Wales

As a last hurrah before the baby, Jim and I took a week long trip to Wales. I have to recognize our friend Tony, who is Welch and gave us all the tips we needed about where to go. On his advice, we went to the Brecon Beacons, which is a national park in South Wales. We stayed on a farm (Alltybrain farm--google it because it's a lovely place and the owner, Rose, is wonderful!)

Anyway, here is the account of our latest adventure: Wales!

One important lesson that we should have learned a long time ago (but we are a little slow) is that one should not travel without a car on Sunday in Britain. It just complicates things. SO, of course, we made plans to arrive in Wales on Sunday. It was slightly an epic journey, as we had to take a train from London to Cardiff, then switch to a train which took us to Merthyr Tidfil (don't know if I spelled that right), then rush to get a bus which left a few minutes after our train arrived and took us to Brecon, where we then had to call a cab because in a small town like Brecon the car rental place isn't open on Sundays. Fortunately, the farm was worth the effort and when we got there we were greeted by two very friendly dogs, two horses, a pony and a multitude of chickens, ducks and guinea hens. The chickens were very eager to come inside the house.


We had never seen black ducks before.


The views from our cottage (Duck Cottage) were spectacular from every angle. Out of one window we had the horses and pony and behind them were rolling green hills dotted with 'cows that chase people'(we opted not to go for a walk in that direction). Out the other window, we look over to hills in the distance and below on sheep grazing. Rose has a beautiful garden area outside her house, where the ducks were swimming and a ram was hanging out. The chickens were ever present and we decided they thought we were going to feed them.




We were pretty tired after all the traveling, but decided to walk a little and stretch our legs. There wasn't too much shoulder on the road that runs along the farm, but we made it to the public walking trail and wandered around a little bit, enjoying our first experience of Wales. At some points, the trail was a little obstructed, but we managed to perservere!Climbing under a tree while 7 months pregnant takes mad skill.

Shadows and fall in Wales:

An alternative view of my girth. My pants actually got tighter during the week we were in Wales, which was pretty impressive. We also spent many hours watching my stomach make movements worthy of the Alien movie. This baby is active!

On our second day, the weather wasn't so great and we needed to rent the car and buy the groceries, so we headed into the small town of Brecon. The car rental was a little bit of a debacle. Once you've been in the UK for two years you are supposed to get a UK license. We haven't quite been here two years officially, but Jim didn't know about that rule so he said he had been her OVER two years (thinking that would make him seem to be a more competent UK driver). On the contrary...they told him they couldn't rent to him. So I put on my most innocent face and said that I hadn't been here as long as he has (which is true)and managed to secure the rental under my name. Lesson learned: never disclose that you LIVE in the UK when renting a car in the UK and use your foreign accent to your advantage.

Leaves on a pond in Brecon:


Jim in a coal train. Yeehaw!I didn't read the description very thoroughly, but there was something about the longest railway in the world posted next to this cart.


Here's an interesting fact. Hedgerows are made by trimming trees so that they grow sideways. The branches make the hedge. We never knew that before, but now we are VERY familiar with hedges, as all of the extremely narrow country roads in this part of Wales are closed in by hedgerows, which makes it incredibly challenging to use the road as a two-way bypass. Another challenge is sharing the road with hedgetrimmers, which are huge tractors used to trim the hedges. They take up the entire road, so when there isn't a slight shoulder or off road, it's necessary to back down the road until you find one. We spent a lot of our time backing down narrow country roads, as tis the season for hedge trimming, apparently.


On Tuesday, the sun came out:



and Jim had to tie my shoes for me because I couldn't get to them myself:


We decided to do some walking through some woods and then over some moorlands. Our first walk was a 'waterfall walk.' (please note, concerned parents, that these were pregnant lady level walks...pretty short and easy!) We parked our mountain conquering, lime green vw beetle and headed up the trail.

Jim was in photographer mode.

And, as usual, I was complying with all photography requests and taking things very seriously:

The waterfalls were really impressive and beautiful and we felt like we were in Norway when we walked through the mossy woods.



This picture was an experiment with shutter speeds (obviously taken by Jim. I'm not that high tech):


This is my interpretation of a "moss monster" (as requested by Jim)


Jim loves to take pictures and he also loves to read maps. Here he is trying to identify our exact location on this hiking map of Wales.


Our second walk of the day took us out of the woods and the waterfalls and across the moors, which, in this case, were rolling hills spotted with haybales and with various dips down to ponds and horses.

