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MIKE's MUSES...

"A little of this, laced with a little of that, from around and about..."

The items that follow in this collection of bits and pieces are not necessarily all of local origin..

Please feel free to respond to any queries which may be raised in this column.

GARDENS, and (flower) pots full of money!

I was pleased to see that The National Assembly has decided to increase its funding to the National Botanic Gardens, I would hope this does not come with strings attached that require the gardens to spend large amounts of it on “consultants” they don’t need rather than on developing the gardens themselves.

If Wales is to have a National Gardens, it is not unreasonable that the Nation through its Assembly should pay more than lip service to the ideal.

I am given to understand that gardening is amongst the most popular of all pastimes, up there with that most peculiar of hobbies – fishing.

There should be a great tourist potential and it should be up to the Garden’s management to promote that aspect of the site, as well as its purely horticultural purpose.

Working against better visitor numbers, is the site's location.

There would seem to be a view that only motorists wish to visit the gardens, and as a result there is very little on offer by way of public transport access.

This desperately needs to be addressed - so I would offer the following suggestions for the coming tourist season: -

(1) Extend Trawscambria service X40 on from Carmarthen to the Gardens hourly during opening times. This would provide a fast link from the Cambrian Coast, as well as giving a decent level of service from Carmarthen where rail and other bus connections can be made.

(2) Introduce combined rail/bus/admission tickets from all South Wales stations and as far into England as would allow for a day trip.

(3) Prevail upon local coach operators who run shopping excursions to Carmarthen to add a detour or extension to the NBG and possibly Aberglasney on an as required basis.

(4) Promote those facilities in all publicity they produce, including their web-site.

The gardens are well worth visiting, and to my mind, the only thing that lets them down apart from the difficulty of getting there is the garden centre with its selection of rather tired and drastically over-priced plants.

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Good-bye local service

It’s sad to say good-bye to the local Post Office counter at Pentre, victim of the peculiar Treasury driven policy which says profit is the be all and end all of any facility, even if it’s a essential local social service.

One would have thought by now that the folly of privatising concerns which are there to provide essentials, would have become clear to all.

It should have been obvious from the word go, that when you add in a profit factor over and above development funding you are going to push up costs.

I would say that Electricity, Water, Telecommunications, Post Offices, Bus and Train Services are all essential public facilities, and should not be left to the whims and fancies of profit seeking companies.

They were all sold off because the Treasury was not prepared to put in the investment needed to enable them to properly serve their customers, but considered them only as a means of making a short term quick buck from the sell-offs.

It’s not that the Treasury is hard-up, rather that they would prefer to throw billions of pounds at maintaining the delusion that their political masters have that Britain as a whole must still be regarded world-wide as both a “benevolent granny” and “international policeman”.

Foolish and expensive notions that should have ceased when they scrapped “Empire Day”.

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What do you see?

Do you remember as a child looking into a coal fire, up at clouds in the sky, or at strange natural rock formations, and seeing faces, animals or mythical monsters?

Those were the days when imagination wasn’t dulled by computer games or films loaded with special effects.

The only limit on what was possible was how far your dreams would take you.

The picture below is of a natural rock landmark on St.Agnes, Isles of Scilly, which is known locally as the Nags Head.

My imagination sees not a horse but a dragon, perhaps defending what’s left of the lost land of Lyonesse.

Mike Ash, Pentre, Feb 2008

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