The Oath of Rhain

This is the oath of the hunter,
these are the terms set in place,
that he may roam forever free
but never surrender the chase.

Rhain, known to all as the Reaper,
countless are those I have slain.
My prey cannot outrun their fate
from the moment they hear my name.

I shall chase them to the world's edge,
my pursuit will never case.
Through the wind, the snow and the fire
nevermore will my prey know peace.

I shall bring my trophies to bear
and my task will be complete,
for I will not be eluded
I will never be dealt defeat.

This is the oath of the hunter,
these are the terms set in place,
that I may roam forever free
but never surrender the chase.

NaPoWriMo #23: Rivers of Coal

Up in the hills where the collieries sleep,
where the railway tracks are submerged in moss,
the wheels atop the tower seem to weep
the stones in the blacksmith's yard are all glossed
in a dwindling frost fleeing from the spring.
Caverns beneath the hills vast and still,
adorning the grey cliffs to which they cling,
sheltering sheep against the mountain chill.
The descendants live in the past's shadow
claim the ruins for their own, make them new,
no longer the halls where molten fires flow
but a monument to the mining crew.
Within these hills run the rivers of coal
that brought to the valleys their heart and soul

(And so, to celebrate the birthday of his majesty the Shakespeare, I bring you a sonnet about that most familiar of Welsh subjects.)

NaPoWriMo #12: Dracoraptor

Dragon thief,
forbearer of the tyrant lizard king,
dredged from the cliffs
in a many-layered casket.

Feathered fiend
shore dweller,
red from head to tail-tip,
like the serpentine fire-breather
adorning the flag of its resting place.

Still growing
before the rocks entombed it,
yet still the oldest creature
from the era of the giants,
a tenacious herald
of the giants to come.

NaPoWriMo #11: Twmbarlwm Tribe

The spring light bathes the ancient Celtic fort,
a forgotten tump sat atop a peak.
Nondescript, no markings of which to speak,
yet within its walls are tales of a sort.
The Romans on the plain would try and thwart
the tribe from the woods playing hide and seek.
Against the legion their prospects were bleak,
but on top of the hill they held court,
decided to make the forest their shield.
Subterfuge became their weapon of choice,
they'd strike and disappear into the green
to the phalanx of Rome they'd never yield.
A sentry on the hill yells at full voice,
the army approaches but not unseen.

NaPoWriMo #6: Last Minutes of the Day

Concrete's cold embrace

stretching out to meet the sky.

Grasping at the clouds 

with fingers of steel and glass.

The towers of commerce

caressed by the last rays of day,

an orange inferno bathing the rooftops

but shading the streets.

The vacant shop fronts

with hooded figures in sleeping bags

shivering and hunched over,

silhouetted by the glow within.

The trains clatter along aching tracks,

the seagulls swoop and dive 

in the space between the towers

until at last the inferno

is swallowed by the hills beyond

and the city lights take hold. 

NaPoWriMo #3: Wild Goat Chase

Nothing about me seemed that special.
I'm just like any other Kashmiri kid.
Wandering the Great Orme with my herd,
grazing amongst the blooming orchids,
white fur and a beard as scruffy as any other.
A tuft grew out between my horns
and suddenly I was a marked goat.

Shenkin IV they named me.
Chosen to fill a vacancy I didn't know was going,
passed an interview I didn't attend.
Soldiers dressed in deciduous patterns,
white feathers atop their caps,
called out to me through the trees.
I wondered in those feathers
were their way of trying to blend in with the herd.

Still, I gave them the slip.
If they wanted to make me a fusilier
they'd have to earn my service.
I darted here and there, to a fro,
across the headland and through the thickets,
their whistles and entreaties useless.
My mother taught me not to heed mimicry.

How amusing to see allegedly trained troops
defeated by a four-footer for four weeks.
Being on the run was time-consuming,
but then a man with a dart gun caught me out.

Now I find myself a fusilier.
My sergeant's given me my own uniform
to make me part of this human herd.
Soon I'll meet something called the public
with my  harness and silver headpiece on.

Maybe I'll get to march by the Orme sometime
and let my old herd know I'm still here.

