Week in Wales

Got back yesterday from a thoroughly enjoyable weeks holiday in Snowdonia in Wales.

We stayed in a 17th century holiday cottage, in the village of "Ysbyty Ifans" (literal translation "Evans Hospital" - there used to be a hospital there, run by the Knights Templars).

This is a tiny village, about 7 miles outside of Betws-y-Coed, with very little in the way of amenities, i.e. a telephone box, and a post office that only opens on Wednesday afternoons. There's a children's playground and a rugby pitch at the back of the cottage which meant that the boys had somewhere relatively safe to play in the evenings.

I say relatively safe. Frodo befriended a local lad, who was staying next door. Welsh was his first language, so this meant that their level of conversation in English was just about the same. Frodo learnt how to ride a go-kart down a very steep hill, balance on a high wall, jump off the wall avoiding the rocks and sneak into a cemetery to run around the gravestones. I heard screams and crying one evening and had to rescue Frodo's friend, who had managed to topple a gravestone onto his legs, and got them trapped underneath it. He was fine afterwards, so I guess that he won't be playing in the cemetery for a bit.

We arrived on Saturday evening. Sunday was spent shopping in the nearest supermarket - 11 miles away in Llanrwst, and then bumming around the cottage, playground and playing field.

On Monday we crossed the Menai Straits to the Isle of Anglesey and visited the town of Beaumaris and it's Castle.

The castle is considered to be the most perfect example of a concentric castle (castle, within a castle). It's defences certainly looked excellent. It has a water filled moat, and you can get walk around the walls, both on top and internally. The castle doesn't stand out much, since it isn't built on raised ground, and it was never completely finished - not enough money to put the top level on it, so the turrets and battlements do look a little "short".








I discovered afterwards that we'd entered Anglesey via the Britannia Bridge - originally built by Robert Stephenson (wor Geordie's lad). We'd spotted the better known Thomas Telford's Menai Suspension Bridge on our way to Beamaris, so decided to go back across this bridge.

We snapped a shot of the bridge as we crossed it. Also the chimneys of a rather gothic looking house on the way to the bridge.




On Tuesday we visited Criccieth Castle, and the nearby beach.
This castle is a bit of a ruin, but it does stand out impressively on a high hill at the end of the beach.






Wednesday was a trip to Carnaerfon Castle, and then Llandudno West Beach. Caernarfon is a walled town, and the castle is in really good condition - which is probably why they use it for investing the Prince of Wales.









Thursday we went shopping in Conwy. Parked by Conwy Castle. We were specifically visiting a toyshop that sells Edix Modular Mediaeval Village components. We bought a keep to add to the castle that the boys already have, plus some more figures - a jousting knight, a king and a saracen mounted on a dromedary.

We also visited a sword shop, but decided to leave it until our next visit in August to buy a sword. Prices looked good, and much cheaper in the shop than on the website e.g. you could get a "Braveheart" sword for 75 quid, whereas it's 175 quid on the website.

The last castle of the week was Harlech Castle on Friday. This year we drove into Harlech up the gentle incline of the top road, rather than approaching from the bottom road and having to negotiate the impossibly steep 1 in 4 hill that we had to get up last year.

We had to visit the Cemlyn Tea Rooms, since Novelist Supermum had included them in a novel, and wanted to know what they looked like. We had some delicious toasted hot cross buns there. We drank latte's, and the boys had milk. I was tut tutted at as I helped Frodo draw a face and write his name in the condensation on the window, which overlooked the castle.

Afterwards we went to Harlech Beach, which is the best beach in the area, and launched our dragon kite for the first time. Not enough wind to start with, since it was a bright, sunny, still day. However it picked up enough to get the kite aloft and give both Frodo, and Samwise a turn at controlling the kite in the air - although they preferred to chase it and try to catch it's tail.




One feature of the cottage is that you have to watch out for mice, which come in from the field outside. One night I heard a gnawing noise and opened the hall door to find two mice sitting there looking at me, as if they wanted to come in and watch the telly. Had a mouse that got into the bedroom run across my pillow on another night, and we spent an hour on the last night trying to chase a baby mouse out of the living room.

The boys didn't want to come home - no tears this time. We promised them that we would be back in August. I want to take the Snowdon Mountain Railway to the top next time, but since it will be peak season I'd better make sure of it and book the tickets in advance.

Rome Blogging Complete

Finally finished blogging about our trip to Rome in February.

