Another day in Cardiff

The Novotel website says that my "credentials are still valid", so that's good. I can therefore post another blogpost. I have just been swimming in the blue-lit hotel pool downstairs, 30 lengths. Chris ran on the treadmill in the adjoining room, but didn't like the mirror. It was horrible to watch his muscles going up and down, he said; why would anybody want to do that?

Today gave us plenty of exercise apart from our use of the Fitness Centre. We walked to breakfast in the city, then across the road for a lap of Bute Park by the river and flower beds, before walking through the university campus past the Department of Music which now houses all of my dad's old music books and musical scores. I hope someone is looking at them. We were to meet Mum with Faith, Mel and Rhiannon at the National Museum, where the entrance to all exhibitions is free of charge. I think this sets a marvellous example to all the world. Access to art and education ought to be free of charge, everywhere, IMHO. Mel dropped Mum, Faith and Rhiannon at the bottom of the front steps and went to park his car while she was climbing them. Once we were all together, we made a beeline for the special exhibition, special both for Faith (botanist) and me (student of all things Chinese): the display of Chinese Bird and Flower Paintings from the 16th century to the present day, and very delightful it was, too, with descriptions of the paintings and their execution and origins in the Chinese language itself, with English and Welsh subtitles.

There were real flowers in the grass outside the museum as well, snowdrops and crocuses.

We lunched not at the downstairs cafeteria (my suggestion, in Mel's opinion too much like a railway station) but at a nearby pub, the Pen and Wig on Park Grove, which has a painting of a judge's wig lying on a desk with a feather pen alongside on one of its walls and Latin sayings over the arches between the dining areas, viz.:

• Neminem oportet legibus esse sapientiorem, which means No man should be wiser than (i.e. above) the law! A very apt saying as regards the present state of affairs in the USA. 
• Abundans cautela non nocet, meaning Plenty of caution can do no harm. Also apt, if only people would only take notice of such advice.

The pub too is in the university area, so afterwards, when Mel had left to drive Faith and Mel home, Chris and I took Mum in her wheelchair into the students' union building, where all three of us were remarkable for our age, and found the university bookshop, Dillons ... containing a plethora of set texts for the English Literature courses but, to Chris' annoyance, not one single book about Maths. Books are obviously no substitute for the Internet, these days. Mum found it all quite an adventure, her eyesight not good enough to take in many details, but she was enjoying these explorations in our company and even her "claustrophobic" rides in the university lifts, so it seemed. We eventually found the right platform at Cathays station from which we could catch a train to Llandaff, next stop along the line. Big steps to take from platform to train and train to platform. Mind the gaps!

Out of the train at Llandaff, we walked with / pushed Mum to the centre of Whitchurch, about 2km away. She managed to walk a good deal of the way along Bishop's Road (she had been a Miss Bishop once), to be rewarded with a shared pot of tea and toasted teacake at the Co-op café, which used to be her favourite snack and snacking place before she moved into her care home. The last part of her outing was another walk and ride in the chair up Church Road to Heol Don, by which time it was raining, but no harm done.

If she remembered any of the above, Mum had plenty to talk about with the other old ladies at the supper table. Chris and I left her there and caught a train from Llandaff back to Cardiff Central, with a phone-call from Emma in London, en route. We continued walking from the back of the station towards the Porth Teigr area of Cardiff Bay, where we found an excellent supper at the Pizza Express on the waterfront, with red wine. Back towards the city along Schooner Way by the old docklands, now a posh, ever-growing residential area, and there was our hotel.

A month later

Glowing in the dark!

We're back in Ottawa, having been on our travels again, since November 21st in my case; Chris set off a week later and we reconnected in Heathrow on the 29th. Our grandson Alexander came with me to meet his granddad, chattering all the way about his chess club at school. Alex is now 8 and for once I was there for his Birthday, December 5th, a glow-in-the-dark after school party for five boys, with pizza, fruit and cake.

