The Rushing River Neath - a photo on Flickriver

            I can't deny it.  Yesterday was the first time when I sighed, cursed and complained that I might as well be at work.  It was the end of an odd week, filled with drab colours and numerous chores, and I figured that at least when I was working, I got paid to have a rotten time.  Of course I'd momentarily forgotten that my inbuilt barometer of wellbeing is no longer governed by the morning alarm before daylight arrives or the fact that nobody was going to ask me to make an decision that might be unpopular. But a period of neglect of household appliances found several key components that are vital to our comfort all beginning to creak and break down at the same time.  And as I'm sure you don't need telling, finding people who are able to fix these things is challenging these days.  

What of course we all want is someone who turns up when they say they're going to (well, within reason) and doesn't charge a hundred pounds plus VAT just to ring the doorbell.  Never mind the fact that they tell you the dishwasher needs a new flange sprocket and it's going to cost.  Neither you nor I know what a flange sprocket is, or whether the old one really has passed on to the next dimension - we have to just take this on trust.  They could just as easily tell me it needs a new rocket booster and I'd just shrug and mentally prepare myself for open wallet surgery.

So yesterday when our attempts to self diagnose the breakdown of the central heating system and a dishwasher that took longer than four hours to be coaxed (eventually with a degree of desperate violence) from its cubby hole both failed, I was feeling low.  The situation wasn't helped when for the second week running I was sent tumbling to the sports hall floor by the invisible man at five a side football later in the evening.  A large gin and tonic later I went to bed feeling grumpy, with a sore ankle and a bruised knee.

Today, our attempts to create a warm living room and produce hot water without the aid of a kettle have continued to produce nothing more than a kitchen floor covered in stray tools and the occasional puddle.  So for now I've given up and hoped that our calls for assistance via other social media might eventually deliver a solution. Instead, I've sat down to do a bit of what I'd rather hoped I'd be doing more of now - and working on those shots from Wales a couple of weeks ago.  This, I think, is the spectacular Sgwd Ddwli Uchaf or the "Upper Gushing Falls," which raced past us so emphatically during our recent pilgrimage to the River Neath at the edge of the Brecon Beacons.  For a moment I hear in my mind that torrential pouring, although it has the unfortunate effect of reminding me of a dishwasher a few yards away and the confounded E4 error code that won't go away no matter what I try.  

I hope you're having a better weekend than this.  And a warmer one too.

Taken in: UK / Wales / Ystradfellte / Pontneddfechan (show map)

Taken on: October 5, 2021

Tags:

Water

water_shots

Waterfall

cascade

swirling water

Wales

Britain

Brecon

Brecon Beacons

Neath

River Neath

Afon Nedd

Sgwd

Sgwd Ddwli Uchaf

Cymru

nature

outdoor

Pontneddfechan « less

Sets appears in: • Wales • Waterfalls more » • Brecon Beacons « less

Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Flickr Social Club more » • Photography Week • On Landscape • Amateur Photographer Magazine • Flickr Photo Unlimited (No People) « less

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, f/16.0, 30 sec, 18mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens:	EF16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
Aperture:	f/16.0
Exposure Time:	30
Focal Length:	18mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-2/3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 10.4 (Windows)
Show full info

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