Latest news with #Eryri
The Guardian
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Beautiful locations to learn in': readers' favourite creative breaks
Wider Horizons is an outdoor gathering in Berkshire dedicated to reigniting young attendees' (18 to 30 years old) creative spark through workshops, music, ceremony and movement. On the glorious July afternoon I arrived, oak trees cast elongated shadows on the soft earth, a gentle breeze stirred the tall grass, and I found myself surrounded by a group of eccentric, vivacious young adults. A key element of the weekend is transformation: Wild Woman circles channelled sacred rage into empowerment, Forest Play turned ennui into childlike wonder, and poetry workshops used the surrounding woodlands as inspiration. My phone lay untouched, my mind grew quiet, and from that place of silence, the words poured out of me like rainfall. This year's event is from 22-28 July. The full price is £250 with early-bird discounts available into Serna Trigonos is a beautiful and unique environmentally conscious retreat centre in the heart of Eryri (Snowdonia). Its seven hectares (18 acres) include a tranquil lake. The setting is a key landscape in the ancient Fourth Branch of The Mabinogion. Storytellers Cath Little and Claire Mace led a weekend workshop for women here, exploring the enigmatic figure of Arianrhod, a key female figure in mythology. My connections with the story and the mythological landscape were deepened by this experience; I gained new insights, enriched my own storytelling, and made wise new friends. Activities such as yoga, weaving, cycling, and forest bathing are also offered at Collins Guardian Travel readers' tips Every week we ask our readers for recommendations from their travels. A selection of tips will be featured online and may appear in print. To enter the latest competition visit the readers' tips homepage - The best place to refill your creative cup is at Gladstone's Library. It truly is a bookish fantasy; you while away the hours reading and writing in a wood-panelled, nostalgic. book-filled space, before heading upstairs to dream in the book-themed bedrooms. Rooms start at £96 a night at this gem at Hawarden near Chester, founded by William Gladstone, which includes a delicious on-site breakfast, access to reading rooms and use of a common-room style lounge, complete with roaring fires and sofas. The UK's only residential library is the perfect getaway for creatives in any field looking to rest, write, read and be. Rosie Blincow The Solway Firth landscape painting weeks at Auchencairn House combine the inspirational scenery of the coast and the wonderful walled garden with excellent and supportive tutors and warm and friendly hosts. Breathe the calm by day, relax with stately home dining and just paint. The next course starts on 15 June. Anne Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion I have been on two photography holidays with Creative Escapes. I visited Sicily and Japan and the holidays were wonderful. The company only takes small groups and its tutors are experienced photographers. They give individual help and advice so not only did my skills improve, but I also developed my own style. There were complete beginners and experienced photographers on the trips but we all supported each other in the projects and feedback sessions. Beautiful locations for learning, accommodation and special On hands and knees, I tended to Sylvia Plath's overgrown grave with my new writer friend. We were staying at Ted Hughes's old pad up the road, Lumb Bank, atop a leafy West Yorkshire valley – learning the joys and craft of creative nonfiction, on an Arvon retreat. Over a transformative week, we shared writing and cooking skills, and bottles of red wine while dining at Ted's table every evening. That holiday kickstarted my love of creative writing. Arvon has three 'writing houses' – in Yorkshire, Shropshire and Devon. Five-day courses start at £
Sky News
27-05-2025
- General
- Sky News
Yr Wyddfa: Police searching for missing mountain walker
Police in Wales are searching for a missing man last seen walking on a mountain. North Wales Police said the last sighting of the man, identified only as John, was on Yr Wyddfa (also known as Snowdon) at 5.40pm on Monday. The 20-year-old, who is described as around 6ft tall, was last seen on the Llanberis path, near to the railway line, officers said. At the time of his last sighting, he was wearing black tracksuit bottoms with "Le Franz" written on them, hiking boots and a grey puffer jacket. Eryri National Park says the Llanberis path is 14.5km long and this route to the summit of Wales's highest mountain takes around seven hours. The park authority says on its website that the path is classified as a "hard and strenuous route" with a "good level of fitness" required. In a statement, the force asked anyone with information who think they may have seen John to get in touch at the earliest opportunity using reference number C076334.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Mountain marvel: how one of biggest batteries in Europe uses thousands of gallons of water to stop blackouts