Happy St. David's Day 2019!

Hello everyone, once again it's St. David's Day here in Wales, and having spent most of the day in Cardiff, it's positively buzzing.

Given our recent success with rugby in the Six Nations, the celebrations this year seem re-energised, with a large parade going back and forth through the city streets. The dragons, daffodils and bake-stones are in abundance. In Frynwys this morning the fields were dotted with patches of daffodils, and it's been one of the sunniest days we've ever had in February. All in all, it seems that this year's St. David's Day has been one of the most colourful on record, but what's happening in the world of Tiger Verse I hear you ask?

Well, things are proceeding at breakneck speed on this blog. Not only have I got another preview from the upcoming Mametz Wood poem to share, but there will also be a few new original poems coming next week. Alongside that, I can also see NaPoWriMo on the horizon again, so it will be all fingers to the keyboard for that.

In the meantime, hope you all have had a happy St. David's Day, and I'll sign off this post with a link to my guitar rendition of the Welsh National Anthem. See you all again soon.

Frynwys Features #5: Wandering Policemen and Missing Moons

It's been a while indeed. Not that Frynwys has changed much since the last bulletin, but there have been a few small developments since the never-ending winter in June of last year. My home village is so small that the minutest of changes is headline news, and fortunately for this next installment of Frynwys Features there have been a few of them over the autumn and the Christmas period for me to jot down here.

The first item on the Frynwys grapevine this time is that the council have renovated all of the footpaths through the fields, a step up from the gravel path that was laid three installments ago. It seems that they've been getting help from some schools in the nearby towns. I've seen several groups of primary school children being led through the field at the bottom of the village to help with laying a new gravel path. They've also been helping with constructing timber benches on the other side of the fields and decorating a new flight of steps leading down to one of the more inaccessible streams in the area. Before this the paths through the nature reserve were all mud and were being slowly worn away. Hopefully now that half the village seems to be involved in their renovation, all the local dog walkers won't have to worry about traversing the marshes anymore.

In slightly more worrying news, there's been a stronger police presence in Frywnys over the last few weeks. There's been a few police helicopters flying overhead, and I've often seen them circling across the village before heading off to the south. Whether it's to do with missing people or criminals on the run, I'm not sure, but it seems they're stepping up their efforts if my latest encounter is anything to go by. As I was walking towards one of the village's smaller parks the other day, I spotted the unmistakable yellow high-visibility jacket of a policeman, complete with the hat and badges. He appeared to be looking for something, as he peered around the side of one of the climbing frames and then headed up to the kissing gate at the top of the field. The policeman was unaware of my presence until he was just about to step through the gate, at which point he turned, looked at me, and then exited the park. Whatever interest the police have in Frynwys, I doubt they'll find what they're looking for on a climbing frame.

Meanwhile, in the gardening section of this bulletin, it appears that the local daffodils are once again rearing their yellow heads. There's a cluster of them up by the old nursery, huddled on a bank at the side of the road, and despite the wintry weather Frynwys is currently experiencing, a few green shoots have already appeared. This is highly unusual as the first daffodils generally don't start appearing here until around the end of February, but it seems a few of them didn't get the memo about spring and have popped out early. I suspect it might have something to do with the aftermath of the Beast from the East from last year, where snow enveloped the village just as it seemed spring was about to arrive. Perhaps the daffodils reset their photosynthesis clocks for this year to avoid another scheduling issue, but this is of course speculation from somebody who has no botanical credentials. If any botanists are reading this post, please comment below and tell me what an idiot I am for suggesting plants can talk to each other.

In more recent phenomena, you may or may not have been lucky enough to witness the super blood wolf moon which appeared in the sky early in the morning on the 21st of January. I myself was hoping to witness the enormous red moon, but it turned out to be a classic case of the British weather conspiring to thwart me once again. Last year I had tried to see a similar moon, but just as the moon was rising a thick bank of clouds smothered the sky and I saw nothing. What made it even more frustrating was that the the moon behind the clouds caused them to glow red. I had hoped to overcome the weather itself this time and catch a glimpse of this solar marvel, but unfortunately I had to resort to looking at photographs on the news that people with clearer skies had taken. Apparently the next super blood wolf moon won't be around for at least another three to five years, so I'll be waiting for a while before I try and outwit the clouds again.