Opening the birthday presents from his friends

After my arrival weekend in London, thrilled to discover when we went to the pool in Teddington that both of my grandsons enjoy swimming nowadays (Thomas wearing a buoyancy vest, Alexander mainly underwater), I travelled by train on a misty, frosty morning to Cardiff to spend four days with Mum, helping her with the shopping and housework, playing Scrabble (I still can't beat her), and visiting a nearby home "for those who find it increasingly difficult to cope at home without assistance." The staff are friendly and the interior's bright enough to cheer up the residents, we hope. Mum's to have a trial stay there next year (she would be the oldest person there, they told us) while my sister's away on a long holiday. One of the rooms is a "cinema" with Odeon style red curtains and red armchairs facing a big screen on which they show the rugby or films like It's a Wonderful Life. Children's art from the local school decorates the walls as does a collection of film star photos from old films, many of them produced in my own childhood which makes me think I must be getting old myself. The dining room overlooks a playground for the great-grandchildren.

My mother at the Christmas market in Cardiff

I took Mum into Cardiff to see if I could find her a better magnifier from the RNIB headquarters, but it would require an eye test first, which she's recently had. While in Cardiff I was amused to see Germanic Christmas market stalls in and around the Hayes, some even selling Bratwurst and Currywurst. With Mel and Faith we also went to a place called Chapter, a "multi-artform cultural space" in Cardiff where we watched the very long film Mr. Turner, starring Timothy Spall. It was rather disturbing, and brilliantly made, the photography the best I've ever seen in a film. Mum said she had trouble following the dialogue, much of the lead character's articulation being curmudgeonly grunts.

Thames bridge at Teddington

Back in London that Friday evening, I met the younger generation of my family at the Christmas Parade down the Hampton Hill High Street, a chaotically British affair, though I found an African bean stew to kept me going. Next morning Alexander chatted away about his chess club on our bus ride to meet Granddad at Heathrow. We all had a walk in Bushy Park that sunny day and on the Sunday a stroll with Thomas down the towpath from the Teddington locks (the "tide's end") upstream to Kingston, while Peter took Alex to a party.

Pool at the Kingston Leisure Centre

The next week Chris and I were in Germany (see separate blogposts, yet to be written), and on my third weekend back in London we were visited by the other grandparents, with lunch for 8 at Red Peppers in Teddington, and went swimming again after a Sunday morning at the new Quaker premises in Kingston, where Emma helps look after the children. The Meeting House is next door to the Kingfisher Leisure Centre, where the pool is.

Fragments of old Wales

A milepost on the edge of St. Fagans reconstructed village

The National History Museum of Wales is at St. Fagans (without an apostrophe) on the western edge of Cardiff. Set in parkland and the grounds of a 16th century manor house, it features historic architecture and artifacts from all over Wales. With most of the buildings moved there from their original locations, it is a similar museum to the one at Upper Canada Village in Ontario. The idea is for visitors to imagine going back in time, to different periods in the past––you can walk into old cottages and workshops and see things laid out and being used as in the old days. You can smell the old world smells: mown hay, wood or coal smoke, bread from the bakery, and there are craftsmen milling, tanning, weaving, making horseshoes and so on. Native breeds of animal are farmed here in traditional ways (don't miss the 18th century pigsty from Pontypridd!) and even the plants are carefully chosen to show what used to grow in the hedgerows, fields and gardens of old Wales.

At the beginning of May my sister, my mother and I spent an afternoon at St. Fagans. We were lucky with the weather and when Mum got tired we sat on the benches and listened to the black-caps, wrens and robins.

The inside of a thatched roof

Coal burning in an ironworker's cottage

The man who did the spinning and weaving told us all about his work

St. Teilo's from the outside

One particularly interesting building at St. Fagans is the St. Teilo's church at the far end of the museum's village. The plaque outside it tells a remarkable story: "As the building was taken down, a staggering discovery was made. Under layers of whitewash, 500 year old paintings were found. This is why we have rebuilt the church as it may have looked around 1520, when it would have been Roman Catholic. Most worshippers then could not read and would have used the images to inspire meditation and prayer." What visitors see inside the church are copies of those original, rediscovered paintings. Here's one of St. Christopher carrying the Christ child which a week later I could compare with the giant statue of der heilige Christoph in the Kölner Dom.