Seconds after a catastrophic series of power outages struck across the UK in the summer of 2019, a phone rang in the control room of the Dinorwig hydropower plant in north Wales. It was Britain's energy system operator requesting an immediate deluge of electricity to help prevent a wide-scale blackout crippling Britain's power grids. The response was swift, and in the end just under million people were left without power for less than 45 minutes. While trains were stuck on lines for hours and hospitals had to revert to backup generators, that phone call prevented Britain's worst blackout in a decade from being far more severe. Almost six years later, the owners of Dinorwig, and its sister plant at Ffestiniog on the boundary of Eryri national park, formerly Snowdonia, are preparing to pump up to £1bn into a 10-year refurbishment of the hydropower plants that have quietly helped to keep the lights on for decades. Ffestiniog was one of the first pumped hydroelectric systems in the UK when it opened in 1963, while nearby Dinorwig – the largest and fastest-acting pumped storage station in Europe – followed in 1984. The refurbishment could mean the plants continue to provide reliable clean energy on demand for decades to come – and serve as giant grid batteries to store Britain's renewable electricity for when it is needed most. Miya Paolucci, the UK boss of the French energy company Engie, one of Dinorwig's owners, said refurbishing the plant will cost a third of the investment needed to build a new hydropower plant on a similar scale, making the overhaul an 'intuitive' decision to secure another 25 years of life from the 'much-loved' power station. Britain has used gravity and the flow of water to generate electricity since 1878, when a hydroelectric generator first powered an arc lamp at the Cragside manor house in Northumberland. The project involved dropping water 100 metres vertically to turn a Siemens generator that would go on to power a series of newly invented incandescent lightbulbs in the country house. Dinorwig and Ffestiniog use the same principles as the Cragside manor house to generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of almost 2 million UK households in a matter of seconds. When power is plentiful, the plants use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir up to an elevated dam. Later, when power supplies are tight, the water is released to drive the turbines, generating power. Dinorwig or Mynydd Gwefru, as it is known locally, can be called upon to generate electricity within 75 seconds by releasing 86,000 gallons of water a second down a cavernous 500-metre vertical tunnel. The water crashes into six turbines, each weighing about 500 tonnes, which generate high-volume blasts of renewable power on demand. Overall, hydropower makes up only 2% of the UK's total electricity – but often at times when its electrons are at their most vital to keeping the lights on. It provides many of the key benefits of large fossil fuel power plants – but without the carbon emissions. Unlike wind and solar farms, hydropower projects can be called upon by the system operator at specific times when the grid needs more generation to meet demand. The spinning mass of its generators can also help to stabilise the frequency of the power grid at about 50Hz, the level required to avoid power outages. In the event of a blackout, hydropower can even help to restart the power system. But after 140 years generating electricity it is hydropower's potential as an energy storage technology that is key to its future. Pumped hydropower can effectively work as a long-duration battery by using renewable electricity when it is abundant to pump water up into a reservoir and release the water to generate electricity when renewable energy wanes. Unlike grid batteries, which are often designed to charge during the day and discharge electricity at night, long-duration energy storage systems can store energy for hours, days or even weeks so it can be used when needed. The government hopes to bring forward investment in 18GW of storage by 2035, of which 10GW should be long-duration storage such as hydropower. But pumped hydropower projects are struggling to find a place in Britain's energy landscape There are geographic hurdles: there are only so many vast mountains and brimming reservoirs, and the projects can also provoke concerns within the local community. But in locations where they are viable developers have been left to wait for government officials to confirm the details of its financial support framework. One of the UK's biggest renewable energy developers, SSE, hopes that its Coire Glas project in the Scottish Highlands could be the first major pumped storage hydro scheme built in the UK in more than 40 years. The project could power 3 million homes for up to 24 hours, and would nearly double Great Britain's total current electricity storage capacity, but it needs the final details of a government support scheme before SSE can fully commit to the project. A House of Lords report published late last year warned that a large-scale rollout of long-duration energy storage technologies was 'not being treated with sufficient urgency'. The report found that a wide-scale rollout would allow more renewable power to be available, potentially lowering the overall cost of electricity for consumers. Better energy storage could, the committee said, make the grid more flexible and avoid paying to switch off wind and solar farms when there is more clean power being generated than consumers can use. Paolucci said: 'Flexible storage is essential for net zero carbon operation of Britain's electricity system. It helps balance the system by ensuring there's always a large volume of 'back-up' power on standby, that can be delivered in very fast timescales if required. We're very proud to contribute to the electricity security of supply and green energy ambition of the UK with these extraordinary assets.'
