The Bells of Rhymney

Cardiff is a great place to live. There's a lot happening and sometimes there's too much to do. Last weekend saw the annual 'Made in Roath' open house festival at the same time as the scaled back one day Dwm Swn and I later found out that there was Scardiff a Horror convention which I would have been interested in. I popped into Spillers earlier that week and asked Ashli Spillers if she was doing anything to do with 'MiR', to which I got a blank look. It's a testament to how vibrant Cardiff is that even someone who is slap bang in the middle of the cultural life of Cardiff wouldn't know that something so major was going on.  With these options open to me, and with it being literally off my front door I went for 'Made in Roath'. I always mean to do more MoR but never get a chance. This year I upped my involvement, helping out at the Buddhist Centre on Saturday morning and putting some paintings into the exhibition there.

'Made in Roath' by its very nature is cheerfully shambolic. It consist of some organise events and the denizens of Roath opening their homes for a variety of art exhibitions and performances. Very middle class Guardian reader but that's me to a tee. We went to the Sho gallery to see the Open Exhibition, which again I have some work in, I get around don't I? We had some welcome guests so we did have to reign in some of our ambitions for the weekend, but I did get to see some great woodcut prints. The Sunday we did go to a Ghost Story evening at the home of the people who publishing The Ghastling magazine. The room we gathered in could best be described as cosy, which helped with the atmosphere. They also had footage of a roaring fire on the TV which was a nice touch, and weirdly I could almost feel some heat from it. I enjoyed the scene setting MR James story but after also punting in a 9 mile run that day and sitting on the floor my right leg went to sleep (which is no reflection on the quality of the reading) and when I got up I lurched forward like Frankenstein's Monster and fell against the wall. We left after the first hour, simply because we'd had a full old weekend and a beer in the Albany beforehand perhaps wasn't the wisest move.

So it was lovely and a bit thrown together but showed Cardiff in a fantastic light. I've got some plans for my own open house next year.