The final two installments are at

Day 4
Day 5

You can use the labels
holiday, italy, rome
to find all of the posts

Germs

Too full ob code to blog properly.
We've all gone down with some nasty germ.
Frodo's off school. Novelist Supermum is throwing up on the kitchen floor. Samwise is snottier than usual. I'm at work feeling blurrgh!! Leaving work as early as I can today.

It was Frodo's Easter Service at school yesterday. Didn't have any tapes for the camcorder, and we'd lost the charger for the digital camera (found it last night) - which means that this year I actually got to watch it - rather than being a cyborg-parent looking through a viewfinder.

Frodo was in the chorus for an Easter Chick song - wearing a yellow chick mask and flapping his elbows along with the rest of his class.

Email from Oz

Sent brief Birthday Greetings on Friday to an old pal in Australia that I hadn't been in touch with for some time. Pleasantly surprised to find that her email address is still valid, as I've just picked up a reply.
Nearly time for bed, so I'll reply to her tomorrow when I've got more time (i.e. when I'm at work!).

Rome - Day 5

Our flight home wasn't until tea time, so we revisited the Trevi Fountain, which this time had some water in it. Chucked a coin in, thus ensuring another return to Rome.




It was raining very heavily - the malaysian men who try to sell you stuff in the street had switched from novelty flying toys to "pipero" - umbrellas - therefore we thought that the best bet would be to avoid the outdoors and spend the morning in the Capitoline Museum.

You really do get museum'ed out in Rome so probably waltzed past loads of stuff that we'd normally spend a long time looking at, but still worth a visit all the same.

Here's an ancient Roman cure for a bad cough



Bad Hair Day...



A wildlife scene...



This is meant to be one of Hannibal's Elephants. It looks like the artist hadn't actually seen a real elephant himself, but somebody had described one to him.






Picked up our luggage from the hotel, then tube to train and caught the plane back to Blighty (took a picture of the plane to show two small boys when we returned, who were also to get an Italia shirt each that we'd bought from a sports shop in Rome).



I was in much danger of falling asleep on the long drive back from Heathrow, so had to stop off for coffee - of course the motorway services was selling Italian coffee, but it wasn't the same as the real thing ;-)

Great holiday, really enjoyed it. We must have walked miles - here are some pictures of our swollen feet :-)

Rome - Day 4

We had thought about visiting the catacombs, but discovered that they were several different sets of them, and all were well outside the city walls. What sounded like the best ones looked like they would be shut anyway, so we thought we'd stick to seeing some more sights nearer to hand.

We started by heading back across the Forum to take a look at a piece of brick and cement work.
This was the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, a set of huge arches that we'd seen in the distance on previous days, but hadn't gone right up to.
This type of dome work, inlaid with hexagonal patterns has been copied over time around the world (we saw a few examples in the Vatican), but these are the originals.




Past the Colosseum again, then headed south west.

"What did the Romans ever do for us"
"..err the Aquaducts?"



We passed a couple of people getting married, having their picture taken - so we may have featured stumping past in the background.

A short walk along a dual carriageway and we were at the Baths of Caracalla.
Because it was Valentines day, the admission fee was two for the price of one.

These are huge ruins. The floors have all caved in, but the walls are pretty much at the original height, so you get a good idea of the scale of the place when it was fully in use. As usual any decent artefacts have been robbed out a long time ago, but you could still see, and walk on some of the original mosaic floor.

We even managed to do a bit of "excavation" of our own - we discovered pieces of mosaic floor underneath one of the gravel paths that we were walking on.







It was a bright sunny morning, so had a pleasant time wandering about, and sitting around in the ruins. Started to get mushy in the sunshine, so I was told that it was time to go.

We followed the line of one of the old city walls, through a suburban area - everybody lives in flats. We got our first sight of the pyramid that we were looking for - this is in the picture at the top of this post.

This is the Pyramid of Caius Cestius - a chap who had spent some time in Egypt, and who freed his slaves on his death, so they built him this splendid funerary monument.







Behind the pyramid is the Protestant Cemetery this is also known as the "English" Cemetery, and is in fact a "Non-Catholic" cemetery. We took a look inside (request for donations in a box at the entrance) and hunted out a few Dead Poets.

This is the grave of that famous whinger Keats. He didn't want his name on the tombstone, so the chap who paid for it - the artist Joseph Severn - who died years later and was buried next to him, put it on his tombstone instead.




Shelley's ashes lie under this stone (which reminds me that there's a picture of his funeral pyre in the Walker Gallery in Liverpool)



and this is the grave of Goethe.



On from the cemetery, and a circular route back towards the city centre took us the site of the Circus Maximus. We were expecting a layout of streets on top of the site, but were pleased to discover that the site is a park. There's not much to see in the way of ruins, but the layout of the track is really evident. We sat and munched crisps for a while, then walked along the track, figuring out the turning circle of a chariot.




