Monmouth and the old bridge...

Tuesday, 17^th May – (Catch-up)

Ian, from the B & B, suggested we check out Hampton Court (Hereford) garden, but as we drove past, the sign indicated it would not open until 10.30, and we were passing it at 9.30am, so we decided to go on to Monmouth, and later the Forest of Dean, on the way to Gloucester. 

The A466 was a bit windy and narrow in parts, but quite scenic, and we went through a little village called St.Weonards, and had a good giggle about that one.

Monmouth is a beautiful town, and the main street id quite wide, which makes a nice change, (especially after having seen a program on TV about the “death of small businesses in the High Street”, it didn’t seem to have affected Monmouth!  In a long main street of about half a mile, there were only three empty shops, and two of these had already been re-let, whilst in the third, there were people inside, discussing a possible layout).

 

Good coffee at a place called Coffee #1, and a walk along the main street. At the bottom of the street, there is an old bridge, upon which is a medieval gate (archway/gatehouse), right in the middle of it, the Monnow Gate, and is supposed to be the only surviving medieval bridge in Britain. The gatehouse/bridge was built in 1270 across the river Wye, and was called Pont Mynwy in Welsh. 

Powys and Leominster...

Monday, 16^th May – (Catch-up)

POWYS CASTLE

Seemed to be a lot of traffic through Berriew this morning, and we were told there was a market day in Welshpool. Lots of local farmers seemed to be taking livestock in small trailers. We drove into Welshpool but could see no evidence of the market and assumed it must be elsewhere in the town.

On to Powys, and was initially taken aback with the prospect of a very long walk from the car park, but the road winds around a bit and it isn’t too far. There were already lots there waiting for the opening, and we had reciprocal entry rights through our National Trust membership. (Well worth having if you intend going to  more than a couple of properties).

 

Found an Aussie girl working for the N.T. and she said she’d knocked on their door for a couple of years before she got the job in the garden centre.

Had a coffee first, and then ventured out to the gardens. These are open from 11.00am, which seems late to me, and the castle not until 1.00pm, so we decided we would not be here for the castle, as it would make us too late for the rest of our journey later in the day.

The gardens are magnificent, and some of the Yew trees date back to 1610! The terraces are beautifully managed and descend a long way down to the lower areas of the garden. Beautiful plants everywhere, and some we’d never seen, along with different varieties of those we knew. 

We ended up spending 2 hours at Powys, and they are so well maintained. You can tell the difference in the plants, just because they have so much more rain (usually), than we do.

On to Leominster (pronounced-  lemster ), which pronunciation we got from two different sources. The road in and out of Wales and Shropshire was quite good, and after a small bit of getting lost finding the B & B, we arrived at Rossendale Hall, which is very nicely done, but our room was right at the top, and again on a main road, hence the triple glazing to cut out the noise. (These small towns might not be suited to vehicular traffic, but they still have trucks and semi’s driving through them!)

Very nice dinner at a hotel called the Dukes Head, which had formally been a Post Office, and the theme was carried through in the decor, with some old ‘pigeon holes’, and letter sorting signs.

Our 'loft' in Rossendale Hall B & B

We didn’t sleep well as we had hard lumpy pillows again. (Is it so hard to get sameness in pillows used in accommodation?)

Caernarfon Castle, and Berriew...

Sunday, 15th May

We were not going back to see Gwenda, so we decided to have a look at Caernarfon Castle, which is another thing we’d missed last time. What a place!

It’s huge, and goes on and on, with turrets, and walkways and tunnels, and spooky rooms, and windows and those things you would have shot arrows from, and dungeon-looking passageways. Just amazing, and well worth the time, even tho it was drizzling. 

After the castle we headed off for Welshpool via Porthmadog, and the road was good if not a little winding in parts, with more wonderful mountain scenery, and stopped for lunch at Dolgellau at a little cafe, which was so busy we shared a table with a couple who were bike-riding through the area.

Our overnight stay was the Lion Hotel in Berriew, (pronounced berry-you), which is not far from Powys Castle, which we had wanted to see. Berriew is a lovely little village of tudor-style houses, and a grand church, with a sparkling river running through the village. Very nice dinner that night in the hotel’s restaurant, but this would be one of those expensive stays! 

We're back!!! (at least for a short time)...

Friday, 13^th May – (BIG Catch-up)

After Lancaster, we decided to drive straight on to Bangor, as it wasn’t worth stopping again.

We had booked into another Premier Inn, but with their directions and our going astray, we ended up in the university grounds, and wound our way through a very narrow road towards the Menai Bridge, and by pure chance found the Premier Inn, when we had despaired of finding it.

No signal on our phone and no access to my mobile broadband, and the girl at reception said it was the area! I did get a phone signal if I stood outside the front door of the restaurant building, but that was about it. (Now wonder if it was an earlier version of them “blocking” the networks of other servers, like that which happened later in Bristol)

Had our usual nap, and then bit the bullet and rang Gwenda, and hoped she wouldn’t mind if we didn’t stay with her. Thankfully she was as relieved as much as we were because David was very ill, and under the circumstances, it would be better if we didn’t. So we organised to go on the next day, Saturday 14^th. Lee and I felt so much better, and as it turned out, it would have been the worst thing, both for them and for us.

Saturday, 14^th

Before we went to our friend’s house, we decided to go out and have a look at Holyhead, which we hadn’t done last trip. It is the ferry port for trips across to Dublin, and the port is huge and there was this enormous catamaran-type ferry which we saw leaving. It was quite windy and cold, and after a bit of a look around, we drove back to Bangor. The road across the island is very good and apart from a small detour for road works, it doesn’t take long, and so we found our way to David’s place.

David was not well at all, and was very glad to see us, but he was not at all the same man, and when at one stage I went upstairs to see him, he said he wanted to go, but was worried about the family.

We had as good a day with Gwenda as we could, and a lovely lunch which she had insisted on making, and about 4.00pm we left.  We had also finally met their son Chris, and he was not coping very well at all, and his girlfriend Michelle said she was shocked at the dramatic change in David, as she had not seen him for a week.

David went into a coma the next day, and never recovered, and died on the following Thursday, the 19^th. We didn’t hear until we got an email from Chris on the Saturday, which was nice of him to do under the circumstances.

(We haven’t heard how things were done for the funeral our anything, but David wanted his ashes scattered up in his beloved hills,)

It was very sad leaving Gwenda there, knowing we would most likely never see her our the family again, but we had to move on.

I was wrong...

We are in St. Mawes, Cornwall, and the internet reception does not exist where we are staying, so I am sitting in the car, overlooking a view across the water to Falmouth, which apart from one pub in the town that has wi-fi, is the only place I can get a signal. So, I AM writing it all up in a word document and hope to copy/paste it across when we get to somewhere with better reception.

Til then, off to Penzance and Michael's Mount tomorrow.