Culture in Cardiff

Down to Cardiff for a day out at the National Museum and Art Gallery.
As I'm dependent on public transport, there were two ways I could do this. One was to get up at the crack of dawn for the early bus from Hay to Brecon, change there for the Sixty-Sixty bus to Cardiff, and come back on the early bus from Cardiff. The other was to take the later bus into Cardiff, but risk missing the last bus from Brecon to Hay on the way back.
I took the early option. I don't want to look at my watch at Libanus again and realise I should be in Brecon bus station at that point (even if I did manage to catch the bus to Hay that time).
It was a lovely run down - the reservoirs were iced over, and there were frozen waterfalls by the side of the road up in the hills, and spotlights of sunshine turning the bracken orange on the moors.
The bus stop is just by Cardiff Castle, and the Art Gallery and Museum is just round the corner. A couple of weeks ago, a lady came up to Hay with leaflets promoting the Museum, which gave me the impetus to visit - they've just refurbished the art gallery, which has quite a good collection of Impressionist art. I've taken much more of an interest in Impressionist art since the Doctor Who episode featuring Van Gogh - there was one of his later works on show (and I'm sure I recognise the staircases in the Museum from that episode, when the Doctor and Amy were on their way to the Paris exhibition!).
The big thrill, though, when I got there, was the Monet. They have several pictures and, up close, they tend to look kind of blurry. Then I remembered an artist who used to try to sell his pictures of sailing ships at craft fairs when I lived in London - quite successfully, because of his patter, which went along the lines of "You really see it at it's best from about ten feet back...." So I started walking backwards, and sure enough, got to the point where the individual brushstrokes faded away and the picture sort of came into focus. My favourites were San Giorgio Maggiore by twilight, and Charing Cross Bridge, London - they also had several water lily pictures.
I happened to head for the ladies' at the same time as a school party of seven or eight year olds. "Oooh, these are very posh!" said one little girl as she went down the marble stairs in front of me. It sounded like the highlight of her visit!
From there it was a short step to the Evolution of Wales - some good little films of the formation of the Earth and the movements of the continents, lots of fossils, and films of volcanoes exploding, followed by dinosaur skeletons and a cute woolly mammoth that moved and trumpeted.
After a reviving cup of coffee and a toasted tea cake at the cafe (they also have a restaurant downstairs, but I only wanted a snack), I went into the Origins gallery.
This really was the highlight of my visit, starting off with hominid skulls and moving right the way through to an archer at the time of Agincourt. I found a lot of 'old friends' in there! As an archaeology student, I studied the 'Red Lady' of Paviland (who is actually a chap from the Mesolithic period, and red because of the ochre that was scattered on the body at the time of burial) - but I'd never seen the actual skeleton before. Likewise, I'd seen a copy of the Bronze Age Caergwrle boat (a gold and shale model which looks like half an Easter egg) but never seen the real thing before. They also had a Roman donkey mill from Clyro, just over the river! (The stones were moved by a donkey walking round and round). And there were more bronze axe heads than you could shake a stick at, and some lovely flint arrow heads, and an Iron Age cauldron.... I had great fun.
There was just time for me to wander round the Cardiff Christmas market (with singing Big Issue seller) before it was time for the bus home.
One small hold up was the sheep on the road just outside Cardiff. We watched in admiration from the bus as a policeman leapt the barrier in the middle of the road to chase the sheep - but it was finally cornered by a minibus full of soldiers who jumped out to help, and was last seen lying on the central reservation surrounded by police and soldiers.