Ynys-hir
WE’RE SPENDING a few days in a holiday cabin perched on a wooded hill overlooking the estuary of the River Dovey, or, to give it it’s Welsh name, the Afon Dyfi.
In Welsh you pronounce every letter of a word instead of skipping some in a fairly unpredictable manner as you often do in English. A single ‘f’ is pronounced as we’d pronounce ‘v’, while ‘ff’ is pronounced softly, as we'd normally pronounce ‘f’, so, to English ears, 'Afon Dyfi' would sound more like 'Avon Dovey'.
Ynys-hir Birds
After
a dry four weeks, we’re unlucky to have
timed our visit to catch a grey, rainy interval but the RSPB’s
Ynys-hir reserve gives us an opportunity to sit in a comfortable
hide overlooking the estuary.
Although the rain is lashing on the windows facing west and the hide is
creaking in the wind like a ship at sea, we can see through the windows
at the sheltered north end of the hide. Unfortunately in this weather not
much is visible in the 
way
of water birds but we see a great spotted woodpecker and
a small flock of mistle thrushes in an area of rough
pasture dotted with old trees as we walk back to the visitor centre during
a dry spell.
As we sit on the veranda with a welcome coffee and flapjack a robin hops towards us, eyeing us with that cute, questioning look they’re so good at. It very nearly hops onto my outstretched hand for a crumb.
Machynlleth
We retreat to the town of Machynlleth at the head of the estuary for lunch at the veggie Quarry Café then browse around to shops and pick up a few supplies. I haven’t got the hang of pronouncing Machynlleth but locals often refer to it simply as ‘Mack’, so there's not much chance of getting lost around here.
Machynelleth has a couple of excellent secondhand book shops, one of
them specialising in angling, field sports and natural history books.
My page title The Shining Levels comes from the book, subtitle
The Story of a Man Who Went Back to Nature, by John Wyatt.
It's a true story, a kind of thoughtful nature diary, set in
the Lake District and I would have bought it if I hadn't brought so much
holiday reading with
me.
The Quarry Wholefood Café
Aberdyfi