More simple pleasures

There are three small supermarkets on the high street. I am trying them all. Recently I bumbled to the last one on a beautiful sunny day. I didn't expect much I admit, but one of the first things I saw when I walked in was a lot of loose vegetables. Great! The others don't have that. I just needed dinner for the night, so I bought a potato and a leek, both without packaging. (I had tomatoes and cheese at home.) Then I walked past the beer isle and blimey, it had all local beers I had heard of, and a lot I hadn't! Great! I bought one I had been wondering about; there is a shop on the high street I've only seen up close when it was closed, but it says 'cwrw Ogwen' (Ogwen beer) on the façade and has lots of beer bottles in the window. I'm not sure if it is a café or a pub or a very restricted beer shop or the front of a brewery or something entirely different. But here was the beer! I bought one. It was nice! And it was called 'Chwalfa', after The Big Strike that is so important in Bethesda's history. I read the book!

When I paid for my groceries I expressed in Welsh I appreciated the aspects of the shop I just mentioned. And the lady at the check-out didn't mind my outrageous accent and cheerfully answered in Welsh. And when I walked back, with the sunny mountains in the background, I was reminded again of that life is good!

Chwalfa beer, from the Ogwen Brewery