New Years in Wales

For New Years, I went to visit my friends in Harlech, North Wales.  We've not seen much of each other since they moved so far away.  To spend so much time with them was lovely, and the area is beautiful. This is the view from their driveway.

Their DRIVEWAY.

Harlech Castle in the foreground, the beach and bay behind, and then in the distance, the mountains of Snowdonia.  Surely people don't actually LIVE in places that look like this.  But they DO!
























We all took turns to cook meals, and once every day we had a little outing.  The first one was to a beach about 30 minutes away.  As well as some really nice sand to stomp in (with the kids following in my footsteps like a row of ducklings), there were all these cool rock formations; pillars and columns and caverns and gorges worn by the sea. Amy even saw a seal here once!

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In the evening we trooped down onto their home beach to cut up a hunk of tree root that had drifted in on the tide, and made a bonfire.  Like all good fires, there were marshmallow, and even a few fireworks.

The next day we drove inland to a small waterfall to make a campfire.  We were by a little stream where we could play football and pooh-sticks, using decorated cuttlefish carcasses for boats.  Eventually the supervisor for the area trotted over and rather stressfully retracted her permission to have the fire, so we had to put it out.  It didn't deaden the fun though, or spoil the picnic, because we'd already melted the camembert!

Someone had brought a speaker with them, and with very 'Instagrammy' music playing, and the food, and the setting, and the company, and the kids, I felt weirdly as if I was in a social media advert.  As if we'd managed to create one of those highly engineered marketable moments, except we were living in it.

Me and two of the girls left a bit early to go to Bounce Below, a series of trampoline nets suspended in an old mining cavern.  You book an hour long slow (which is more than enough!) and get set loose to bounce, climb and slide your way around four levels of springy netting.

It's definitely something that can only be experienced.  It took me about ten minute to fully adjust to being so high above the floor, and being able to see through layers of translucent net.  It's very discombobulating, as you have to train your eye to focus on the layer you're currently on.

For New Years we had a house cabaret, with everyone bringing acts, games, quizzes and songs to while the evening away.  With so many people - nearly twenty of us - all crammed in together there was lot of entertainment going.  And a lot of cheese.  So much cheese.  I can't even tell you how much cheese.

On New Years Day I drove home, but kept having to stop to take pictures.  There was a big low sun, sending layers of gold across the Welsh landscape of the Snowdonia National Park and then the Berwyn Mountains.  The road takes you up over the moors, giving the long views I like so much.

I made one more stop on my way home, as I was passing fairly close to the tallest waterfall in Wales, Pistoll Rhaedr, or Rhaedr Falls. A good chance to stretch my legs before the rest of the drive home

I'd got to spend Christmas at home with my family, going out for walks with Mum, and Dad helped me learn to carve a bowl on the lathe in his workshop!  Despite accidentally flinging it across the room at one point, it came out beautifully, and it was so nice to spend so much time doing something together.