Tintern Abbey

Anghidi River

Ruins of the ironworks

On Thursday May 8th, Mel drove us through Shire Newton (stopping for lunch at the Tredegar Arms) to Tintern, where we saw the ruins of an even older place of worship, Tintern Abbey on the banks of the Wye. My niece lives just up the road from there, in a cluster of houses known as Chapel Hill, and further up the valley by the little (2.5km long!) Anghidi River with its fish ponds and bluebell woods, are some more ruins, the remains of an 17th century ironworks whose furnace used to burn night and day processing cast iron (pig iron), the bellows being powered by a water wheel in the river. Cooking pots and cannon fired from battleships in the American War of Independence were manufactured here. The ironmaster, David Tanner, became a Monmouthshire Mayor and Sheriff, but was also sent to prison in the 1790s, owing to a bankruptcy scandal and "...was last heard of on a boat bound for Bengal."

I saw this place for the sake of a walk with Faith, Mel, Mum, Elen, Bethan and Chris up the country lanes.

Concerts for young people in Ottawa and Cardiff

It's a recurrent theme in my blog: I love to see youth being exposed to and responding to classical music, or performing it. There should be more of this.

Sunday April 27th I attended a concert at St. Brigid's given by the Ottawa Youth Orchestra, during which young people not only filled the stage but were numerous in the audience too. The standard of attainment demonstrated was very high, presumably due to the efforts and skills of their conductor, John Gomez. Their programme was

• Weber's Bassoon Concerto, the solo part performed by a member of the orchestra
• Brahms' lively Academic Festival Overture,
• Four Cornish Dances by Sir Malcolm Arnold
• Elgar's Cello Concerto (again, a member of the orchestra was the soloist––both the bassoonist and the 'cellist played from memory––what a feat!)
• the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss
• Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave

The following week, having got the idea from the concert programme, I shared an article about Johann Strauss and his famous waltz with my German conversation group.

Later, while in Wales, I went with my mother for lunch and the Friday lunchtime concert (May 9th) at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in the Castle Grounds of Cathays Park, Cardiff, by the River Taff, an attractive place in all respects. The Cardiff Winds were on stage in the Dora Stoutzker Hall, not young people themselves, but an ensemble of tutors and professional section leaders in various British orchestras. The audience mainly consisted of their students or potential students, and other young people (string players) had been playing solos in the foyer before the concert, sonatas with piano accompaniment. On the concert programme were three very enjoyable items by composers of the same generation:

• the Welsh composer William Mathias' Wind Quintet, hard to play during the sections where it's in 5/4 time
• Derek Smith's Morning Music (Mr. Smith, a white haired gentleman from Worcestershire, in his 80s, was in the audience)
• Jean-Michel Damase's Dix-sept Variations  

I counted the variations off on my fingers and came to the right total.

Welsh at Cardiff station

We do a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on our trips to the UK, and I was in transit at Cardiff station four times, on the last occasion. The Welsh used for the station announcements and on the notice boards is becoming familiar to me! Like the Quebec French speakers, the people who speak this minority language want to preserve it––by force, if necessary.

At the station exit directions are given in Welsh first and English second to the Stadiwm y Milleniwm, Canol y dinas (city centre), Tacsis (taxis) and Maes parcio (carpark). Next to this is the Customer Information desk, Gwybodaeth i Gwsmeriaid (what a mouthful).

On the arrivals and departures board the trains are listed, going from Caerdydd (Cardiff) to Casnewydd (Newport), Llundain (London), Abertawe (Swansea) and Harbwr Abergwaun (Fishguard), for example.

The station announcements are given first in Welsh, then in English.

Platfform Un ... Dau ... Tri ... (pronounced een, dye, tree ...) Pedwar ... 

There's a Platform 0 at Cardiff station too, Plattform Sero.

I love languages.

In Cardiff, Bristol, Cardiff, Bristol, Cardiff ...

Park Street, Bristol

We're hopping back and forth.

Chris is at the 21st Safety-critical Systems Symposium here at the Bristol Marriott Royal, taking copious notes as he listens to the talks (on Day 3, tomorrow morning, he gives one) and I, as usual, am along for the ride. This evening he is at the conference Banquet, listening to a speech by the Hon. Sir Charles Haddon-Cave, QC, who told the uncomfortable truth about the tragic Nimrod case, calling it "a story of incompetence, complacency and cynicism," and who is consequently one of Chris' heroes. Instead of sharing the Banquet, I have just had a French supper for one at the Café Rouge, which in my own way I probably appreciated just as much, contentedly reading the Ottawa author Mark Frutkin's memoirs of a draft resister, "Erratic North," between courses and sips of red wine, and watching the people go by up the hill (Park Street) towards the university.