That brings us to the end of another installment of Frywnys Features, but don't worry; if anything changes even in the slightest around my home village I'll be sure to make a note of it. In the meantime, stay tuned for more poetry and possibly a few tigers as well.

Defenders of the Realm Act I

Aled, Hywel, Fergal, Gethin,
three Welsh, one Irishman settling
in the village he arrived in,
farming in the fields of Wales.

Yet when a prince who claimed the throne
arrived on shores not far from home,
the four friends feared raiders would roam
with the likely threat of war,
the ever-present shadow which
often knocks upon men's doors,
threats which grew across the moors.

They hoped to make a run for it,
and have nothing to do with it.
King Richard would grant no permit
but would not drag them to war.

But just as they made their treaty,
messengers arrived discreetly
and set their stall to entreaty
any bold men to step forth,
as the King needed the aid of
Welshmen if they would step forth
to help with problems up north.

The four friends took their chance quickly,
and travelled across roads strictly
to a time-frame that would see them
meet his grace in the grand hall.

And so King Richard did meet them,
and quite quick to beseech them,
he needed all and each of them
to help a castle in thrall,
in thrall to a pesky dragon
which was tearing down the walls,
a beast with a lot of gall.

The King left them with instructions,
to which they had some compunctions,
that they must slay the great dragon
while he was fighting on the field.

If it was dead before victory,
the King promised no trickery,
he would reward them handsomely
once he returned home from the field,
returned with the head of Henry,
after winning on the field,
returned home with nought to yield.

(Continued in Act II here.)

Remnants

There sits a man by a lake in the cold valley,
hunched over, still, face as scarred as the old quarry
waiting for the wheel to turn, coal to flood back in.
Gone, those days, remnants of steel and masonry.

Snow settles, night draws in, freezes fireless furnace,
yet he sits by the lake, eyes the winding tower,
sits, waiting, hopes for the wheel to resume turning.
Black gold no more, the mine sleeps despite his yearning.

Frynwys Features #4: The Never Ending Winter

So it's safe to say a fair bit has happened in Frynwys since the last check-in. I find sometimes that to make up for my home village's lack of interesting distractions, I must leave a period of two to four months and store up any goings-on until the next installment. It's a bit like keeping a growing turkey in your freezer until Christmas, although if you tried to eat this one you'd end up with a keyboard and mouse for afters. Still, now that the sufficient standing time has passed, here's what's been going on in the village of late.

The first (and no doubt biggest) thing to mention is that Frynwys was recently caught out when the Beast from the East collided with Storm Emma over the south west. The entire village was snowed under for three days, with no one able to move their cars or make much headway through the drifts. But it did allow for some great sledging on some of the hills, and I saw several people making the most of it when I braved the blizzards myself. The ponds froze over, and by the time they began to thaw out, the snow on the road had mostly turned to brown slush thanks to grit. Like everywhere else in Wales, it took everyone a while to get moving again, and as a side effect the only shop in the village ran out of milk, which demonstrates the ability to make a cup of tea takes top priority during a snowstorm here.

Once the worst of the winter weather passed, we were still left with a bitter chill. Fortunately though, the first signs of spring started to appear, in the form of frogs crossing the road, and the emergence of daffodils. The fish are still in residence at the pond, much to the annoyance of the wildlife warden who I saw trying to catch some of them a few weeks back. It seems that the warden has a lot of things to worry about, as there have been teams of people in the nearby woods felling trees. Large sections of trees have been cordoned off with tape only to be chopped down the following day. I have no idea why they're doing it now, but it has only been the odd cluster so far, so hopefully Frynwys will not become deforested any time soon.

Another bit of good news is that there seem to be more dogs in the area than last year. Specifically I've seen a number of puppies being taken out on their first walks into the fields around the village, and they are an energetic bunch. So far I've seen golden retrievers, Cocker spaniels and at least one field spaniel out and about. It's nice to see so many new dog owners in the area and to see the puppies making sense of the world around them. Frynwys has always had a large percentage of dog owners, but in the last three years especially I've seen the number of dogs increase steadily. With so many spaniels in the area, the fish that were released into the pond are now ducking for cover every time one of them cannonballs into the water.

