Great Welsh Bus Pass Sketchcrawl #2 - X1 Bridgend to Swansea Bus

 

Yesterday saw me take a pass on the bus pass sketchcrawl because I had art group in the morning. Today though I had no prior engagements so I decided to take the bus into Swansea this time and follow my nose. The bus was due outside the railway station at 8:33. It was ten minutes late. That’s the way it goes, although it could have caused issues. I will come back to that.

The X1 service from Bridgen to Swansea and vice versa is the most useful service for me. It takes about 45 minutes from the bus stop outside my house to go either way.

I arrived at the Quadrant bus station in Swansea at about half nine. There was the same kind of miserable light drizzle I put up with in Cardiff on Monday, and so once again this really precluded any outdoor sketching. That doesn’t have to be a huge issue I Swansea any more than it is in Cardiff. My first thought was the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, and since that doesn’t open until 10 it gave me an opportunity to stop for a cappuchino. Very nice too.

There was a problem with the Glynn Vivian. They’re setting up a new exhibition in the main hall and so it really wasn’t possible to find anywhere I could sit down, get myself comfortable and make a sketch. So then I decided to head back to the bus station ad see if there was another destination I fancied. The answer was no, or rather, not one I thought would be worth a gamble on such a drizzly day. I did notice that there was a service to Carmarthen which was due out five minutes after the X1 arrived. If I’d been wanting to take this one, then my bus earlier having been ten minutes late would have scuppered my chances. Just something to bear in mind. Still, Carmarthen is a definite potential destination from Swansea, as is Brecon.

So I sketched the waiting X1 before it left. I think that it’s fair to say that in the three weeks since I’ve had my bus pass I’ve used more buses in Wales than in the previous 33 years since I passed my driving test. Using public transport is something I really enjoy when I’m abroad – granted, my number 1 preference is trams, followed by metros with buses in 3^rd. Mind you, it makes a difference that I’m not in a hurry at the moment.

One thing I’ve noticed is the number of passengers who use bus passes like mine. I don’t think I’ve been on a bus in the last few weeks where the majority of passengers have been paying customers. So I don’t really mind having the bus as the hero of my second sketch of this challenge.

Introducing the Great Welsh Bus Pass Sketchcrawl

One of the joys of getting older and turning 60 is that I’ve received my Transport for Wales Bus Pass. Any bus, any route, any time, within Wales. Bloody marvellous – thought I at the time and now, a few weeks later, I still do.

So, I’ve had this idea in my head now about seeing just how many good sketching sights I can visit using my pass. This idea I have rather grandiosely titled The Great Welsh Bus Pass Sketchcrawl.

The Great Welsh Bus Pass Sketchcrawl:1 Cardiff – Statue of Sir Gareth Edwards – St. David’s Shopping Centre, Cardiff.

If in doubt, Cardiff’s a good shout. I live in Port Talbot which is just over 30 miles away a you can usually do the trip by car from front door to parked car in about forty minutes. From the bus stop 20 years from my front door the journey took two buses – the X1 to Bridgend bus station followed by the X2 from Bridgend bus station to Cardiff. This combined journey took two hours. Now that’s not a huge issue when you have the time to do it. But it does suggest there’s going to need to be some degree of planning when I want to start going beyond my M4 corridor hinterland. That’s a bridge to cross when I get to it, though.

So I set off at 8:14 and arrived in Cardiff 2 hours later. By the time I got there it was drizzling. It’s one thing sketching in drizzle when you know there’s a good chance you may never come back to the place you’re trying to sketch. When you know that you are only two free bus rides away though it’s a different kettle of pysgod (Welsh for fish). A great choice would have been to pop into the National Museum of Wales – a fantastic art gallery and it has beautiful sculptures to sketch. That is, it would have been a great choice if the Museum was not ar gau on Mondays.

Well, my heart was set on sculpture, and I knew where there was a statue I’ve meant to sketch in the past but somehow never got round to. The St. David’s Shopping Centre is the biggest in Cardiff with over 150 shops. For the last 42 years it’s also been home to a statue of 1 of my heroes. As a lad growing up in the 70s, and very keen on rugby, Gareth Edwards – now Sir Gareth – was just about the complete player to me and there was only one way he could have been better to my point of view. I wish he’d played for England and not Wales. Mind you, he’d probably never have won the fifty three consecutive caps that he did if he'd been English – the so called ‘old farts’ in charge of England always seemed suspicious of such talent.

Sir Gareth, who was a brilliant schoolboy athlete and footballer as well as a rugby player, spent his club career playing for Cardiff, and also won caps playing in tests for the Lions in 68, 71 and 74.

As I said, the statue was put up in 1982, just a few years before I moved to Wales. It was made by sculptor Bonar Dunlop, about whom I am sad to say I know nothing other than he made this statue. It’s a good likeness too – I recognised who it was straightaway the first time I ever saw it.

With the sketch completed and a two hour journey home ahead of me I called it a day. Every journey has to start with a single step, they do say.