From Cotswolds to Cardiff to Cwmbran

Boxing Day was a day of rest. We ate left overs. I went for a walk to the village nearby. I found a recently dead snake of the grey/dead variety. It was muddy and crisp but such a nice walk through the village. It was SO CUTE. A church, beautiful houses, a pub……

Boxing Day then turned in to a messy day. Whilst out for a walk, Tegan&co decided they needed to finish the alcohol. As we were departing the next day and car space is limited, it was a justifiable reason. We certainly polished off a vast majority of the alcohol but it wasn’t without event. I would post photos on here but they are rather incriminating and not so flattering. We had such a fun time. The iPod dock was turned up to blasting. We started with Christmas music (although it was wearing thin) and moved to some more recent songs. Once the grog started to kick in a bit more the music turned to country. And when Gretchen Wilson blasted out ‘Redneck Women’ there wouldn’t have been a soul in the Cotswolds that didn’t hear. The boys were introduced to country music and its drunken listeners. We just danced. And sang (okay, yelled). People got super duper drunk, started dancing with chairs above their head, patting swans and throwing chocolates. We did a test of gin: between Hendricks’ and Bombay. Hendricks’ won with the majority of votes. (it was done as properly as possible, in clean shot glasses with equal amounts of gin/tonic/cucumber, with the testers not knowing the identity of the gin)

Once the music tuned down and we began to calm down, I ate a chunk of leftover pork, others had a bit of a spew and we went to bed.

There’s nothing more fun than running around the house with your friends, drinking, laughing and dancing for no apparent reason.

Needless to say the day after Boxing Day was slower than usual. I survived my very first international driving experience. We had to drop people at the train station. Tegan was in no state so off I toddled to Kemble train station. The music was off and everyone was very quiet but we made it and I’m much more confident now. I even drove in Wales today!

We spent a long time packing up the house. Food, bags etc. I am very proud to say that we spend a total of 208 pounds on groceries over Christmas for 7 people. Add a bit extra for things we bought beforehand: some alcohol, decorations, tree, presents – and you’ve got yourself a pretty awesome Christmas for not too much! The food we ate was epic, if I do say so myself. We had SO much food but ended with relatively very little left over. There was some non-perishables that were inevitable, but all in all, not a bad bloody effort!

From the Cotswolds we drove to Cardiff in Wales. It wasn’t even a 2 hour journey. The hostel we stayed in was not amazing but we slept (mind you, I’m having lots of trouble sleeping lately……. it’s tres annoying). We’d packed some leftovers for lunch and ate in the park in Cardiff and spent the rest of the evening resting. Phew.

Today we headed back in to Cardiff to check out the Cardiff Castle. It was 11 pounds so we decided not to – instead we opted for a second breakfast. While eating my eggs eleven with bacon and mushrooms, I decided that I wanted to go in anyway, despite the crazy entry fee. So we paid and entered – which was totally in our favour because the sun actually came out!

And for the record, it was totally worth 11 pounds. It’s expensive, but it’s so cool. The curatorship, if that’s how you describe the awesome amount of information and ease of following the history is described, was awesome. It’s the same quality as the memorial at Sachsenhausen near Berlin. Of course, that was free –which was one of the more impressive features of it (meaning: it’s an amazing centre of history and memorial and curatorship and it’s free, when I would have paid $20 to see it). Nevertheless, Cardiff Castle was great. There’s not all that much left which is understandable. But the most notable of the entire area is the castle on the motte (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey). It’s awesome. And old.

 

Perhaps the stupidest moment of the day was when I realised the answer to something I’ve been pondering since we went to William the Conqueror’s wall in Caen. How does the water get in to the moats? I was thinking that maybe fancy aqueducts were built to divert river water, or that maybe a spring was underneath all moats, or that a well was dug to supply the water. But no. The answer (well, my answer anyway) is the water table. Simple. I feel so stupid. When it rains as much as it does in the UK (and it DOES), of course the water table would sit practically below the topsoil (actually, it probably sits IN the topsoil because the soil’s probably fairly deep?!). Which means, when you dig a moat, you’re just digging deeper than the water table and allowing the water to sit at its natural level (or slightly risen as it’s a point of weakness per se).

Anyway. If I’m wrong, tell me. It makes sense to me though. It certainly wouldn’t happen much in Australia.

From Cardiff we decided to drive north for no reason other than it’d be cool to go to Northern Wales. We drove towards Cwmbran because it has a funny name and then on to Ebbw Vale, because it’s a place in Brisbane with an absolutely ridiculous name that now make sense. I still don’t know how to pronounce it BUT at least we know where it’s from…..

We drove on for a bit, not knowing where we were really going but hoping to find somewhere to stay. Of course everything’s full. Bah. We went in to about 8 different places to ask, called about 10 different places – to no avail. We ended up taking advice and driving near the railway. That’s all the instructions we got, but we totally stumbled upon the cheapest place in town that happened to have heaps of spare rooms. Sweet! It’s really comfortable too. Not nice, but nice vibe.

Tomorrow we’ll drive through the Brecon Beacon National Park on our way north to Anglesly. We’re staying at a cool farm stay (we think). Then we’ll head East to Manchester and north to Edinburgh for New Years Eve.