Three Days in Wales

After a couple of very busy months, we have finally managed to sort out a few days break. Our chosen venue is the Parva Farmhouse in Tintern. We last visited here in 1996 just after I joined Imperial. It is a small guesthouse/hotel but we did have fond memories of our previous visit. Plans to go further down the coast (with perhaps a visit to Skomer) were dropped as Linda just wanted to crash out somewhere and not have to drive too far.

So a leisurely drive through the south cotswolds towards Cheltenham and Gloucester and eventually to Ross-on-Wye. A wander round leads us to a really good secondhand bookshop where I am forced to buy half a dozen books, including the first volume of Bertrand Russell's Autobiography which becomes my holiday reading. A further stop in Monmouth then down to Tintern by mid-afternoon.

There turns out to be another really good secondhand bookshop just down the road from the guesthouse and it has some great stuff in it but is far too expensive - but I nearly buy a volume of the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science series on Carnap, sold off stock from Swansea University

We are booked in for dinner, bed and breakfast so don't have to travel out again in the evening. We have an excellent meal with a really nice South American red wine.

Friday is to be our walking day so we have a big breakfast and then head off to drive to a tiny village near Brecon. In theory we were supposed to be doing a horseshoe walk round a valley but we make a mistake in directions early in the walk and end up on the valley floor instead of the flat top. The weather isn't great and the low cloud covering the top would have been a tricky navigating problem, so perhaps it is just as well that we don't know the correct way. Lots of nice forest views for photographs though.

We are back at the guesthouse mid afternoon for reading, snoozes and hot baths before our second really good dinner. Linda is noticeably more relaxed which is no bad thing.

Saturday is our return trip and we have a leisurely drive back stopping in Burford. We rarely get away for a weekend - hopefully this has done Linda lots of good!


The River Wye from the guesthouse car park

Tintern Abbey

Some of the new born lambs on the way to our walk

The first waterfall

Linda looking well wrapped up against the weather

The biggest waterfall encountered

Above the waterfalls - in the valley

Just before we realised we were on the wrong path!

A fisherman was fishing from the point where the river enters the reservoir and caught a 1lb trout while we watched