There’s a bleak, edgy beauty to the coast off Cardiff’s Splott and Tremorfa.
The city merges with nature as centuries of industrial & domestic detritus blend and clash with wild moorland and mud flats.

Panorama of the beach just opposite Tremorfa Tesco

Wild edible Sea Astor covers the moors.
Not sure what kinds of factories were here before, nor what kind of shite has washed down the River Rhymney into these plains, so I’m resisting the urge to have a free salty salad.

The beach is full of half-buried old bricks, stamped with the names of long-gone Welsh industrial ghosts.
They spark thoughts of the life that used to team around the factories, docks, pubs & terraces which are now bland industrial units.

Oh and there’s horses everywhere, too. When they’re not munching salty grass they can sometimes be seen pulling traps round the streets of Adamsdown & Splott.

And the whole area is dominated by behemoths like the Celsa factory & the incinerator, all within belching distance of 100s of houses and around 5 schools.

To cap off a lovely little lockdown cycle ride, and to illustrate the strange little twists thrown up by life in Splott, a steam-powered car called “The Pirate” just drove by.

The coast of Industrial Cardiff has been explored & documented wonderfully by @JonPountney1.
Seeing one of his exhibitions in the Senedd got me hooked on my local beach.
Check his blog out http://www.jonpountney.co.uk/projects/work-progress-splott-foreshore/

And my colleague @Des_Fitzgerald has done a lovely Radio 4 spoken postcard about Splott Beach itself.
A place which ranks, he reckons, among the worst beaches in the world, but which simultaneously holds people fascinated & drawn to return. https://twitter.com/des_fitzgerald/status/1254436407889874944?s=21

Wow, ppl like this kind of stuff better than moans about propaganda and hating on the Tories, who knew?