Since the camera battery had ran out the previous day we decided to walk back along the Tiber to the Castel Sant'Angelo, to take a few more pictures of the castle.

We passed the Portico of Octavian which must have been a rather splendid fish market in Medieval times (it may have been Octavian's Forum, before he became Augustus and built a new, better one).




Walking this way we got to see the Jewish Quarter - this is the perhaps the original "Ghetto". This looks like the area where the Italian's come to eat, rather than the tourists.

Finally arrived at the Castel Sant'Angelo again, and took the extra snaps.




We spotted this little piazza on the way back, that we thought was worth a photo.



Valentines Day - so definitely a night for dining out. We decided to walk to the top of the Spanish Steps and go up the Via Veneto - which is the setting for the film La Dolce Vita. We walked up as far as Harrys Bar where the Rough Guide says Frank Sinatra and his cronies used to hang out. The street is all big, expensive looking (but probably very touristy) hotels. The restaurants are all "glass bubbles" on the pavement outside the hotels. We walked back down the street and picked what looked like a decent restaurant.

The food was good, and not too pricy. The walls were groaning under the weight of pictures of the owner photographed next to an array of celebrities - most in the restaurant itself, but quite a few not. He's probably some sort of celebrity stalker. They looked like they were having fun in some of the photos' with drunken partying in the middle of the road.

Rolled back down the Spanish Steps and back to the hotel.

Rome - Day Three

Just finished blogging about Day 3 of our trip to Rome.
Because I started the post on 9 March (saving it as draft and editing) the post is back here

Haven't blogged for a bit.

I really must get back to blogging again. Further updates on our trip to Rome also to follow soon - hopefully before we head off on the first of this year's two trips to Snowdonia.

Not been up to much over the past couple of weeks. Wished a couple of old friends (who are getting older) Happy Birthday - which was cool as we got down to some text and email chat. Found out where they were and what they're up to now.

Red Nose Day came and went. As always, we stayed up for the comedy, got upset by the pictures of people much worse off than ourselves, and bunged off a donation to pay for 10 lifesaving mosquito nets. A few days later I recieved an email to say that our donation had bounced. Being wary of a possible phishing scam I've carefully checked this out, and it looks like they genuinely didn't get my donation, so I'll have to send it off again.

Had the car MOT'd yesterday. I've yet to drop a vehicle off at the garage and have it pass first time, even when I've also requested a full service. Needed a new track rod/bearing joint this time. Went to Nationwide at the top of Penny Lane/Smithdown Place who have been OK in the past. The car is out of warranty now, so there's no point in going back to VW who would charge the same price just for the oil change, without doing any work, say they've taken the wheels off and had a look - without even taking the hubcaps off and then try to charge me for a bottle of "top-up" screenwash fluid - even though the screenwash is full.

Frodo had a major joint assessment yesterday - i.e. he was examined, tested and discussed by his teacher, headmistress, educational psychologist, speech therapist and school doctor and parents. He's making progress, and looks like he will continue to make progress, but really needs to have a boost to assist his language difficulties, which are probably holding back his progress in other areas.

Had to fob off the idiot doctor chairing the meeting who was suggesting the use of drugs to increase his attention - Frodo is not hyperactive so they wouldn't be appropriate. Apparently the drugs have similar effects to cocaine - hmmmm maybe I need to sort out my attention difficulties...

Net result is that it's recommended that Frodo attends a school next year that has a dedicated language unit to help him, with a view to bringing him back to his current school when it's appropriate to do so. The school's that have these resources tend to be in the most deprived areas, so that they can get the funding (the more "free school dinners" you have, the more money you get!). He could go into the mainstream of the school with the language unit, but that would be a school that is 97th in the league tables, whereas his current school is about 4th.

Next we've got to visit a school or two, and have another meeting with teachers, advisory teachers etc - to make sure that we think this decision is OK and see if a place can be sorted for him for next year.

Happy Birthday Cha0tic

Not blogged here much lately - mainly because I've been composing the next instalment of our trip to Rome. My intention was not to interrupt the flow with blogging trivia, but since this is taking me ages to write up and load up the pictures I thought I'd just get back to blogging. (You can use the labels to collect the pieces of the Rome stuff together anyway).

Wishing Cha0tic a very Happy Birthday today - and in keeping with the sort of mushy sentiments that are customary on these occasions...

"May the Gnome of good fortune festoon the dank cellar of your life with the fungus of happiness."