This week has involved quite a lot of mooching about the place and having a thoroughly nice time. I had a couple of days of time off in lieu to take, and was in Wales anyway so why not?
On Wednesday I took myself off to Museum Wales to see the Ffasiwn exhibition – the result of an absolute dream of a co-creation project between Alexander McQueen, Bleak Fabulous and young people from across the South Wales valleys. The young people had access to an amazing range of creative support and pieces from the McQueen archive, and the outcome is a gorgeous set of photographs recording the project alongside zines, magazines and journals. The interview film with the participants really foregrounds their voices and the impact the project has had on them. Honestly though – we talk about building long term relationships with our community groups and work towards it, but projects with this level of commitment from all partners and participants are few and far between. Beautiful.
While I was in Cardiff I visited the arcades as well, all seven of them. I was pleased to see that the taxidermy bear was still at the tobacco shop, but sad that Claire Grove Buttons no longer exists. The website for the ‘City of Arcades’ talks about them being the home of independent businesses and there were some, but also lots of redevelopment and empty shop fronts. They haven’t been taken over by a plague of vape shops and barbers though, so there is still hope.
On Friday we went to St Fagan’s Museum of Welsh History , which I’m pretty sure I last visited sometime in the 1980s or possibly even the 1970s. We took two dogs with us and my friend sat outside with them while I popped in and out of the buildings and read signs and talked to random people. He’d visited quite recently so – having taken me there as a surprise as he knew I’d like it – was quite happy to let me potter around, I even got to see the galleries, and we bought a loaf of bread straight from the oven from the bakery. I liked the sheep, was puzzled by the wicker man although he made more sense when the signs explaining his presence had been put out, and enjoyed the terrace with the houses through time. Fires were burning in the older properties and the visitor assistants were without exception friendly and knowledgeable.
What struck me at both of these Amgueddfa Cymru venues was the lack of visible access support – possibly as this is something I think about a lot in the day job. Signage was confusing and in one case was the worst example of toilet signage I’ve ever seen.
Saturday was Abergavenny Food Festival, which we hit early to avoid the crowds – the plan was to do a first pass of the vendors and then a second sweep to actually buy things. We were glad we’d gone with a plan as wristband collection was utter chaos – everyone’s tickets had to be scanned individually and only one person had the scanner app on their phone. Thanks to Aber’s location in a bowl of hills the mobile signal is erratic, and the town WiFi wasn’t much better. We waited about 15 mins to be scanned and there were only two groups ahead of us. Children entered free but had to be issued wristbands for parents to put phone numbers on… when the scanning person discovered they’d been left in the office she – rather than sending one of the other volunteers standing around – took the scanning phone and went herself which caused even more delays. There were about 100 people queuing to be scanned when we left at 11. There were two other ticket points but neither were on the main drag next to the key venue.
There was a good variety of stalls, both inside and outside the Market Hall, and our haul included some Two Farmers crisps in Herefordshire Sauce flavour, a leg of lamb for a roast, some proper French garlic sold by some nice onion sellers from Roscoff, gorgeous cider vinegar and some Caws Teifi vintage cheddar which was so strong it gave me a migraine, but so tasty it was almost worth it. I resisted the enormous variety of Welsh cakes but tried a sage and orange fudge.
We sat in on a talk briefly – but honestly, how is it possible for two people to talk about coffee so earnestly and pretentiously for a whole hour? There was a free cooking school for kids at the Castle, object handling and face painting as well as a cookery book tent with lots of speakers. I don’t think I’d have wanted to go for the whole weekend but a couple of hours was great.
Things making me happy this week
- Celebrity Masterchef. I love Grace Dent.
- No Central Line commutes as I’ve been working remotely in between mooching
- sleeping in the same bed for a week
- Street clocks in Cardiff
- McVities Mint Club flavour Chocolate Digestives
- Mindful crochet
Back to work on Tuesday… ah well.
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading
King Foretold/Light Burned. – Jayci Lee
More – Gillian Anderson
Curious Events Lately Occurring in this Neighbourhood – Tom Cox
What Kirsty did next 