Henco and Maaike arrive

In the beginning of the year I received an email from an old friend, Henco, who tends to join us for our annual autumn hikes. This time he said he was going to go on a bicycle holiday in Britain with his partner Maaike  in spring. Would I perhaps be around? And I generally am. I looked forward to them popping by!

Later I received a slightly more specific timeframe in which they could come. Some of it within our Easter break. I suggested they make sure they get here before it would end. After the Easter break I am teaching again! It's got even more pacific: I thought they would arrive on the Tuesday.

That day I made sure I was home on time. And they arrived around lunchtime, having biked from Colwyn Bay. It was really good to see them! I had quickly emailed my tutor to say I was not going to be in class this evening.

They had only visited me in autumn, so they were quite amazed by how lovely the garden is when it is spring and it feels like summer. We had lunch in the garden, but we had to move the table into the shadow as it was too hot.

We still had a sizable part of the day left. And they had been told that the Newborough area is really lovely. I think it is a bit dull to bike there, and the day wouldn't be long enough to do that anyway, so I said we might as well go there by car. They were up for it. I took the touristic route, through Tal-y-Bont, and then, because of a road closure, through the ford of Lon Cefn Ty. And I parked by Newborough Warren. 

It was such a warm day we were all in Teva’s, but the path is quite sandy. I quickly seemed to get some sand underneath one of the straps, and it hurt. It turned out I had managed to damage my skin within tens of meters. Oh dear. But onwards. 

The path past the warren is quite pretty, and so is the beach. Obviously. And I wanted to show them Llanddwyn. I was sufficiently ok to do that! And we saw the pillow lavas and the church ruin and the lighthouse. And then, of course, the mélange at the far end. And then the pilots’ cottages. It was nice! 

Triple selfie from the lighthouse 

View from the lighthouse

When we got back to the car we first waited for a farmer to move his cattle across the parking lot to a different field. Then we were off. And it was getting late! Too late to cook. Henco ordered some takeaway from the car, and as soon as we were home we could pick it up. But I first put on socks and shoes! That felt to good. 

We decided we would think about what we would do the next day in the morning. This was enough excitement for a day!