Now that summer has truly arrived in South Wales, it seems the people of Frynwys have been out and about enjoying the record-breaking temperatures. As someone who suffers from hay fever, the fact that I'm surrounded by trees and long grass is a constant source of irony and itchy eyes. In recent days I spotted a tractor in the biggest field cutting back the grass which releases much of the pollen, but the trees are still doing their bit in keeping noses running across the village. Many of my neighbours have been visiting the village park and the local pub, the Dormarch, especially since the start of the sunshine and the World Cup. Their investment in the tournament seems strange to me, especially since Wales were knocked out of the qualifying round, but it's nice to see people having something to enjoy given the never ending stream of bad news we usually get.

Anyhow, that concludes this installment of Frynwys Features. As always if anything else interesting happens in this quietest of quiet villages, I'll be sure to let you know.

NaPoWriMo #22: The House with No Name

It sits on the hill
as an empty skeleton,
its residents vanished,
the mortgage no more,
who knows if it ever had one?

Now it's a monument
to something unknown and untold,
a vestige
from when trams
rolled up and down
the coal-choked hills.

The decrepit door
allows whispers
to cross the silent threshold.
The tumbledown walls
long surrendered to the moss.
Somewhere in that ruin
the chipping of pickaxes
resonates in the dark.

NaPoWriMo #4: Lillith

Escape was the beginning
of one last chase through the trees.

Those who thought they owned her
laid traps and cages in the woods.

She was made to roam the undergrowth,
such tricks she perceived and ignored.

Then those with live rounds
chased her with a blunt strategy.

He fate was sealed by what evolution
programmed, her high noon arrived

in a lifeless caravan park, besieged,
framed by excuses of safety first.

(This poem is based on the case of Lillith the Lynx, who was shot and killed under orders from Ceredigion county council after escaping from her enclosure at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom.)

Hell's Daffodils

A short time ago in a valley of snow
lived a man on a bike with nowhere to go.
He wanted to ride on the valley roads
but in his garden a flower started to grow.

A daffodil was sprouting despite the cold,
and it grew much faster than a blob of mould.
The man watched it bloom next to a garden gnome.
while the blizzard still threatened to bury his home.

A strange thing happened in the flowerbed;
two daffodils sprouted their bright yellow heads
next to the first above the settling snow,
but it was never foreseen how many would grow.

Ten times ten times ten the daffs all emerged,
before the man knew it the flowers converged
on his small house with strangling roots and stems,
at twelve feet tall, all of the daffs followed this trend.

The man was trapped in a nest of roots.
He remembered when he saw those fresh young shoots,
their brand new petals, their sumptuous glow.
Now he panicked as they burst in through the window.

And so it was that the man met his end
in the worst snowstorm he could comprehend.
When the blizzard cleared the house was still there,
entombed in the tendrils of the daffodils' snare.

Happy St. David's Day!

So it's St. David's Day here in Wales, and for the first time in about ten years it's snowing. There's a red warning in place from the Met Office for most of Wales, and I can tell you that Frynwys is snowed under. My plan of action is to wait for it to pass, but judging by the forecast it appears I won't be going anywhere until Sunday at least. To pass the time, here's some updates on what will be occurring on this blog in the near future.

For those of you who've recently joined us, I release the first installment of Slam Poetry on the Spot yesterday, analysing a poem by Suli Breaks. It took me a while to get that article together after numerous delays, so it's a relief to have it finished. Next up in the frame is Grand Slam poetry champion Harry Baker, so look out for that (I can't put a specific date on when that will come out, but hopefully I won't do a George R. R. Martin and take six years to write it). In a similar vein, I'm working on the next installment of Frynwys Features, and judging by the whiteout going on at the moment I suspect there will be more than a few new developments.

