Wales

Day Five

We finally left for North Wales at around 2pm in the afternoon.  My Aunt had given us a bacon sandwich for lunch and a packed lunch full of health English crisps and chocolate.  Yum!

Once on the motoway, and just out of Leeds, we called Nerys, my friends on the farm, to let them know that we were around three hours away.  Only to be informed that Leeds was in fact more like 5 hours away, and we wouldn't be there until after 7pm.  Not good news, and the drive was long and awful.  And as soon as it was my turn to drive, it poured with rain.  To this point, there hadn't been a day when it hasn't rained here in the UK.

We reached the farm by 6pm, an hour earlier than expected, and the evening jetlag started to set in.  Nerys had prepared a divine lamb roast - one of their own lambs from their fields up in the mountains.  And then an evening by the fire, catching up on each others news.  Please note - the "by the fire" bit - in the middle of summer???!

Day Six

Today, Sarah and I were far too exhausted to do anything.  The family, Nerys, Glyn, Robin, Catrin and Lois all continued with life as usual, while Sarah and I sat at home, by the fire, catching up on emails and text messages and a little bit of Wimbledon.

Nerys wasn't back in time, so I did the 3:30 school run, and picked Lois up from the primary school in the tiny little town of Morfa Nefyn.  It was funny being in the UK still, but in a town where everyone spoke Welsh, which sounds so foriegn.

When Lois and Catrin were both home, Sarah and I played cards with them for the rest of the afternoon.  Still raining so except for the tiny tour of the farm yard from Lois, any form of outdoors activities was completely out of the question.

Day Seven

Today was our last full day in Wales, and so we had to do things.  We had planned out our route the night before, and were set for a day of exploring.

First stop, we went to Caenarfon Castle, in a town about 40 minutes away.  It was here that the Prince of Wales was crowned his title, and there was a great exhibition on the even which was in about 1980ish or something.  Maybe?  There was a great museum also on the Welsh army.  The castle itself, except for these two exhibitions, wasn't overly spectacular.  I did get some great photos of the village below though.

From here we planned to drive across the peninsula to Portmerion.  This is a cute little Italian resort type place, which was built in about 1950ish [sorry for my lack of accuracy on dates] to prove that developments could be done without negatively effecting the local fauna and flora.  It is a very beautiful place, and also quite strange in its surroundings.  I have many photos, but I'm sorry, can't show you any at this point.

There is also china produced in Portmerion, and there were many beautiful shops selling all their different things, mugs, teapots, giant soup dish things.  You may or may not know my weakness with fine English china, and will be please to know that I did not purchase any!  Mostly as my suitcase is already to full, and far to heavy.

From Portmerion, we were very close to the little busy town of Porthmadog, and so had a quick look through there, and also stopped off at Criccieth on the way back to the farm.  There were some great antique shops, and nearly bought myself some antique jewlery.  Such a beautiful village but still raining!  Nerys Mum and Dad live near Criccient also, and so we dropped in quickly to have a cup of tea before heading back to the farm.  There is always a laugh to be had with Gwylim and Eleanor, with the many funny stories she tells.  Nice to see them again.

Once back at the farm, Sarah went on the back of the motorbike for the tour of the farm, and to check a few animals and round up a few sheep.  I didn't go out this time, but have done before.  Besides, it was still raining!

We had a late night, but were due for an early morning.  Glyn helped us plan out our trip down to Bath for the next day.  Wasn't looking forward to this drive, as I have done it before, and it is an all day journey.  For this reason Sarah wanted us on the road at 7am!!!!!

Its always sad to leave Wales.

All from Wales say hi - Nerys is trying to talk Glyn into coming to Australia, there is the odd cattle trip down under which he may be interested in doing.  Nerys is not so much interested in the cattle, but maybe we will see them here sooner than we think.