Month: January 2013

Off to Brockwier today. We had been meaning to go here for ages, but mostly end up going to Tintern. A walk had been described in the times last weekend, so thought we may as well do it. Arrived into the brockwier inn car park around 11, expecting a 6 mile, 3hour walk and expected to be back in the inn for a late lunch.

Following the instructions from the paper we started well, opposite the inn, follow the road to orchard cottage, then up the restricted byway and up, up in the mud. Been walking uphill for about 20mins now, so I figured it was about time I passed a  snowball to Kate, it went down her back – she wasn’t delighted.
About now things went wrong, the write up said that we would get to a t junction, go left young man it said then follow the offas dyke trail. No darts, couldn’t find this track so wandered up the wet boggy track. We have never been able to find offas trail, ever, never – perhaps it doesn’t exist.

The trail turned into a stream so we decided to cross some fields and see if there was a road way. As we crossed the field we realised it was sort of like someone’s garden, but luckily no nasty farmer shouted. We hopped a hedge and found ourselves on a road a little lost, we decided to head back to brockwier, but bumped in to the farmer who looked at us with a little bit of disdain as we said we were lost and had no map. Anyway, he said we probably went wrong when we crossed his field!
He pointed us in the right direction and we headed off. Not to Offas but down the ramblers path to the river. So the walk wasn’t quite 6 miles and we got ourselves back the pub by about 12:30 after spending some time trying to hit a stationary wife with snowballs, and wading through more mud.

Back into the pub and a pint, cheesy chips a fish finger buttie for me and a tuna sarnie for Sian, great filling food, and 18 quid for the lot.

Might have to examine the route in more detail if we are to return.

Didn’t go anywhere this weekend as we had a load of snow, so we made the most of sitting in the warm. But, on Sunday, we decided to take a walk down Magor Marsh to trample through the snow. And get a beer! ;o)

Set off around 11:00, as we had someone come and pick up a table we have sold before that – the day was grey, slightly chilly and some dusting of snow. Set off around the corner and walked down to the tracks, there wasn’t too much snow about, and we mostly stomped into the puddles breaking the slight amount of ice. We got to the first field and it was slightly muddy under the snow and ice, me and Kate didn’t care as we had the wellies on, but Sian had to take things more carefully.

We had a bit of a snowball fight, and somehow Kate landed in the snow, we saw some very grey swans but we had a mission in mind so set off for the pub. Not sure why we didn’t have any lunch, but had a beer or four. Service was crap. It does blow a little hot and cold there to be honest.

The back for the footie and another four pack. Not sure how good an impression we are making to the children, case in point was Tom, who nipped out for a little bit on Sat night then sent his monther an email at midnight which read “I may be home late. I accidently got very drunk.” Well done!

Saw Crickhowell mentioned in the Times yesterday, and although we have driven passed it many times we have never stopped – to be honest I didn’t think there was much there…

There wasn’t.

Only just over half an hour away, we are really spoilt for nice towns to visit, and we arrived on a crisp Sunday morning with a temperature hovering around zero. Took the most roundabout route to the car park, and had to pay, even on a Sunday;. Arrived at 10:30, which was about 3 months too early to be honest. Had a little walk down one of the streets, and as it was so chilly and nothing was open we nipped into No. 18 for an overpriced coffee, hot chocolate and a tea. With hindsight I should have had some brekkie. Drinks were fine, chair was wobbly and the place was doing a decent  (fair) trade.

Once warmed we walked round the outskirts of the town down to the bridge and had a quick game of pooh sticks, but for some reason none of our sticks seemed to appear on the other side – perhaps it was a magic bridge? Once sated, we walked up around the other side of the town and into the center, when we arrived we realised that the center, and side streets and shopping arcade are all just all one little street. With four shops on, and a bank with no cashpoint.

After about 40 seconds of browsing the high street, we walked over to the castle. Which is were we found a cashpoint – woop. The castle was a pile of bricks, but there was a mound just next to it, which we scaled. Then on the other side we spied a park, so Kate took off down the side of the mound, I stayed on the path – my knees groan just looking at a drop higher than a curb these days. We had a play on the round-a-bout, the see-saw and some climbing stuff, then it was time to head back to the Tourist Information Depot. They had a gallery there, with paintings from local artists – selling from £70 to £900 and they were shit. (mostly). Some had a little charm about them, but they mostly looked like a baby had painted them – art is stupid.

Once our inner artist had been cheered, off we went – home.

Probably better when the four shops are open, and you can take some time to have a pint. Its nice, quite pretty and has some nice walks around, but today, early and in the cold – not so good. Perhaps we’ll try again.

Its the New Year, another year – so started early with the visits this year – first up Hay-on-Wye.

Have been meaning to go to Hay for ages now, and have never got around to it before. Its only about 50 miles from us, but the roads are not great, but anyway it took around and hour and a quarter to get up there with some idiots on the roads.

Not a great day, and it did look like rain at one point, but it held off, and although a little cold it was pretty okay all day. As you get into Hay there is obvious parking, and after coughing up a couple of quid for four hours we headed up to the first shop. This was a crystal and candle shop Kate loved it, I didn’t, the Candle Cave just stank.

Across the road and the first mention of a book shop. Down a little alley and into Hay proper. Hay itself is not very big, a few roads and a little center which holds the Thursday market, you can walk around the lot in an hour, but what it does have is quite a few book shops. We went in some.

First stop though was a cuppa in the Cafe. We got ourselves a table and I went to the counter to queue – they were slow, then after ages I released I was queuing at the wrong end of the counter. So after getting myself more in tune with the vibe I got us some stuff. After stuff we headed out into the town for a look around. We spend quite a lot of it either in “Antique” shops or book shops. Although Antique shops is really just a grand title for bric-a-brac crap store. One book shop was so big it even had a toilet – I felt abliged to buy a book or two just because it was so big, even though they didn’t stock anything I wanted.

Almost lunch time, so we had a look round for the right place to eat, and picked the wrong one. We went to Oscars which was okay, but really just okay, Panini was okay, it should have had nice crisps and some red onion with the tuna, and the jacket potato had garlic butter which was odd.

We noticed that Hay has a downer on Kindles, one sign even suggested that Hay should “ban them” – fools.

The bookshops tended to have an underlying arrogance to them, especially the ‘keepers – but when you think about it, they need to get off their high and mighty steps and realise that actually they are perpetuating a system and commercial activity which goes out of its way to prevent authors from getting money for the books they have written. The second hand book market only lines the pockets of the booksellers themselves.

Give me a kindle any day – second hand book sellers – boo.

Hay is quite nice though, would be good to stay over and sample the pubs, we were going to – but they obviously have a specific tariff because even the day before, at the beginning of January the tariff was generally £135 a night for the three of us, even tough I am pretty sure they would not have filled the rooms at such a last minute. Anyway, we went there and back and were back in the local pub at 3:15 – tidy darts.