Roineabhal June 2023

I have climbed Roineabhal many times during my life - the mountain overlooking my mum's house. There is no path to the top and I have never seen anyone else walking there. This day I decided to take one of my weavings for a walk up the mountain

Flying

Colour matching with the landscape

A golden plover was always a few steps ahead of us

Approaching the summit and getting windier

Cairn

Looking northwards to the lunar landscape of Harris

Anorthosite rock with garnet

Placing the cloth on the summit where it will stay until I'm up there again. Lots of anorthosite placed on top to keep it secure

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Steep Holm 31st August 2023

Left Weston-super-Mare at 5.45am, high tide.

Arrived 20 minutes later.

11 hours on Steep Holm exploring, meandering, observing, thinking, collecting.

Started with the exhibition. The Kenneth Allsop Memorial Committee registers themselves as a charity in 1974 and on the 25th March 1976 they bought Steep Holm for £10000. The trust maintains the island as a nature reserve and bird sanctuary and looks after the military installations. Kenneth Allsop was a broadcaster, writer and environmentalist.

 

Endless military buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries to explore. Nothing was out of bounds. You could walk amongst tumbling down buildings, walk down slippery, steep steps and enter dark spaces

Ammunition stores

Wartime latrines covered in lichen and nettles growing in the fertile ground

Very little bird life but if I had gone 2 weeks earlier I would have been dive bombed by the thousands of seabirds who nest there. I had a peaceful day. The only evidence of their presence were dead bodies and guano 

Culvert spiders and their egg sacs in the ammunition stores

Looking south east to Brean and Hinkley Power Station

Looking north west to Flat Holm and Wales

Lackey moth caterpillars on the brambles. Picked lots of blackberries to make Steep Holm blackberry jam

Guano

Conglomerates and eroded bricks

Looking north

Searchlight post looking towards Wales - walked down 208 steep steps

Navelwort growing on rusted metal

Elderberries

Gooseneck Spit revealed at low tide - looking towards Weston-super-mare

Oldbury Power Station - June 2023

I walked the perimeter fence of Oldbury Power Station on Tuesday 13th June to hear the weekly warning sirens. 

Decommissioned nuclear power station.

Reactor 2 ceased operating on 30th June 2011

Reactor 1 ceased operating on 21st February 2012.

De-fuelling and removal of most buildings is expected to take until 2027.

The Care and Maintenance phase is between 2027-2095

Demolition of reactors and site clearance is planned between 2096-2101

Nuclear power stations are eerie, mysterious, bleak and foreboding but with the contrast of wildflowers, shelducks, the Severn estuary tide and the June light, Oldbury Power Station and its surroundings looked monumental and stunning. It is going to be around for many more years...