What I did on my holidays

Well, I'm back after my holiday - anyone miss me? I went away with the excellent intention of having a go at mobile blogging using the Android app I'd installed before we left, but for some reason it only works if your blog is linked to a gmail account (which this isn't). I was thwarted also by there being NO wifi in West Wales, as far as I could tell - you get so used to going in and out of wifi zones in the high streets and shopping centres that being without it was quite a shock. Mobile reception was also patchy, so trying to upload photos would have been difficult anyway. I've found a new app  and will try it out some time. The lack of instant access to FB, Twitter etc was frustrating at times but was probably good for me...

Regular readers will know that our family week away was spent in Cardigan Bay, a beautiful rural/coastal area with gorgeous beaches and clean seas, in the company of both my sisters, one of my brothers-in-law and my very cute niece Catrin. It was a bit of a nostalgia week as Penbryn was the setting for many of our childhood holidays, and it's also the halfway point (ish) between Northern Ireland where my youngest sister lives and Essex/London where the rest of us are.

So, we drove down from Epping along the M4 in torrential rain, with thick black cloud as far as the eye could see - pretty standard for a Welsh holiday, but still a little dispiriting! - but as we crossed the Severn Bridge we started getting flashes of sun which made the seven-hour drive a little more bearable. The views as we drove through the Brecon Beacons were spectacular as you can see below, which was just as well as I'd insisted we took the slow route through Crickhowell, Brecon and Llandovery rather than the M4 up to Carmarthen.

The flat we'd rented turned out to be in the annexe of a church that we'd driven past many times on our way to the beach and although 9 people made it a bit of a squash (even if 4 of them were quite small) it was lovely to spend some time with my NI sister and her little family. Her daughter Catrin and my No. 2 Daughter Tove are so similar that they could be twins, and there's only 3 months difference in age. Tove is rather more boisterous as she has to compete with her elder sister, but by the end of the week Cat was standing up for herself nicely (much to her mother's horror, I think) and had learned two new words (no and miiiiiiine) which will serve her well.

It continued to rain for the first three days of the holiday but in true family fashion we didn't let that stop us, and we made it to various beaches on most days. New Quay (Cei Newydd) was spotty with rain and a bit breezy but the kids loved blowing bubbles and pottering about on the sand with their buckets and spades, while Arthur took pictures with Dylan's help and Conall stayed home watching the Gaelic Football finals.

Monday was a no-chance-of-it-brightening-up day with 'heavy and persistent' rain (according to the weatherman!) so we headed for Aberystwyth for lunch and The Magic of Life Butterfly House near the Rheidol Power Station visitor centre in the beautiful Cwm Rheidol. The kids were amazed by the enormous butterflies roaming the polytunnel (I was quite chuffed when a few landed on me too).

We also made it, all wrapped up, to Penbryn itself on the Tuesday. Daisy was all for the idea of caves until she saw them and changed her mind! They did have a wonderful time splashing about in the stream that cuts across the beach though.

Fortunately the sun came out after this and we had three good beach days at Llangrannog with its hair-raising approach roads and Penbryn again. I managed to swim on all three days and Conall and Arthur had a lovely time digging enormous holes for the kids to leap in and out of. Catrin and Tove particularly loved them, and the sheer size of the hole was the cause of much dad-envy from other children.

Arthur and I also snuck away for a couple of hours on our last evening for a walk on the beach at Tresaith and a quick drink at the Ship Inn with its amazing views over the Bay. In the bar there is a dolphin-spotting board - there is a family of bottle-nose dolphins which is well-established in Cardigan Bay (I saw one!) - and what looks like an excellent bar menu. We climbed over the rocks to the left of the beach to see the waterfall, and then wandered along the beach to watch the sunset.





I also managed to fit in a few runs (even one in the rain!). One route was through Sarnau village which is very small so that one wasn't much fun, and the other two took me down to the beach carpark at Penbryn and back. The run out on that one was all downhill (almost 3K!) which was hard on the legs (no pain, no gain. Or something like that) but the downside was the very steep climb back up. The upside was the scenery, as the road is so steep that the views across Cardigan Bay are amazing. It was on the way back up that I stopped for a look at the view and saw a dolphin, so it was all worth it.

The other notable wildlife spot was the Red Kites, which were very rare when I was studying in Aberystwyth in the 1990s but now seem common as far south as Penbryn which is a real success story for the Welsh Kite Trust and other organisations. Lots of buzzards, too, and millions of sheep.

We had a lovely time, but I did miss my washing machine (I'm on load number 8 now with at least another 4 to go) and Costa/Starbucks/Caffe Nero for my coffee hits! I do hope we go again next year.

In other news, while I was away Carolyn over at CeeGee Jewellery Design nominated me for The Versatile Blogger award, which was very kind of her....but now I need to think of 7 random things about me to share with you all! So I'm off to do just that. Look out for my Versatile Blogger post in a couple of days....