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Penmanfest - otherwise known as the Helen World Tour [4]
Week 4 Part 1September 10After a very sociable breakfast with two English couples, I drove off along the road to Evesham in patches of sunshine. The rain had stopped in the night so the scenery was vastly improved. I had an interesting moment when I opened the car door in the morning and sniffed. Ooops, something didn't quite smell right. Then I remembered the Stilton and had to find a plastic bag for it!!! At Evesham I stopped to see the ruins of the medieval abbey but there is not much remaining to be seen. The town is very attractive though and I wandered around the shops for a while before heading off via Worcester and Leominster to Ludlow. Just outside Worcester I got a lovely view of the Brecon Beacons to the south - very impressive and they whet my appetite for a closer look in a few days when I get back around to southern Wales. At Leominster I stopped and found a shop to buy a loaf of bread to go with the Stilton for lunch - yum! Then it was on to Ludlow, one of the priorities for this visit and it is really a superb town to visit. On coming into the town centre I had to drive through a building! I should have a photo of this so you can see how the building has been built over a gate I expect. Parking was complicated but I succeeded eventually but had quite a walk up to the top of the hill to find the castle. Good for my leg muscles! Ludlow Castles had considerable extensions in Tudor times but there are still a lot of earlier medieval parts including a lovely Norman keep. The ruins are extensive and include about 100 steps up to the top for some gorgeous views to both the Welsh and English sides. After Ludlow I crossed into Wales while driving on a lovely road, the A489, through Kerry Vale to Newtown where I had arranged to have dinner with distant cousins on my grandfather's side. Christopher is a solicitor in Newtown and I easily found his office and was taken on a terrific tour of Montgomery Castle by a local who knew how to sneak around the back way and over the fence even though it was officially closed for the night. The little town of Montgomery, which is tucked beneath the castle, was also fascinating as Christopher was able to point out where past generations of family had lived, run businesses, been to school, and so on. Then it was on to Chris and Wendy's place in Bettws, near Newtown for a lovely meal and a chance to catch up on family trees. Their son, John, joined us for dinner then had to retire early due to an early start for work the next day. A large scale map of Australia was produced and planning commenced for a reciprocal visit to Australia. Wendy had prepared a lovely meal, including homegrown raspberries for dessert - yum!!! It was a lovely chatty evening and I enjoyed it greatly. September 11While we had been discussing family connections the night before, Christopher had pointed out that I have another second cousin, Michael, who lives just out of Chester. Since I was heading north, I gave Michael a call on the offchance that I could drop past and say hello. Fortuitously, he was having a day off and planning to do some things in Chester so we planned a rendezvous at the Victoria pub overlooking the Cross in central Chester. Michael highly recommended the 'park & ride' system rather than having me tackle central Chester and it was much simpler and cheaper that way. I arrived in Chester about an hour early, found the rendezvous pub very easily and wandered around the town for a while, finding an internet café for a while so I could sort out some banking and other messages. Chester is a very impressive walled town with many Tudor and earlier buildings (and many fake Tudor and later buildings!) I returned to the rendezvous at the appointed time only to be confused as there were two people wearing purple shirts near the entrance of the pub. Fortunately only one answered to the name of Michael so I was saved! After a pint of Boddington's at the pub we moved to a great restaurant called Chez Jules at the northern end of the town centre. It is definitely much more fun to eat out in these sort of places with a local who knows where the better food is to be found. During my Caesar salad and Chicken legs in red wine, we chatted about the family tree some more and Michael filled in some details about my great-grandfather. Michael is an ex- lawyer who is now running a gourmet deli in Tarvin, a village just out of Chester. So there was lots to talk about, even a bit about accounting! But two hours later I thought it was really time that I headed back and so I said goodbye with more suggestion that visits to Australia would be a good idea. I walked back to the bus stop via the wall ramparts to the north and east of the town finding some lovely old bookshops nestled in out of the way corners but being very restrained and not buying anything! Then I was off driving again heading west back into Wales and along the coast for a while with nice views across the water to Liverpool then heading up to Denbigh for a quick stop for a photo of the castle and along the A543 which is a road with stunningly beautiful views. I came into Betws-y-coad about 5pm and loved the mountain setting so decided to stay the night here. My B&B has three levels and I'm on the top in a cute room with a dormer window and views across the mountains, incredibly pretty. So far Wales has been hot and sunny, definitely t-shirt weather today. I hope this lasts! September 12It still wasn't raining in Wales when I woke up though there was a lovely mist covering the mountains. I headed off on the drive west into Snowdonia and down to Bethesda. This had been highly recommended by my cousin and was really worth seeing. I kept having to stop and get out and stare at the amazing scenery (and take the obligatory photographs!).
