly because it was really in need of an editor. There were loads of grammatical and spelling errors, bits where the wording was just plain clunky and pages where people's names switched which made it difficult to figure out what was going on. On several pages Rajik randomly become Tyon. I spent half the time I was reading it adding notes to the text as corrections!

I do think that with a little work and polishing it could have been a good story. I couldn't help but think that it read a lot like a computer game. It would actually make a good game because the animation would help add depth to the story which I feel is lacking in the text.

There was an awful lot of 'telling' and not much 'showing' which bothered me as well. I'd have liked to have seen more description of the characters and scenery so I could picture things. I felt like a lot of the time I just didn't have a mental image of what I was reading about, and I find that frustrating.

I followed The Guardian of Athmore up with a book for the Reading Challenge. Week 15 called for a popular author's first book. I knew straight away that I would be hitting up Project Gutenberg for this week's book so I did a little investigating and established that The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens' first published book.

Originally published as a serial, The Pickwick Papers tells the story of a group of men who go out into the world in order to report on their observations to the other members of their club, headed by Mr Pickwick. What follows is a number of neatly packaged scrapes which they find themselves in, mistaken identities, broken hearts, and accidents.

A couple of Christmases ago, I received a box set of the BBC Dickens dramas and The Pickwick Papers was the first one that we watched so I had a fair idea of what to expect from this book, though I wasn't sure how closely the series had followed the book. As it happened, when I read the book I was quite glad of having seen the adaptation because it helped me to follow what was going on. There were a couple of places where I think I might have become a little lost otherwise.

At times it felt a little like the neverending book! I seemed to read loads and loads without getting through it very fast. I suppose part of that is because it was originally serialised so you would be reading it in bitesized bits, rather than all in one go. Plus, there's something to be said for reading a book-book where you can physically see how far through it you are, unlike an ebook where you have to rely on numbers on a screen.

My favourite character was easily Sam Weller, the cockney character who Pickwick takes on as his manservant. He's far more worldly than the naive Mr Pickwick and ends up having to teach his master a thing or two. It did take me a little while to get used to Weller's style of speech, but again, having seen the dramatisation, I was prepared for that.

As this was part of the Reading Challenge, as well as my own personal challenge to read more of the classics, I'm glad that I attempted it. It wasn't a bad book, but I don't think I'll be in any great hurry to go back and read it again!