It was Shakespeare who said that no traveller returns, meaning that when you go away you come back a different person. We are now well into our holiday and I have learned a few things about myself and life in general.
I have learned that I want to live in a country where the waiters have summer houses. At dinner in Paris the other night we were served by a charming waiter aged around 50 who had a summer house in the Var. I felt this was a sign of a civilised country.
Rupert’s grandmother Kitty said one should always stay in the best hotel in town. I would say that you should never stay in a hotel where you don’t want to steal the bathroom products.
Finally I have discovered that Wales is a very nice place. This is my first visit here and I know that the weather (constant sunshine) has been extremely unusual, but we have liked it so much we may come back next year. I think this has more to do with the friends we are staying with though than the weather, however good it has been.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2010
Apart from the occasional day-trip there, I’ve had 2 very different experiences of Wales: the 2nd and most recent with my son around 1990. We had splendid weather for the whole week (probably due to global warming) driving along the coast from Llandudno to Cardiff. We had a great time!
The first experience was in 1962. I and a schoolmate, both 15, were staying with our penfriends (2 girls) near Birkenhead and we went on a long trip through Wales. Imagine the scene: a big Ford with 2 middle-aged persons and their 20-year-old son in the front, the 2 pen-friends and us in the back. 7 people in all plus the 2 Chihuahuas, Squash and Rue,trying to stay away from feet, all having a picnic in the car in the pouring rain, and trying to take the few roads that had not been barred due to flooding. Unforgettable!
We spent every summer as children in Llanbedrog, just down the road from Abersoch and sailed in the regattas each August – fond memories. Enjoy!
This is a gorgeous area, and like Kate I have great memories of holidays throughout my childhood staying on a smallholding near Aberdaron just a few miles on from Abersoch. We would scramble down the cliffs to the beach (my dad carrying the obligatory 1970s windbreak!). I remember very few rainy days….. And that may not just be the mists of time playing jokes – a piece in the Guardian newspaper last week said “The sea is turquoise, the beaches sandy and, locals insist, the climate is milder and sunnier than most other places on the west coast of mainland Britain.”
Thankfully the National Trust is hoping to protect this wonderful area, home to a fragile ecosystem and rare species, from “inappropriate development” by acquiring some of the coastline. I think they need to raise several million pounds. I will be making a donation, as a thank-you for those wonderful family times.
I want to go to Wales. I want to go so badly. My OH was born in North Wales but left at the age of 3. Spoke Welsh before he spoke English. Went to uni at Aberystwyth, loved it, still speaks wistfully of the surrounding countryside and aren’t you somewhere near there? I love going to Wales since I’ve been married checking into hotels or booking something so I have to give my very obviously Welsh sounding surname. People melt on the spot, they react quite differently when they (wrongly) believe one of their own is around. I love it when OH comes out with his few faltering words of Welsh, which always stops the Welsh speakers dead in their tracks. You are so fortunate with the weather for it can rain for weeks on end even in the summer. My late mother-in-law was someone who would argue “why should I want to travel when I come from Snowdonia?” Some people might say she has a point.