I can't believe I'm so far behind!!!!...

Thursday, 9th June

We are still here, but we haven't enjoyed the same level of internet access we thought we'd get. I did a couple of posts by doing them in word, and then copy/paste them, but I really prefer to try and do them spontaneously, even if they are late!

So, at least to bring you up to where we are physically, it is now Kent and we are at a place called Wateringbury, near Maidstone. Yet another Premier Inn, but we'd done what we wanted to do near London, and so cancelled one night and got another here. They are very good on cancellation if you let them know before midday.

This one tonight at least has a different option for dinner, and one we haven't had in a Pr. Inn before, so we are looking forward to the change in menu.

Today's trivia:

1. in getting here today we have driven over 3,600 miles ( 5799 kms) ish., since we picked up the car at the beginning of April!!!

2. we are still under budget!

3. all English ham is good

4. they still haven't got coffee down pat yet. Some places are good, but at most others, you may as well have a cuppa tea.

5. most cars are dark colours

Forest of Dean and Puzzlewood, and Gloucester...

Tuesday, 17th to Thursday, 19th May - (Big catch-up)

Lee had always wanted to see the forest of Dean, and we headed that way, but it was pretty complicated, and we had to do double backs and stuff to get on our way, like heading North to get to a roundabout to go South!!

Still, the roads aren't bad but they should definitely ban semi-trailers from these smaller roads!

The forest is lovely, and we decided to head for a place called Puzzlewood, which was used in the Harry Potter films, and it is an area of woodland of about 7 acres, and the most amazing/ strangely-weird/ spooky place we've ever seen. There are no arrows to guide you through, and so many ways you can go, with rickety little bridges and meandering paths, and very spooky little hollows and tree trunks. Just so different, and you can understand why they use it in movies.

 Our photo's won't do it justice, as Gordon's camera seems to compensate for darkness, and it is much darker and more sinister than it might look, but so much fun too that we were in there for an hour! 
The other part of the forest has all those close-together trees, and you can imagine Harry, Ron and Harmonium running through them.

On to Gloucester, and the Edward Hotel. I can't remember asking on-line for a ground floor room, but we got one, which was actually two bedrooms, so we were able to spread out a bit. It is on the main road, and about a 10 minute walk to the centre of the city, dominated by the cathedral, which seems to float ethereally above the town, and with the colour of the stone, looks like a painting.

Wednesday, 18th

Lee had arranged herself to go into the Records Office to do some research, and so we walked down and I left her there, and went to do some shopping and try for a haircut.
(Bad idea, as it turned out to be one of the worst haircuts I've had, and even a few weeks of new growth hasn't helped)

Managed to get some new trousers and some other bits and pieces, plus a small pair of binoculars to use on the cruise.

Thursday, 19th

Lee went back to do some more things and we met up at lunchtime and walked to the cathedral, and had some lunch in a place called The Comfy Pew. Nice tart of Gloucestershire cheese and red onion,with salad.

The cathedral is abs. beautiful, and some of the detail in the stonework is like filigree, and quite delicate. Inside is magnificent, and the East window is the size of a tennis court, and some beautiful fan-vaulting in the cloisters, also claimed to have been used in Harry Potter, but we've heard that in other places. I suppose it would be easy to check location filming on-line.

The city is a mix of periods, with some old and new, including some Tudor black and white.

 Gloucester is very nice, but to my mind is quite dirty and some parts badly neglected and tired looking. Not my favourite city by any means.

We used the bus a couple of times and the drivers are always very helpful, and cheery. But the rest is walking and I guess we aren't used to doing so much for such extended periods. Trouble is as I might have said, you cannot park anywhere near where you want to go, and so you simply have to walk. The English must have been used to it for all this time, and we are often amazed at the stamina of people much older than Lee and I!

 Dinner at the local pub down the road, and not a bad steak, but like so many places, served with enough chips to feed a family.

Noticing things...

It is probably the same for most countries, but I said to Lee at dinner tonight, that I had noticed more people in the UK who used WALKING STICKS, walking frames, motorised scooters, and/or who had some form of walking aid. I know there is a bigger population here, but every day you see so many.

DOGS. I have never seen so many dogs in my life. Everywhere you go there are people walking dogs, of every description!!! They are allowed on many forms of transport. Hotels and other accommodation places allow them into rooms and lobbies, and everywhere.  They ride on trains, buses, and ferries, and appear in every place we've been, from stately homes to grand gardens, to shopping centres, on most beaches, in all parks that we've seen.
Don't get me wrong, I love dogs, but they seem to dominate peoples lives in so many ways.
As for cats, I think I've seen three!! 
(Cats are OK in their place, they just haven't dug all the places yet!!!) Old joke.

Most small CHILDREN we've seen in hotels and restaurants are extremely well behaved, and when you watch some families, and the way they interact with their kids, it's lovely to see.

QUEUES are something else. Do not try and jump one, and get ahead of everyone else! If you do you will receive glares of the most horrendous kind, and you quietly get back in line. People expect to queue and that's that.

DRIVERS. Whilst the practice is not necessarily restricted to the UK, there are some drivers here who seem to cruise along, thinking that nobody else might be on the road. And when many of these roads are barely wide enough to accommodate one car comfortably, it makes for some pretty hairy situations! Then there are those "roads", which are really small one-lane tracks, through which you have to drive, and the only way you will get past the on-coming driver, is to stop and wait and hope he/she can squeeze past you, or use a passing place. These are no more than small areas to one side of the road into which you can pause, to let someone pass. 


When this country had no more traffic than horses and carts, it might have been enough, but with these tiny villages, you still get trucks driving through them!! 
I am totally surprised we haven't yet lost a side wing mirror.

Also, there is always someone on a bicycle, there is always a young mother pushing a child in a pram, and very sadly, (in most of the bigger towns and cities), there are people sitting around begging and/or drinking from bottles in brown paper bags.


More soon...

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.