Poetry wise, I've got a couple of new poems close to being finished, one of which was meant to be for today but didn't make it in time. With a few adjustments it should be posted in the next couple of days. On that note, the animal poems (especially the tiger themed ones) have not gone anywhere, so expect a few more of those as we head into March. Otherwise, it's pretty much business as usual here. I'm going to try and keep things fairly consistent and post more often, because it's been a long wait between posts at times. Hopefully I can shorten the waiting times and all will be well in the world of verse.

Anyways, those are the updates as they stand. So wrap up warm if you're going out, enjoy those Welsh cakes if you're not and look out for slumbering dragons if you're doing both!

Belated Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! Sorry I haven't been posting anything since last autumn; it's been a busy few months. I managed to get myself a Christmas temporary job over the festive period in the grand old town of Cardiff, so I've had to push back most of my poetry projects until now.

Thankfully, now that my real world job has eased up a bit, I can let you guys know what's going to be happening on this blog in the foreseeable future. In the immediate future I have a couple of poems which have been completed and are almost ready to be posted, along with an article about Hollie McNish and her recent troubles with a certain literary magazine. Aside to that, I'm also still working hard on my analysis of Suli Breaks' poem 'I Will Not Let An Exam Result Decide My Fate', and I hope to have that posted as soon as possible.

As for Frynwys, the village is as quiet as ever, although like those of you living in the UK, we've experienced a bit of snowfall during January, and at times the areas on my usual walk looked like something out of The Polar Express. Not that we have a railway line here, but if you added one in then you have the idea of how much snow was on the ground.

Anyways, here's to another great year of poetry and everyday adventures, and I'll see you all again soon.

Frynwys Features #3: Return of the Goldfish

It's that time again. A lot has happened in Frynwys since the last installment, although in Frynwys terms "a lot" is often what other towns and cities would call "nothing much". This time around there is more news from across the village; at the ponds, on the roads, in the fields and not too far beyond.

The first thing of note is the sudden increase in the number of people repairing fences in the area. This in itself isn't uncommon; homes need maintenance all the time and so to hear someone repairing a bit of woodwork in their garden isn't a strange occurrence. However it's become such a regular occurrence that I'm beginning to wonder if there's a club somewhere encouraging it. Is there a local group which organises Sunday afternoon meetings in someone's front room, filled with china-laden cupboards and linen-clothed tables? This isn't so much a news item as it a personal grievance, but if I hear another hammer hitting the back of a fence or a shed, I might have to start investigating this phenomenon further.

In other news of the slightly less infuriating variety, it appears that someone did not take the nature warden's warning about releasing fish into the pond seriously. Somebody in the village recently noticed up to thirty enormous goldfish swimming around in it, big enough to qualify as small koi carp. The last time this happened the local wildlife which inhabit the pond took a major blow, especially the frogs which use the pond to nurture their frogspawn. That was just a few small fish. After about a week it seems that these fish are not only thriving in the pond, but multiplying. I don't know if the wardens have spotted them yet, but I've spoken to a few people who live near the pond and they certainly have. What sort of measures the wardens will put in place this time remains to be seen, but if they put up another sign I suspect they might need to rethink their deterrence strategy.

With regards to the local animal population, a few new dogs have been spotted in the area. Not strays but dogs with owners attached, and in particular a black pug has caught my attention. He appears to be less than a year old, and is quite hyperactive from what I've seen of him. He runs around the fields to the south of the village in search of other friendly dogs. Most of the other dogs take little notice of him, but if he meets another puppy then an impromptu greyhound race will certainly take place. He's only run up to me once, and I haven't seen much of him since, but hopefully I'll catch sight of him again in the near future.

And last but by no means least, it appears that a few ravens are making their home in the nearby forests. It's not often that you see a raven (at least as I've found), and they're fairly distinctive compared to jackdaws and crows, not by any subtle difference in their plumage, but in their size. They are as big as seagulls, and seeing them foraging in the fields next to smaller birds really highlights this. Also the characteristic rattling call they make is now becoming a semi-regular feature in the skies above Frynwys. Why I never noticed them before is slightly baffling, but alongside the resident jays, crows, jackdaws, magpies and other birds, they make a nice addition to the local ecosystem.

That's all for this installment of Frynwys Features, with my home village more than living up to its reputation. Hopefully by next time something more interesting will have happened, but until then the wait continues.

