Friday 20 August 2010

Ellesmere Sculpture Trail eventually

It’s already over a week since I got back from Wales and I’m still typing up blogs from that trip, but I think this is the last. Strangely it’s delay has caused it to wait long enough for a small article of some significance to appear on the BBCs website but more of that at the end.

At a reasonable time for lunch, Bev and me headed off with the intentions of slotting in one of Morrison’s very reasonably priced all day breakfasts before nipping across to Ellesmere to admire their sculpture trail. But while I was standing in the queue about to fill my teapot, Bev spotted something amiss. A complaining customer, and then she noticed that all the other customers were looking that way, much in the way merecats do, and then she noticed that all the table still had numbers on suggesting that none of the full restaurant had received any food – indeed they hadn’t, the kitchen staff of 1 was becoming increasing bogged down and they claimed an hours delay in serving (probably optimistic). We left, only to find Morrison’s café in the next town having similar problems (not quite so bad). We eventually found a little café which provided a lovely breakfast at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and two highly cherried sticky buns.

There is some debate between us as to quite whether the equation between a trip to the loo and fag break comes to less or more than 5 minutes, either way that’s how long the tourist information had been closed by the time we got there, so we set out, leafletless, for a walk round the canal where we were lead to believe there where sculptures to be found. Some we found, like Mercedes Cano’s Shoal of Fish, described accurately as, “Each piece was made and welded together in the old forge at the canal yard” (you can’t really go wrong when you just stick to the facts), some we saw in the distance but couldn’t decide whether they were a sculpture or a misplaced shopping trolley and at least one piece we think we just walked past, such was the minimalist approach.

When we eventually managed to pick up a leaflet later on from the information point by the Mere we discovered that the pieces by the canal we from the 2010 sculpture symposium. Never mind, we now had a leaflet and were in a position to examine the 2009 symposium pieces armed with the information about them.

Glacial Menhir by Louis Alfonso - The catalogue says "This is a communication between the soil, land and Mere". This blog says "Hmmm" There is a 3rd rock hidden in the long grass here - seems that grass cutting has been suspended around the sculptures.
 

Puerto del Agua by EmilianoSacco. Catalogue says "I've tried to show the relationship between the rock and water". I say, "It's a bit like a Nik Nak. Quite nice."



A Prisoner by Tom Gilhespy, Catalogue says, "This rock has been moved from the north by glacier and I've chained it down now". Bev and me are both known to pick up the odd pebble from time to time and Bev was reminded of the poem about the stones that move, I think it might be in my old blog somewhere. We liked this.



Grasshopper on the sculpture



We think this is a Scotch Argus (Erratum - I now think it's not a scotch argus but something else??)


A Fallen Tree by Mother Nature (uncatalogued)



Rotation 2 by Trevor Clarke Catalogue says "This reflects the journey of the rock on it's journey here"
 

By now, having obtained the leaflet telling us where everything was, we could have made our way to the rest of the sculptures that we had missed but they were a fair way away and, to be quite honest, we were feeling completely underwhelmed and the photos on the leaflet didn't look like we would have been heading to see very much, so we didn't. On our return we did see on the net that there were a few interesting items that were not in the leaflet, of which the boaty arrangement on the left is one, but we'll live.
Yesterday I read on the BBC that there is to be a sculpture symposium here in Kirkcudbright from the 27 of this month till the 4 of September. I shall be gone to the Folk Festival at Portpatrick for the last few days of it but I doubt they'll be rushing off with the results so I should get to see them. I'll be interested to see the results in the light of what we saw in Wales.
 
 
 

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Your Scotch Argos does look like a Meadow Brown, although the Scotch Argus is pretty common up here in Scotland they are quite rare "down south". I must admit I keep getting them wrong and get my Meadow Browns mixed up with my Gatekeepers although have just found out that they are common in England but we dont get them up here!

Lisa said...

I enjoyed reading your post today.. and learning so much. Love your photos . How very intersting. Thanks agian for stopping. I dont really drink JD but thought it funny.
Have a peacefilled day

Michael (Light-In-A-Box) said...

Hello Sandy!
Thanks for dropping by my Blogger!
That's a very nice Blogger you have here. Its always great to see different lifestyles & photos from another place... :-)

Unknown said...

Another interesting trek, Sandy! Thanks for taking us along.

Sandy's witterings said...

Thanks for your comments people, butterfly sortings out and welcome Michael.
Well that's me blogged up to date at the moment so I should get myself back out there and have a look about.

Allen Capoferri said...

Hi Sandy. What a fun blog! Beautiful photographs of idyllic countryside. I also love the photographs of London. Now I wish I was there again.

Dave Wenning said...

Sandy, if you get a kick out of our "state insect," you might also enjoy our state tartan (http://www.tartans.scotland.net/tartan_info.cfm@tartan_id=1262.htm) created for the Washington centennial. I do enjoy accompanying you on your walks. Thanks, Dave.

The Glebe Blog said...

I spent a night in the Red Lion in Ellesmere.It's a great place to begin a trip through the heart of Wales.
Must remember about the Sculpture Trail next time.

Sandy's witterings said...

Allen, welcome. I'm glad you've enjoyed your visit

The Washington tartan's not so bad - there's a lot of tartans out there you need sunglasses for. Good grief, if Rangers football club can have a tartan, I can't see any reason why a state can't.

Ah, the Ellesmere sculpture trail - perhaps not worth travelling all the way from Galloway for but if you're there anyway. In a few weeks time you'll be able to return to Kirkcudbright and examine our attempts I hope.