The Latest Walk

A little further Up the Valley there is the tiny village of Ystradgynlais. It really is miniscule but it is also the proud possessor of a beautiful range of waterfalls. It was my ambition to reach the first of them today. Not easy with small ones as I am sure a lot of you know.

This is one of my favourite spots on the whole walk. A truly massive boulder juts out into the river and it is a great spot for photos.

The path that lies beside the river is an old tram road. Not trams as in San Francisco trams, the industrial trams that bore either anthracite coal or ironstone. I don't know which. Above is one of the several mine shafts that are scattered along the walk.
Rose was interested and listened attentively to my brief history of child labour in British mining. Lily was more concerned that any resident dragons were not woken up and got quite narked at V for whooping into the darkness.

Posing Rose

Further evidence of the industrial history of the area. Marks showing where the tramlines were held down. V thinks I am a bit nerdy for putting this in. But places like this just bring history boiling to life in me. My father was a miner, as was his father and all the way back. History is teeming all around us. It does not seem remote to me.

We did not reach the waterfalls. It was quite optimistic to think we would really. Instead we turned back at Eden's first demand to be carried and drove off to Rhigos. The van man was guaranteed to be there on half term holidays and we had hot dogs seasoned with fried onions, mustard and hunger and an ice creams with hundreds and thousands and fluorescent pink sauce. Yum.

Ashburnham - a few pics

I can imagine Mr Darcy swooping over this bridge in his barouche.

Capability Brown was fond of the odd water feature...

This is a distant view of the stables.
I guess their horses were v high maintenance.

The family church.
We don't have our meetings in there,
we have them in the main house

The main house.
This was once three stories high all along,
but dry rot and death duties brought it low.

More pics tomorrow as we are off to Battle*.
"You may take our lives but you'll never take our freedom!"

Um, wrong I think you'll find...



* I know, I know, wrong battle, but Conquerer Bill (aka William the Bastard**) must be a bit unglamourous really 'cos Hollywood has ignored him completely.
** 'Strue, honest!

Today's Walk - Ogmore Castle

thatched cottage

swans on the Ogmore River

View from a castle window

the gate house

Castles are a fantastic place to play hide and seek, the girls really enjoyed despite it being biting cold. The wind was coming straight off the sea and our hands were aching with it by the end. We saw our first lambs of the season, poor wobbly little things, probably wondering what the heck kind of place they had been born into. I took a photo but they really are just blurry white pinpricks on a fuzz of hill so not much point posting them. They were lovely to see though and their bleating were the strident call of the changing season.
Off to The Pelican then for lunch: braised partridge for me with potato and leek gallettes and poached salmon with shredded spring vegetables for V. Rose had about a tonne of garlic bread and cheese while Eden and Lily gorged themselves on thick fluffy chips.
Times like these makes us realise how lucky we are with V's work. Two hours on a Friday, leaves us plenty of time for fun trips like today.

Hope you had a great day too.

A Perfect Day

Yesterday, after nursery, we troddled off down to Bracelet Bay. We stopped in Dick Bartons on the way to pick up fish and chips and wolfed them down - hot, salty and tingley with vinegar - don't have chips that often so they were a treat.
Eden and Lily stared at the sea with the same fascination one usually reserves for tigers. They preferred the rock pools and really, so do I. We played on the sand and paddled a little bit then called into Joes for ice cream on the way home.
It wasn't as cold as it looks here and it was mostly sunny too, it's just I loved the silver light on the sea when the sun went behind that massive cloud.

Today is still untouched. There is a birthday party to go to and Wales is playing Scotland today. All this I will miss as I am in work this afternoon. Better get cracking.

Hope you have a perfect day too.

More Photos of Our Walk...

It is grey here this morning and quite cold. So I think a nice trip to Starbucks and maybe a quick foray into Claires to pick up some sparklies to cheer this old magpie up. Then back home to laundry and spinning up the last of the silk before off to work. Busy, busy, busy.

Have a sweet and shiny day.

Today's Walk

The most beautiful Spring day today. So after nursery Lily, Eden and myself went to the park. Oh gosh, how lovely it was to get out after all that freaking rain! And I was so glad I remembered both the camera and the batteries this time.