Mud Glorious Mud!

The River Rumney is not exactly at its most rustic and lovely when it passes through the district of Cardiff which bears its name. It is so near its outfall into the Bristol Channel that it is tidal and twice a day it flows sluggishly backward. The situation of Rumney Pottery adjacent to Rumney Bridge is an ancient one: the Pottery will tell you that there has been a pottery there since Roman times. The location was a good one because the potter would have been able to use the mud which comprises the banks of the river, banks which are exposed at each low tide.

So much for history! The reality is that the Pottery now imports its clay from elsewhere and leaves the swathes of dank, sticky, unattractive mud; so that’s what I’ve photographed today.

Toni did overtime this morning so I stopped on the way back from his work (after the obligatory visit to Tesco) to snatch a few shots from the bridge over the river. Parking in the entrance to the permanently closed wildfowl park and walking past the relentlessly pounding traffic, the sight of the river was a strange contrast to the activity behind me. There was a sort of tranquillity about the scene which, in its unlovely starkness, had a sort of otherworldly feel to it. When I took up position there was a distant heron standing on the edge of the mud flats and forming a perfect profile against the slab like river. Needless to say, it moved as soon as I switched the camera on!

I moved from colour (what little there was) to black and white to try and emphasise the strong contrasts between the elements in this river bank scene, but, of the fifty plus shots, most of the end results were disappointing not only through the difficulty of getting a clear enough definition of the textures in the river, but also in gaining a coherent balance between the linear and non linear aspects of the ‘ground’ and the water.

Of the six shots I have selected only two are in colour (and one of those is almost monochrome) while the others might have benefited from using ‘real’ black and white photography rather than its digital equivalent. See what you think.

On the culinary front the abondigas were a success, but I think that the sauce could have been more liquid. Toni had demanded ten meat balls for him before the meal and, with the team work of Carmen and me he was able to have his quota and some left over!

The patatas bravas were cooked with loving care and the making of the aioli from scratch (with milk!) never fails to impress.

This evening it is paella, which we are about to start. My favourite.

Well, we've eaten it; to be a little more truthful I have eaten the major part of it. How anyone can not love paella is beyond my individual comprehension. What is there not to like in it? A winning combination of rice, meat, fish and veg - how can it go wrong? This evening it didn't. And I wolfed down the results!