Beddgelert is a great village and had a nice gift shop with real, locally made products - fun! I couldn't resist a book about Welsh place names and their meanings. Then I drove on south through some more lovely passes, past little villages, lakes and foresty bits. Totally awesome! By the time I reached Machynlleth I needed a rest so walked along the main street checking out bookshops and other interesting places. They had a nice display of Welsh historical finds in their Celtica museum. According to their information Machynlleth used to be the capital city of ancient Wales but I will have to research this more as they were not specific about exactly when this was. I was running on schedule for my planned meeting with Simon/three silver threads among the gold so wandered down the west coast of Wales through Aberystwyth and Aberaeron (taking photos of the beach but it isn't like an Australian beach) before turning inland to Lampeter. Finding Simon's place was easy and as with meeting other email friends, it feels just as though you have known each other for years (well, of course we have). I needed to find a B&B so Simon walked with me up to the centre of the town (there isn't really a need to drive within the town area of Lampeter) via his University Campus. I learnt a lot about the university and inspected the castle ruins (some stonework and some earthworks) in the gardens. I still haven't worked out why the hockey field was brown. Any ideas anyone? Needing a place to stay led us into a pub (naturally) which was booked out. So we decided to have a drink while phoning other places. Simon's foresight meant that we were armed with the University's list of nearby accommodation which was a big help. After the first five or so places we phoned were found to be full, I was getting a bit worried. But then I tried a farm B&B and happily discovered that they had a room available (only because an Australian couple had just cancelled). The B&B was a couple of miles from town so I arranged to drive out there, drop off my things and come back to have dinner with Simon. This was all accomplished and after taking some photos of the rather extreme number of books and bookshelves at Simon's, we walked up to the Chinese Takeaway. This was my first chance to try Welsh Chinese food and the Chicken with Cashew nuts was really nice. You will notice from the photos that Simon's place is immaculately clean. How could this be for a University student I inquired? And yes, it did turn out that he had been cleaning up all day, but it looked really good. We talked about books, especially science fiction and fantasy, Simon's studies about Alexander the Great, Wales, the Welsh and all sorts of other things. It was Simon's first pifflefest and I hope he enjoyed it too. If anyone is planning to visit Simon and would like a B&B recommendation near Lampeter, try Coed Parc, a farm B&B run by Owena and Graham Uridge (grahamuridge@aol.com) about 2 miles from town. I really enjoyed it and was stunned by the synchronicity that Graham used to work in Western Australia on a farm near Narembeen. September 13After a lovely breakfast I drove back to Lampeter then eastward to Llandovery where I took a quick look at the castle ruin. Only earthworks and a bit of stonework remain here and strangely it isn't very high up, only a mound to climb.
There are many huge bookshops and they were fun to browse in. If I wasn't constrained by freight halfway around the world I could have become seriously overloaded with parcels. As it was, one of the charity shops in the town (yes, they also sell books) yielded a book I had been looking for to give a friend and at 65p it had to be considered a bargain. I bought another small, lightweight paperback for me just because I had to have it. Somehow about two hours seemed to vanish in bookshops, strange!
The Severn Bridge elicited a few moments of panic as I hate driving over bridges at the best of times. This one was way up in the air and I was stuck right on the left hand edge lane - scary. And it went up in the middle so you were actually climbing uphill which felt very strange. (Not to mention the cross winds!) A quick glance to the right as I was crossing showed Bristol to be rather big and unwelcoming from a distance so I had a quick change of plan and decided to head further on and stay overnight somewhere near Bath. On the road into Bath a B&B sign lured me to Cold Ashton, a tiny village on the Cotswold walking trail and Carol at The Chestnuts there was very welcoming. To my question of how I could best find a supermarket to stock up on food for the car, she directed me into the outskirts of Bath very easily - not bad for about 6.30pm and traffic everywhere. While I was shopping she asked if I would grab her some bread and milk and then when I successfully returned with these she offered me a beer so we had a lovely time chatting in the garden (in the sunshine!) for an hour or so. It was a lovely place to stay and is highly recommended. September 14
Just next door are the Roman Baths. This was a fascinating place to visit. A lot of the structure that you see on the usual picture postcard of the baths at Bath was constructed in the 1890s to 'display' the Roman baths when they were first excavated. The statues of Roman emperors, etc, all date from that time. Beneath these though is a labyrinth of more modern excavations which have been left as is and in situ. The whole area of temple and bathing rooms is much greater than I had expected.
