What’s that place with 15 letters but only one vowel? Wales

Apologies for the long posts. We seem to have more access to electricity than wifi!

07 Jun

With the successful crossing of the Irish Sea, even with an interesting conversation with an Iranian who was a fundamentalist Muslim and is now a fundamentalist Born Again Christian (he has a you tube site of https://www.youtube.com/user/mostafa4jesus) , we were off on firm Scottish soil. We had planned to reach English soil by the end of the night but too much fun was had along the way. We stopped at Gateway on Fleet because it has an interesting name and there was a weaving industry and a kilt maker there. We pushed on to Dumfries, the home of Robert Burns, and stayed the night next to the Nigh and celebrated Dee’s birthday at an Italian restaurant. After an excellent morning walk and completion of the morning routine, Springy decided not to start and wanted a new battery *Note to self: the radio uses the main battery and everything else runs off the leisure battery*. I did get my man card stamped by purchasing and replacing the battery all by myself.

The gale force winds were still on the highways which made driving south on the main highway a bit hairy. Springy has been making lurching actions when accelerating with high revs. I think it’s due to clogging fuel filter but since it was a weekend, it made trying to find a new filter a bit hard. She’s working well though as long as we take care of her.

We were able to grab a bit of free wifi in South Ribble (all I can think of is a questioning frog) at the BBQ grill pub we stayed at for the night but not long enough to say a decent hello to anyone.

Shrewsbury was a great experience but not what we were expecting. The cathedral was amazing (Ellis Peters has a stained glass window in honour of her Brother Cadfael books. There wasn’t  any info about how the Monastery looked. There was a very cool building that was the foregate but it was being used to host a Vegan Festival. Shrewsbury itself was wonderful with some Tudor buildings and alleyways. We spent the night at the Horseshoe Inn that night. We had a great chat with some of the locals whilst sewing Gene and Dee dresses. 

It was great to be able to talk to people whose accents were understandable. I’m not saying that they could understand me though……Whilst I speak Strayian, I think I can understand other forms of English but some places absolutely lose me.

Sunday had us visit a Roman City in Wroxeter and back to Shrewsbury again to rummage through a car boot sale. More clothes and books were purchased. There was some heavy drooling at a scythe that came with 2 blades (one a replacement) for only 25 pounds but I doubt I could have brought it back to Australia. For the rest of the day we have been driving through Wales.

So far, we are of the consensus that Wales is the prettiest place so far in the British isles, even better than Scotland.

Monday had us eventually in Cardiff. Springy wasn’t enjoying rapid accelerations and it was a similar experience when we had Bob in 1999 when we picked up a filthy load of fuel. I finally found a place to buy new fuel filters and we were off to Cardiff. We lost the first half of the day ginning about with poor directions and driving and then couldn’t make it to the Dr Who Museum which is good as it would cost another 44 pounds including buses and we just didn’t have the time or money. 

Gene and I then had a nice couple of hours in Cardiff looking around while Dee had a kip. We found the library and hoped to pillage it for its Wifi but they didn’t have any there but their ‘Pop-up’ Library did. Fun ensued trying to find the free roving library (the Librarian even looked like Peng’s Mum) but we finally relented and had a nice look around instead.

We’re now looking at the straits and the bridge that crosses from Cardiff and Bristol with bridge just to our right. As we were making our way there, we drove past a Military base with ‘THE RIFLES’ emblazoned on the gates and I became slightly fangirl squeely. I’ll be walking back to the gates for morning PT and hopefully getting a photo.

Tuesday, 09 June 2015.

With a short walk down the road, I was able to have a chat with the 2 Rifleman on front gate duty. I made sure I had ID on me to show that I was who I said I was but still had some anxious calls on the radio from the guard 2IC wanting to know who I was and what I was doing.

That set me up for the rest of the day. We visited the Clark Shoe Museum, had a late morning tea at the Mad Hatter Café and became so lost in in a retail village we had to ask information how to get the hell out.

We stopped only a few minutes down the road at Glastonbury to look at the Abbey where Arthur is alleged to be buried and visit all the estoric shops that surround the Abbey. Merlin and Morgan le Fay have much to answer for.

From there, things didn't go as expected. We must have stuffed up the plotting for the GPS and instead of ending up at Exeter, we realised we were heading back to Bristol.........

After a bit of swearing we plotted a new course to The Druids Arms (http://www.thedruidsarms.co.uk/) another Brit Stops pub. Apparentely, it has a girl ghost called Grace, standing stones in the back yard and an easy stroll to stone circle around the same age as Stonehenge but more accessible. Best of all, it has wifi!

Since we have gained a day by not going to Cornwall as planned, we are staying put and doing some last minute sewing to finish the girl's Regency dresses so we can visit Bath the following day in appropriate clothing.