How Green was my Valley

This time last week I was on my way to the town where I grew up: a place called Rhymney (pronounced ‘RUM-knee’), which can be found up at the wrong end of one of the South Wales valleys. I lived there or thereabouts until I was eighteen, and again for a while after I graduated from university, but couldn’t find a job. The last time I’d been there was for Christmas ’01…

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I was only in the UK for three days, & had over-ambitiously hoped to combine family get-togethers with attending a conference (at this place). I’d also wanted to get a whole lot of shopping done: I ended up skipping the second day of the conference in favour of a trip to a supermarket (to stock up on British cheese, sausages, bacon, etc., which I would smuggle back to Scandinavia), and a couple of hours in Bryn-Bach park. The valley was green indeed, and the sun shone brightly, making it feel like an altogether different place than the one I remember. In my recollections of Rhymney there are nearly always grey skies, and rain.

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Rushed as it all was, I am still grateful that I got the chance to stay at my mother’s recently-renovated house, that I got to see her dog for the first time; that I got to see my grandmother again; that I saw my Dad & his new dog, & that I met up with my sister & my nieces & my brother-in-law & my aunt & my cousin & her younger son, who I hadn’t met before either… I meant to take more pictures than I did, but left it too late except for a few hastily-captured snaps like those above. Note that the first picture above isn’t mine: it’s a detail from a panoramic view of the Rhymney valley a few miles south of where I was staying: I found it here. Click on the details above to see the images in full.