Back to the car and the question of what to do for the rest of the day. I had spent about three hours in Bath so there was the whole afternoon left and I decided to drive across Somerset and into Wiltshire heading for Avebury and the stone circle there. It was a nice drive and included a great view of a 'white horse' at Cherhill. Avebury was well worth seeing although a sunny Saturday afternoon had brought out every man and his dog so it was a bit crowded. It was nice to see the locals out playing the regulation summer Saturday cricket match on the village green.
Then I decided to drive around to the south of Bristol to be well placed for my meeting with friend Karen on Sunday morning. So I drove through Devizes and down to a lovely B road that headed to Westbury. Along this road is the most glorious village called Erlestoke where I would happily buy a house if I could only win Lotto! At Frome, there was huge amounts of traffic and people everywhere. I discovered from the Tourist Information that this was due to an agricultural show in town this weekend so on their advice I headed to a B&B a little north at Woolverton. This could not be called a thriving metropolis, but the B&B is in the old schoolhouse and dates back to the 1860s so is interesting. The nearby pub, The Red Lion (2nd most popular pub name I think after all The Black Bulls) provided a pint of Guinness and now I 'm settled down for the night, catching up with my journal and emails and continuing to make a dent in the Glenlivet which must now be two weeks old. Better drink it quickly in case it goes off. Week 4 Part 2September 15I drove into Bristol early on Sunday morning and had no problems finding Karen's place at Downend. Then we went into the city to see the sights. Karen showed me the 16th century school where she is working and which is next to the fabulous old Cathedral.
I took Karen back home without getting lost (Bristol reminds me a lot of Perth city: similar size, a fair number of post-1945 buildings and the port part which is very like Fremantle). Then I headed south through the city centre again and on through Shepton Mallet to Glastonbury. Then I found the tiny road out to Butleigh Wootton, a nearby village where an Australian friend lives. Suzie moved here about four years ago and has been living in an atmospheric 400 year old stone cottage since. I was absolutely taken by it, especially the huge wooden beams in the ceiling that you can touch, the gorgeous garden where we sat out and had lunch in the Sunshine and the lovely little staircase that lives in a cupboard. There are birds everywhere and bunnies that live in the garden. I went out to take some photos of the garden (including the cyclamen growing wild under the trees) and three rabbits hopped away into the bushes when they saw me. Suzie's village is in a mobile phone free hollow and her real phone was out of order so it was a bit like being separated from the modern world. Though I could always have walked a few hundred yards up to the top of the nearest hill to make the mobile work. I felt the need for a lazy Sunday afternoon so called up on the sitting room couch for some reading and snoozing while Suzie had some work to do. Then we had a late dinner of chicken pasta with some lovely Australian red. September 16This morning looked like being another glorious day. I was woken most prettily by all the birds chattering in the garden and sorted myself to head off on a Somerset ramble. I drove through Glastonbury first but it was too early for anywhere to be open so I headed out to Wells instead. Here I had a quick look at the Cathedral but scaffolding was decorating the main façade unfortunately. From Wells I drove out to Wookey Hole and took a tour of the cave. This was fun and interesting to compare with our caves at home. There weren't as many stalactites and stalagmites as we have but the caverns were bigger and grander. The guide told a story of Alexander Pope arranging for men with muskets to shoot down a whole group of stalactites so that he could use them to decorate a grotto at his home - vandal! The cave tour leads into a tour of the papermill nearby and also has a display of old pier amusement machines. Then I drove on to Cheddar and the rather spectacular gorge there. I drove right through the gorge which was excellent, especially the parts further away from town where there were no other cars. There were a lot of interesting looking tourist shops in the part nearest the town but I decided that paying 2.50 pounds to park just so I could spend money in the shops was probably not a good idea.
I had a look at the Glastonbury shops which are mostly pretty alternative. Lots of incense, crystals, relaxation music, etc. There is a huge secondhand bookshop called Book Barn where I could have gone crazy were it not for the luggage limitations. I headed home to Suzie's to get ready for dinner out on the town later - she promises that the Chinese Restaurant is good. :-)
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