The Tiger Poet vs. Owen Sheers - 'Mametz Wood'

For a long time, I've heard it said that Owen Sheers is a bit of a prodigy. He excelled at poetry at a young age, and his skills have only improved over time to the point where he is one of the strongest voices in Welsh poetry. His work tackles a variety of subjects, including love, farming life, landscapes, and the effects of war as demonstrated in his verse drama Pink Mist. For me though, Sheers will prove especially helpful as a source of inspiration in my attempt to tackle Mametz Wood, a defining moment for Welsh soldiers in the First World War.

Sheers is no stranger to Mametz, having written about the battle in verse and staged a play to mark the centenary of the action which took place during the Battle of the Somme. So now, in my own attempt to tackle the subject, let's see what Sheers makes of it in his eponymous poem 'Mametz Wood'. Written in 2005, the poem is comprised of seven tercets with a fairly regular pattern of ten to twelve syllables per line. Without making this sound too much like an A Level English Literature exam, this meter gives 'Mametz Wood' a similar feel to the poems of Shakespeare written in iambic pentameter. This structure gives the poem an almost elegiac feel, and it becomes very effective when it delves into the aftermath of the action at Mametz Wood.

The poem opens with Sheers describing farmers discovering the remains of fallen young soldiers as they plough their fields. The last line of the first stanza is particularly effective as it conjures up images of the devastation inflicted upon the landscape during the war, and conveys the struggle to return to normality for years afterwards. From this Sheers moves into describing the soldiers' remains, delivering some potent imagery by using alliteration, particularly with comparisons to china plate and how a damaged skull resembles a shattered bird's egg. Such remains are still being found at Mametz Wood today, and such discoveries highlight the senseless brutality of war.

The combination of human tragedy, precise metaphor and terrific imagery hammers home the true cost of the battle. Sheers momentarily describes how the Welsh soldiers were ordered to walk towards the wood while facing heavily fortified machine gun positions, conveying an accurate representation of the layout of the battle, before seguing into perhaps the poem's best metaphorical imagery. Here, Sheers describes a land still recovering reminders of what happened, which he compares to a foreign body being dredged up from a wound in human skin.

This one stanza encapsulates the aftermath of the First World War better than any epitaph I've read. Many thousands of soldiers perished or went missing in the chaos of the war, and every now and then skeletons are discovered on the old battlefields across France and Belgium. My own experiences travelling to Ypres in Belgium to visit the Tyne Cot Cemetery and the Menin Gate have given me a clear picture of the sheer scale of the casualties, and the sense of an entire generation being wiped out. While this seems more abstract in poetic form, Sheers gives us a concrete image to exemplify the reality of Mametz Wood.

He describes the discovery of twenty men buried together in a grave, which he describes as something similar to a 'dance macabre', as the skeletons have their arms interlinked. Such vivid imagery, coupled with the rhythmical meter of the poem, evokes paintings of the battle such as the famous one by Christopher Williams, which depict similar scenes of Welsh and German soldiers alike trapped in a strange, horrific death dance. This imagery, although somewhat abstract, conveys an eerie atmosphere, further reinforced in the following stanza, which adds to the previous description by including visceral detail. Sheers describes the remains of the soldiers boots, their skulls and in perhaps the most disturbing image in which he mentions that jaws are dropped open on the soldiers who still possess them.

Having maintained the rhythm and structure of the poem, filled with a balanced mixture of abstract and concrete imagery, with a clear metaphorical line running through it, Sheers ends by finding poignant meaning in the open jaws of the soldiers' skeletons. He posits that it is as if notes sung by the soldiers are only now slipping from their tongues after having been buried for so long. It strikes a beautiful abstract image against the visceral horror of the mass grave. It drives home the tragedy of the First World War in a relatively simple yet effective way, in how the mass slaughter of industrialised warfare destroyed millions of lives and the potential within them.

All in all, it's safe to say that now having analysed 'Mametz Wood' from beginning to end, Sheers more than lives up to his reputation. As a poem encapsulating the battle, it's a terrific piece of work, and there's a lot I can learn from it in my attempt to write my own Mametz Wood poem. If it will be anywhere near as good as Sheers' effort, we shall wait and see, but  if you want to read the entirety of Mametz Wood, go and check it out.

