One of our favourite short walks is a loop into the Galloway Forest from the Queen’s Road between Newton Stewart and New Galloway. The route starts with a steep pull up to Murray’s Monument. The impressive monument was erected in 1835 in memory of Alexander Murray, a local shepherd boy who later became Professor of Oriental Languages at Edinburgh University. The path goes off behind the monument then continues steeply up to join a forestry track leading to the Black Loch. On the edge of the loch is an 8 metre high conical sculpture called ‘The Eye’ made from fragments of terracotta tile fragments. It was created by Colin Rose in 1997 as part of an art project in Galloway Forest Park.

On the return part of the loop there is another sculpture installation built into the stone walls of an old sheepfold. This one, called ‘Quora’ was created by Matt Baker as part of the same art project as ‘The Eye’ and consists of several carved granite heads set into the walls.

A short but steep walk up and over a ridge then leads back down to the car park on the Queen’s Road.

After a two year break due to COVID, the Brecon Baroque Festival was back in business again this year. We made the trek down there, via a wet afternoon at the new RHS garden at Bridgewater, and enjoyed five excellent concerts over the four days of the festival. The first two concerts were in Brecon Cathedral and the others were in the Theatr Brycheiniog. We stayed at Camden Lodge, a very comfortable bed & breakfast and also enjoyed some good local food at the restaurants and pubs around Brecon.

We made our second visit to the Brecon Baroque music festival in October 2019. We arrived in Brecon along with some torrential downpours and there was widespread flooding in the area.

Most of the concerts went ahead as planned although one of them had to be relocated from Cantref Church due to flooded roads.

We managed a few walks in the Brecon Beacons National Park, including a circuit of the waterfalls after the flood waters has receded.