Visit by Monique

Monique had said she wanted to come over for a visit again!  And I thought that was an amazing idea. And she thought the border between June and July would be good. That was after all the exam board meetings stress.

She would arrive in the early evening. She would come out of the next time zone, and I figured after a long day of travel she would be tired and hungry! So I made sure I had prepared dinner. I could just pick her up (with the EV), drive her home, switch on the oven, have a drink with her, and then dinner would be ready. And so it happened!

In the morning, Monique told me the cat had wanted to sleep on her bed. That gave me a bit of a flashback to the day she sat on Martin’s lap; on one side it was a bit painful because I would quite like to be her favourite, but on the other it was super cute she took such a shining to some of the people I myself think so highly of. And anyway; after jumping on the bed she had started to wash herself, which Monique thought was a bit too much restlessness, so she had evicted her again. And she ended up sleeping with me!

The next day wouldn't be very good weather. And we needed at some point to be home to pick up the car from the garage. So we took it easy! We went for a nice morning stroll. It was a bit wet, but nothing too serious. After lunch I sneaked out for short run. And in the afternoon we baked a cake. Excellent wet weather activity. And it would come in handy later!

The previous time we had been here, we had been in the slate Museum. And that had made Monique want more. She wanted to see the actual quarry! And I thought that could be organised. And we took the same approach route as I had done with the Cornishmen. 

The path we took up also carried some cyclists down. There was clearly some sort of race going on! And there was a security guard by a gate who told us to be aware of that. So we did. When we got to the first zigzag we saw a gazebo and another security guard. Another race Marshall? No! A man who said we couldn't get into the quarry, and he couldn't tell us why because he had signed an NDA. What was this? But he was clearly serious, so we just turned back. The man at the bottom who has just let us through said he thought maybe the other one would do the same. That sounded a bit dubious. Why put a security guard is there if they don't actually stop anyone? And additionally; he had a VHS Radio, and he could just have asked his colleague if he wanted to let us through. As it was, we had walked in vain! And a bit of light googling suggested the crew of House of the Dragon was recording in there, which would explain the security guards and the NDA.

The view from near where we were turned away

We still wanted a beautiful location to eat some of the cake we had baked the day before. I thought we might go to Pen y Gwrid and head for Llyn Cwmffynnon. So we set off! 

I had wondered how soggy the route would be. It was a bit of a damp day, but a damp day after a drought. It could go either way! But it turned out it was quite wet. And when we got higher up we saw more people engaged in a race. Would it be the same one? These were on foot. (I later checked and I think it will have been the Snowdonia Seven. Quite a race!)

It was windy and rainy and we decided not to go all the way to the lake. We just found some shelter and had coffee and cake there. And then we went back to the car. We also had a bread machine to come back to; I had done some complete screwing up, and forgotten to start it the night before. We had got so engrossed in talking about the deeper things of life it had escaped my mind! So we had just set it for lunchtime.

On the way to the lake

We got home and found a sorry excuse for a loaf of bread. In all likelihood, I had forgotten to add the yeast! Another screw-up. Where was my mind? But I had bought some supermarket bread for breakfast, and that would do us for lunch. And we googled a recipe that used leftover bread, so we could somehow eat the failed loaf for dinner. And that worked! But before dinner, the weather had cleared up so much we had a few beers in the garden.

On the Sunday, the idea was to go for a walk. And a quick look on the map suggested a target: Cwm Llafar. So after a breakfast with finally some successful bread we set off.

We walked into the valley and it went fab! We walked all the way to the end, right underneath the Black Ladders. And from there we crossed over to the other side of the valley, and walked back that way. I had only done that once! We had a blast.

Just outside the village 

Good spot for a coffee

Thistle and Black Ladders

Hill selfie

We would go back via Gwaun y Gwiail, so it would be a missed opportunity not to say hello to Sue and Dean. Fortunately they agreed. We had a lovely cup of tea in their garden, while the cats gave us wide berth. 

We still had food left over from the previous day, so when we got home we didn’t even have to cook. We had a relaxed last night! And then it was the next day, and we had to say goodbye. In spite of rail strikes, the trip back looked ok. It hadn’t been a long visit but it had been good! 

http://mmmmargot.blogspot.com/2015/09/morning-walk.html