Inside the Wills Memorial

tower, on Park Street

Cardiff, at the weekend, was our first stop on this trip, because one of the reasons for flying over was to spend some more time with Mum. We also spent what's called quality time with Faith, Mel, Rhiannon, Justin and the baby Phoenix (visiting from Oxford) on Sunday, a low cloud day in Gwaelod-y-Garth. I saw the primroses and cyclamens in Faith's garden, though. Monday was far brighter, which meant that Mum could show Chris and me a favourite walk of hers on the edge of Whitchurch, to a bird hide by the canal. "It's like real country," she said. The expert watchers in the hide reported spotting a kingfisher, a snipe and a bittern, but we saw mostly robins, chaffinches, bluetits, coaltits (which are the same as chickadees, if you ask me), blackbirds, thrushes and mallard ducks. We had a good lunch in a Whitchurch eatery called Deli-a-go-go, which I mention here to remind myself that we ought to go-go there again when we can-can.

Monday evening, Chris and I took the train to Bristol, exploring the vicinity of the hotel after dark when it was mild enough to sit on a bench and look at the boats on the water, not something we can do in Ottawa at this time of year. We went for a walk up and down the hill as well, which walk I repeated yesterday (Tuesday) in the company of Faith, with a day return ticket from Cardiff, and her friend Ben, who lives in Bristol. We found the Clifton suspension bridge, near which Ben encouraged me to pick up a leaflet that proved most interesting, about the remains of a 500ft long cliff railway, presently being restored, that had been built inside the Clifton Rocks in 1891. The construction was quite ingenious.

If the lower car was heavier than the top car, water was allowed to flow into a tank underneath the top car until it was heavier than the lower car. Water had to be recycled from the bottom station constantly, as there was not a continuous supply at the top station. A Crossley gas engine pumped the water from a reservoir at the bottom station, some 230 feet to the top station.

I K Brunel's suspension bridge, spanning the Avon Gorge

After the train ceased operating in 1934, the tunnel's history became even more interesting. During World War 2 (when the port of Bristol was heavily bombed) it was used as a rehearsal space for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, as a transmitting station for the BBC and as the BOAC's head office and as a workshop for barrage balloon repairs. Not only that, the central section of the tunnel became a shelter for civilians during air raids. Via the Royal York Crescent and other terraced cliff top streets, and through a picturesque little old cemetery, we also found some grassy parks at the top of Clifton hill with satisfying views of the bridge and the gorge.

Old cemetery near Victoria Square, Bristol

Detail on a gravestone

In the evening Chris and his two QNX colleagues Michael and Gary let me join them for supper at the Za Za Bazaar, an all-you-can eat place on the edge of the marina.

Today, I used a Bristol-Cardiff day return to meet Mum again, doing some shopping in Cardiff and taking a stroll through the old Arcades and past the snowdrops in Bute Park, the daffodils and magnolia trees not quite in flower yet. To my delight, in the chilly north wind, it was another fine, bright day.

I took the opportunity to participate in Evensong at the Cathedral, as I did this time last year, not once but twice, this time round, sitting in the "Quire" stalls on successive evenings, once on the south side, once on the north, hearing / watching both the girls' choir and the boys' choir sing under the carved stone arches. I listened to settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis by Moeran and Ridout, responses by Piccolo and Nixon, and anthems by SS Wesley and Holman. At this evening's service I joined in the Isaac Watts hymn O God Our Help In Ages Past (fine words), but I didn't know and can't remember the hymn I sang yesterday. I heard readings from Isiah, about the Beautiful Feet of them that preach the Gospel of Peace, and the passage about scapegoats and the Man of Sorrows, who is acquainted with grief. There was a tremendous pillar-shaking organ voluntary, which I haven't been able to identify, at the end of yesterday's service.

Bristol Cathedral

Tomorrow, once the conference is over, Chris and I return to Cardiff for the night.