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: A wildfire has killed off (nearly) everything wild
A thick blue haze hangs over the valley – Cilgwyn has burned again. Dead fingers of blackened heather snap underfoot, and each step kicks up a cloud of ash. 'Deliberate ignition' was the given cause of the last major fire here, in 2021. Before that, in 2018, another threatened to engulf the village, a kilometre west of Eryri (Snowdonia). Who was the deliberator of this one? I shouldn't speculate. As a teen I searched here for boulders to climb, but today I'm picking over the hill's smoking bones. Gone is the heather, the bilberry, the bog mosses, which usually soften the place. Detritus now dots the ground, things usually hidden by the gorse: cans, rusty wire, a perfectly symmetrical piece of sheet metal looking like an ersatz butterfly. I feel something hard under my shoe: a golf ball, perfectly toasted. The most promising of the bouldering stones stands out in the char. A broad, squat monolith, its rough shoulders are festooned with lichens of green, grey and crimson. Quartz white in a sea of soot, it floats, raft-like, with its living cargo. The surfaces of smaller rocks are fractured from the flames that swept over them. If they ever held much life or harboured any climbing holds, they don't any more. Wildfires have always been a fixture here, but they sound a more troubling note now. Spring and summer are arriving early, and nature is forced to adjust, with birds building their nests weeks earlier too: Corehedydd y Waun (meadow pipit) and Clochdar y Cerrig (stonechat) are among them. I wonder how many had nests here already, after such a dry and warm spring in a very wet part of Wales. Time has passed since the blaze. Kneeling down, I notice a burrow exposed by the fire: probably a mouse's. It would be a miracle if its inhabitant was spared. But regeneration is already under way; tiny green shoots are peeping out to check if the coast is clear. The burn halted at the edge of a path. The compacted dirt and exposed gravel were firebreak enough to hold it at bay. Stepping over the hearth into the land of the living, the earth softens. Is that birdsong I hear? Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
North Wales Chronicle
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- North Wales Chronicle
Conwy couple make it to final of Channel 4's Our Dream Farm
Viewers will see Ryan and Lowri go head-to-head against remaining hopefuls Sara and Ioan, from Ceredigion and Gwynedd, in a sheep dog trial in the last episode on Saturday, May 3. The couples will also present their business plans to Trystan Edwards, Eryri General Manager, and Giles Hunt, Land and Estates Director for all of the National Trust, in a bid to be crowned the new tenants of a 600-acre dream farm in Eryri (Snowdonia). Over the last few weeks, seven applicants have battled it out to become the new tenants of unique hill farm Llyndy Isaf, Nant Gwynant, by completing real-life farming tasks. Applicants have now been whittled down to just two. Ryan and Lowri live just 20 miles away from the farm. The husband and wife duo, who have two young children, hope the tenancy will be a chance to combine Ryan's passion for hill farming and Lowri's desire to welcome tourists to the farm. Ryan is a first generation farmer but has built up his livestock throughout his career and hopes to bring them to the farm. Lowri said: "We've benefited a lot from this experience." Ryan said: "We came as a married couple but we are leaving here as business partners." Ryan admitted to Matt that without Lowri, he couldn't do "any of my things". Lowri said to Ryan: "I'm just proud to see you in your element and seeing you grow in the past eight years." The couple said they "don't give up easily". They said the tenancy will allow them to grow as a family and individually and give them a chance to "make their mark". Llyndy Isaf has been in the care of National Trust Cymru since the charity bought the farm in 2012 after a successful public appeal. Throughout the series, applicants have been monitored by Trystan and Giles. Trystan Edwards, general manager for Eryri, National Trust Cymru, said: 'It's a privilege to have a farm in Wales selected for this programme. Llyndy is an incredible landscape, from the shores of Llyn Dinas to the heather clad ridge of Mynydd Llyndy, it holds a special place for nature, people and history." The winners, who will be offered a life changing 15-year tenancy of the farm, will be revealed in the episode on May 3. National Trust: Our Dream Farm with Matt Baker is on Channel 4 on Saturday at 7pm. Readers can catch up on 4oD.