We had a picnic and as I was trying to sit down on the ground, my center of gravity failed me and I toppled over. We forgot to bring hats, but my awesome green Tulane sweatshirt (courtesy of Kate and Andy) kept me toasty, despite making me look like a gnome.

Jim clambered onto a haybale.

I wasn't so successful.

The scenery was beautiful, as usual.


We walked slowly up a very big hill. The views down were worth all the huffing and puffing.


At the top, we were higher than this military plane! There is a lot of military action in this part of Wales and parts of the area are marked on the map as "danger zones" because that's where they do a lot of military training. This is another interesting fact that I did not know and if Jim wasn't so knowledgeable about military things, I would have thought the dangerous areas were dangerous because of avalanches or something. Jim is smart.


Now it's time for the most important part of this blog: MY BIRTHDAY!!! We didn't bring the birthday hat with us, but I still got to do what I wanted. I slept in a little and was greeted with a warm and toasty and wonderfully colorful Welsh wool blanket that Jim got me. Kate and Andy also got me a really nice blanket and the baby got the awesome Kate quilt and ANOTHER quilt made by Earlene (I will take a picture of it at a later time). So we all will be able to wrap up and keep warm.

I also got another really great gift from Jim: a prenatal massage. So I felt very spoiled. And then...he cooked me breakfast! There was much rejoicing:

We had french toast, bananas and grapefruit. With cinnamon and sugar and lyle's syrup (which is awesome and delicious and everyone should get some).


After all that food, we had no other option but to go for a walk. But first we wanted to visit a castle. Alas, it was closed (but JIm still took some pictures):


This pretty much sums up the driving experience in rural Wales. We were pulled over first for a hedge trimmer and then for a 'lorry' (the UK term for 18 wheeler. It took me a while to figure out that they were one in the same. I kept expecting a lorry to be something like a milk truck.)This road was wide compared to some of the others we drove through.

My birthday walk was to and from a reservoir. It was a beautiful day and I was feeling very happy!

Jim was happy, too. The dam behind him was our destination. It is famous because Prince Harry repelled down it some years ago as part of an adventure camp. As a result, there are a lot of signs around that remind you that repelling down the dam is strictly forbidden.


There are a lot of sheep in Wales. Even the occasional black sheep! We never grew tired of making 'black sheep' puns while wandering through Wales.


When we got to the dam, Jim preferred the reservoir side, while I enjoyed peering over the actual dam.



Punk sheep:

Grazing sheep:

And,as usual, we picked up a cat along the way:


Alas, all good things must come to an end, but my birthday wasn't over until we went out for a yummy dinner with delicious desserts (creme brulee for me and chocolate fondant with ice cream for Jim and me). We forgot to take pictures inside, but don't I look satisfied here?


The day after my birthday, the weather once again got bad and then it got cold, so we decided to head to Tony's other required destination: Hay-on-Wye (Wye is the river...not sure about the Hay part). This is famous book town where there is a huge book festival every year. According to our Wales book, the book town is totally booked for the book festival (har har) until 2011 or something. It wasn't the book festival while we were there, though, so we could peruse the village amongst a relatively small crowd.

The River Wye. On a small trail along the River, there were great leaves to kick and shuffle through.


I think this may have been the day that I became suddenly aware that my maternity jeans were cutting off my circulation:

When we walked into Hay-On-Wye, we were surrounded by honesty bookstores--outdoor bookstores, where the buyer is trusted to put his/her payment into a jar. It's a pretty cool concept and we enjoyed the outdoor bookshelves:

Inspired by impending parenthood, we ended up getting the Oxford Anthology of nursery rhymes (totally inappropriate for reading to a small child as it contains the original versions of a lot of the poems, which are pretty violent and bawdy. We thought it was hilarious and were entertained for hours.) We also got Grimm's fairy tales and a really old Dr. Doolittle book with great pictures.


After a long day out in the wet and chilly weather, Jim built us a fire:


And there was nothing left to do but play a few intense games of Spit. There was money involved. I won 3 pounds.



On our final day in Wales, we ended with another reservoir walk. I forgot to to take pictures, so the pictures are all, unfortunately, of me. Jim was there, too, though!


We think maybe these were wild ponies...but we could just be having romantic notions.



We're back in London now and Wales is fading into a distant memory. Jim is already sleep deprived and I have allowed irritating people affect my mood (and then made the mistake of taking the bus with a bunch of groceries, which was a nightmare. At least no one made me get out of the 'seats for people who have difficulty standing' because I think I was giving off 'I'm pregnant and angry' death glares). Ah London. We love it anyway.