Saturday 5 December - More Gales and a Canoldir Male Voice Choir

Building of the day - this houses Costa Coffee on the ground floor

The initial weather forecast looked good today with no rain for the last 24 hours and temperatures in the lower teens.  However, there is a storm coming in from the Irish Channel with very high winds along the north Wales coast and with a flood watch at Chirk it made travel out of town a little tenuous.

We changed our plans and decided to stay in town.  We walked a little way out of town to see the flooding and were pleased to see that part of the Frankwell car park had been reopened and the river has certainly dropped although it is still over its banks.

There are normally dog walkers and cattle grazing in the meadow at left.  Access is a little difficult at the moment although one intrepid dog walker was out.

Pizza Express provided a good lunch.  It is a family restaurant in a historic building that was formerly a cinema. A group near us had four pretty excited small kids who were going to the pantomime this afternoon.  They even had a birthday cake for the smallest.

This quirky carving (a devil?) is on a building in Mardol.

This is the Bear Steps Coffee House - about two minutes' walk from the apartment.  The coffee is very good and the baked goods are enticing.  Inside the ceiling is very low.  This building is partly perched over Fish Street behind.  Bear Steps are to the right.  Note the green fungus on the roof - very common around here.

The Bear Steps flat white is a work of art in itself.

The mai part of the storm is dur to pass over around 2100 this evening.  It seems that the wind will be more of a factor than the rain.

This evening we went to a very good concert by the Canoldir Male Voice Choir at St. Chad's church.  Canoldir is based in Birmingham but their roots are in Wales.  The program was wide ranging and included much music that was very well known,  The second half was all Christmas music, all well known.  The soprano, Natalie Clifton-Griffith, was very good.  She enunciated well and held her own against the choir,  There were two very young boy soloists from the Prestfelde School, a cello and a clarinet.  The cellist was so small that we couldn't see him over the grand piano.  Both were very good.  The audience joined in for three carols.

Glasses of wine were available and the hymnbook ledge was very convenient.  The audience was very friendly and were happy to chat.

Jingle bells was a great deal of fun

Click above for Gwahoddiad

Many of the somewhat sparse audience were friends and relatives of the choir and told me over a glass of wine that they were going to Llanymynech tomorrow for a concert in a small church there.  On the way out I thanked a choir member and said " I hope you have a good time at Llanymynech tomorrow" (I pronounced it correctly in Welsh).

He replied with a wry smile, "Easy for you to say!"

I should have told him I live in Canada!

The wind wasn't too bad on the way home this evening.