Y Ddraig Goch (The Red Dragon)

A scream is all it takes
to introduce a legend.

A clash of winged beasts,
red against white scales.
The scream wreaks devastation
on all who hear it.

Red against white scales,
the scream brings misery
on all who hear it,
till a bold prince silences it.

The scream brings misery,
no end is in sight
till a bold prince silences it,
with the dragons underground.

No end is in sight,
but now the old feud slumbers,
with the dragons underground
till a wayward king wanders.

So the legend is born
and so it spreads,
till the heat of its flame
graces green and white banners.

(This poem was inspired by the story of Llud and Llefelys, the earliest known reference of the Welsh Dragon. It can be found in the Mabinogion.)

Frynwys Features #2: Labradors and Lamborghinis

I feel I've said it enough times on this blog to make it redundant, but Frynwys, as a centre of activity, is often as silent as a church. Still, as I demonstrated in the first installment of this recurring feature, things do happen in the village from time to time, and since my last bulletin a few more interesting things have occurred. Mind you, when I say a few, I mean it in the literal sense because it was hard to find enough to fill this segment.

So what's the most striking thing that's happened in Frynwys of late? Well, I suppose there's been an improvement of sorts to the infrastructure, though not in the way you might think. It seems that local volunteers working with the wildlife wardens have dug up a new gravel path on the field near the pond. The path is usually been in mud which takes ages to dry once it gets soaked by a rainstorm. Now with the new gravel in, traversing it is a bit easier. I've noticed in recent weeks that local schools are sending kids down there with their teachers, armed with spades, shovels and the like; presumably to help the wardens with maintaining it. It is quite strange to see entire classes of school kids trapesing through the fields, but at least the community is getting involved with something in the village.

In other news, there's been a rare car sighted on the village hall road; rare in the sense that the car in question is of the expensive kind you don't see in Frynwys at all. As I was walking past the road leading to the village hall and the shop, I caught sight of an orange Lamborghini turn to the right and roar off with a loud blast of the exhaust. I'm guessing it was a Gallardo judging by the shape of the taillights. I know for a fact that no one in Frynwys owns a supercar; the closest is probably the old Lotus on Taliesin Close. Whoever owned the Lamborghini probably came from one of the outlying towns, maybe Pontypool or Caerleon, and stopped by the shop to pick up some milk. I am of course speculating; any self-respecting Lamborghini owner probably has a fridge stacked with milk. Still, it was quite nice to see a car painted in orange for a change.

Speaking of bright orange, we move up one space in the colour spectrum to red, as the local Labour councillor campaigned in the village ahead of the council elections. They arrived on my street with a couple of campaigners to try and spread their message, but when they arrived at my house my mother answered the door. She has been less than impressed with the local council's record, especially on education, and she let the councillor know it. The councillor responded with the same question-dodging tactics most (if not all) politicians use, pointing out that improvements had taken place without providing concrete examples. Needless to say, my mother was less than impressed, and I think you can guess who she didn't vote for at the election.

For the final bit of news, I've also noticed an increase in the number of dogs in the area (pets, not wild ones, obviously). Like many villages and towns in South Wales, Frynwys already has a lot of dog owners amongst its population, but it seems that more people than ever now own a dog judging by the number of them I've seen walking around. The most notable additions have been Labradors and spaniels of varying shades, but there are several other breeds, most often terriers. Due to the fact that Frynwys is quite rural, it's a great environment for dogs, as they have plenty of fields and small wooded areas to run around in, although the recent outbreak of Alabama rot is a real cause for concern. Although rare, there have been an increasing number of cases across the UK, and the most recent case in Wales happened in Magor, Monmouthshire. The cause is as yet unknown, but hopefully vets can find a way to treat it soon and bring a halt to the casualties this terrible disease has already inflicted.

That's it for this installment of Frynwys Features. As I speak the village has returned to being its usual quiet self, but if anything out of the ordinary happens I will cover it in a future installment. Keep an eye out for incoming poems in the next few days. Hope you're all doing well and I'll see you again.