Extreme sailing in the Bay

Sunday, September 2nd

That was the day that ten members of our family met at the Millenium Centre in Cardiff Bay (not to be confused with the Millenium Stadium in the city centre, the place I described in my previous post). International catamaran races were taking place on the water, the event advertised as Extreme Sailing. Music and the "cat" race commentary was being broadcast through loud speakers and the surroundings were crowded with people enjoying their day out. A merry-go-round (out of doors) and a very noisy break-dancing demo (indoors) were to hand. In the pedestrian area outside the Millenium Centre a once-a-year gourmet European food market was in business, selling paella, crêpes, Bratwürste, etc. I queued to buy a cheesy baguette slice from a couple from Montpelier, talking to them in French.

Alexander, who had brought his rugby ball along in case of an opportunity to play with it, was dressed in the Welsh colours that day. He went missing temporarily but had simply wandered off with Justin, my niece Rhiannon and their baby, Phoenix.

We wandered back towards town through the wide spaces of the Atlantic Wharf, a nicely landscaped development including a playground that kept the boys satisfied for a long time. Alexander scaled a climbing wall and his little brother Thomas wanted to copy him, saying, "Up! Up!"

In Cardiff's Millenium Stadium

This post should have been posted closer to Saturday, September 1, 2012. 

While I was staying with my mother, my daughter and her family came to Cardiff to see us there. On the afternoon of their arrival, Emma, Peter, the children and I (minus Great-Grandma) took a guided tour of the Millenium Stadium on Westgate Street, stomping ground of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the venue for football matches, car races, pop concerts and the like. The surface of the ground inside the stadium is modified accordingly, pallets of turf being brought in, for example, for the ball games. It takes three weeks for the grass to settle in and grow over the cracks between the pallets. Amazing. I'd had no idea.

The stadium can hold a crowd of over 70,000, with boxes at exorbitant prices for VIPs or rich people. We stepped into one overlooking the stadium where a table was laid for a formal dinner. One of our tour group found himself sitting in the Queen's seat in the stands, that had wider armrests than the others.

The tour had begun behind the souvenir shop (filled with items coloured red, mostly dragons); we were then shepherded into a small theatre to watch a 10 minute BBC documentary about the history and merits of the stadium, which confirmed our suspicions that rugby is not so much a sport as a religion in these parts. A recorded pep talk was broadcast in the home team's changing rooms as well, so that we could get a sense of the awe and drama of big match days. The coach's speech had the ring of Shakespeare's Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ... and if not proclaimed by an actor, by someone who should have been––Remember, boys, that although we come in here as individuals, we go out as a team!––and we were led along the corridors, via the press conference room, to do just that, to a recording of deafening cheers from the crowd, my grandson Alexander pretending all the way that he was wearing one of those numbered, red shirts. New team members inherit the shirts of their predecessors, apparently. After playing in an international match, they are awarded souvenir caps. We got to see the cup itself, too, the Holy Grail of Welsh rugby.

Two National Museums

Cardiff's National Museum is on Gorsedd Gardens Road

Within a week, I visited the National Museums in Wales (Cardiff) and Japan (Tokyo), both of them full of artworks worth discovering. What an education I got!

In Cardiff with my mother and sister (Feb. 9th) I chose to (re)visit the Davies' Collection of French art—such good taste, those ladies had—as well as my favourite British art by the neo-romantics John Piper, Paul Nash, and company (Graham Sutherland, Ceri Richards, Stanley Spencer, Barbara Hepworth ...) They had a whole room full of David Jones' pieces, wonderful! It struck me how similar to the Canadian David Milne's his art was. We spent some time in a retrospective exhibition of paintings and photographs of the Queen as well which included an excellent portrait of her by Karsh.

Welsh is easier to understand than Japanese

The collections in the Tokyo museum (Feb. 15th) looked less familiar! I saw terracotta figures (haniwa) made to protect a dead person's tomb or soul. In the next room were scrolls of Buddhist "scripture"; Buddhism came to Japan through Korea in the 6th century. Further on in the galleries was a 12th century painting of a Utopian scene entitled Nirvana, with echoes of the lion lying down with the lamb from Isaiah, but in this case the animals and humans in the picture, painted on silk, were encircling a reclining Buddha. It reminded me of what I'd seen in China, and the copies of poems by Bai Juyi were an even more direct link to that country, as was the tea ceremony paraphernalia, the Ming Dynasty cups and bowls.

Entrance to the TNM beside Ueno Park

I found rooms full of 16th century (Muromachi period) screen paintings, a lovely scene of Pine Trees on the Seashore for instance and another with birds, flowers, boats, waves, willows and a hunting scene. Then there was a Zen Buddhist screen, Moon and Plum Tree, simply done in ink. From the 17th century I saw beautiful folding screens featuring blossoming plum trees on gold leaf, adorned with peacocks, and an 18th century one told the allegorical story of four old men on an "outing," accompanied by riders on horseback and young servants who were pushing and pulling them up a steep slope and carrying them across a mountain stream.

The museum also had a large collection of Samurai armour. The Samurai were "strong and stoic," keeping their swords in lacquered scabbards. The "warrior class" of Japanese society in the old days played games like snap with painted scallop shells instead of cards, the shells kept in octagonal boxes. They played a so-called "Incense Game" requiring something like a chess board. They did play card games too; the cards were circular. Battledore and shuttlecock was a popular pastime and they also liked theatre with its Noh masks and elaborate costumes. In the permanent collection at the museum were many paintings of actors and "Beauties"––young women of the Pleasure District in their fashionable 18th century attire.

I saw some lovely watercolours by Hokusai and tiny, intricate ivory netuske as well as a large Map of All the Countries of the World, with Japan at the centre, of course, Australia featuring vaguely as part of Antarctica at the bottom.

I took a break for lunch, a tasty wonton soup served with tea for $10 in the peaceful museum restaurant outside the main building, then went to explore another floor of the museum, seeing lacquerware (an artform that dates back to 5000 BC!) with inlaid mother of pearl, iron sculptures of a snake, a lobster, and fish, of bronze quails and elephants that doubled as incense burners, and an ox. In the Edo period they loved collecting miniature objects: those Hina dolls that I mentioned in an earlier blogpost often had dolls-house furniture with tableware to match. Some of the dolls were made to nod their heads or dance in circles.

In the last gallery visitors were being encouraged to sit down and create their own design for a kimono. I did this too and was given a leaflet about the meaning of the patterns used on kimonos.

Near each museum (my blog is all about juxtapositions!) was a large public park, Bute Park and Ueno Park, respectively. The spring daffodils were starting to bloom in Cardiff; at the bottom of the hill near Ueno Station in Tokyo I walked past a lotus pond that had not yet sprung to life. I'd have to return in midsummer to see those flowers in bloom.

Reclaiming our cities for people

On Market Hill, in Cambridge

Since I visited Cambridge, England, and Cardiff, Wales, earlier this summer, I have been thinking how pleasant it would be if Ottawa and other North American cities followed the example of the British ones and eliminated more motor vehicles from the places where people congregate. As you walk towards and through Cambridge's central Market Square or along St. Mary Street in Cardiff, where cars once used to wage a continuous battle with pedestrians for priority of access, what you now hear is the sound of human voices and footsteps. What an improvement! Those are acceptable, tolerable, natural sounds; they do not raise your blood pressure. The air is easier on the lungs as well.

Four happy people walk down St. Mary Street, in Cardiff

In Cambridge we sat on a bench by the Guildhall and watched the people go by, very conscious of this quietness. In Cardiff I sat at an outdoor streetside coffee table noticing the same thing.

The only time when Ottawa's city core is reclaimed by the people is on Canada Day when the approaches to the War Memorial and the streets from Parliament Hill to the Byward Market are so thronged with partying crowds that it would be impossible for a vehicle to get through in any case. The only street that's permanently closed to traffic in downtown Ottawa is Sparks Street: "Canada's Most Unique Street" as it claimed to be (to our amusement as we discovered that there are degrees of uniqueness), when we first arrived here.

Where have the vehicles gone since they were forbidden access to the heart of the city in Cardiff and Cambridge? They have been diverted, of course. Driving into town now demands a bit of thought and planning, because you have to park around the edges and walk. Is that such a bad thing? People do get used to the idea when they discover how much more attractive their city has become since the ban on cars, and tend to stop complaining. My elderly mother told me yesterday that small vehicles––"shop mobility scooters"––have been laid on free of charge for the people who don't find walking so easy (although you have to know where to locate them). The city has obviously given this a good deal of thought, as can be seen from this leaflet. Of course it helps that the bus and rail network in and around Cardiff is very good, too.