Pelican in Wales

I took pics of the fence ringing the grounds and moat of Cardiff Castle. Victor--one is a pelican!





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Cardiff Castle

We made it to exactly one castle, the one that was in town. It was EXTREMELY hilly, so my knees recommended sitting it out. I sat and enjoyed half a cream tea while Alex & James, freshly hatted (see below), explored Cardiff Castle.


I saved half the scone and jam and cream for them.


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Wales

I had thought that we could gallivant up and down the south coast of Wales, drifting in and out of various castles. In fact, traffic backups on the M5 were terrible. We got to Wales late.


When we arrived in Cardiff, the kids wanted to have an afternoon Doctor Who Experience right off. (Exterminate!)





Not I. I blew 88 quid on socks and undergarments at a fabulous mystery store with a huge car park. Heaven.


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THATCH

We are staying in Williton, in the cute little thatched cottage behind the kids. It is awesome in every way. Except it's in a Dead Zone. Not only no wi-fi, but no cellular service of any description. There are, however, gnomes directly across the street.






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Aunt Pat

How did we miss taking a picture? Our visit with Pat was thoroughly enjoyable, from how light and spontaneous the conversation feels around her, to how delighted Alex and James were to 'discover' this fun 'new' (80-year-old) relative, to the yummy Italian restaurant and the delish cream tea at her home. We were sad to leave, but THATCH awaited.

Pat provided us the use of her land line, thank heavens. With that, I was able to reach my bank, which had inexplicably cut me off! I was able to head west a bit more relaxed.



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Stonehenge on a Sunday

We hit Stonehenge on the way to Pat on Sunday. BOY, has it changed. When I was a kid, you could climb on the stones. When Mike was a kid, you could park a short walk away and circle the stones at a distance--you had to have a good zoom lens for decent images.

Nowadays, you come over a hill and see what appear to be cows on a hillside. In fact, I actually said, "Look, cows." Then, from behind trees, Stonehenge appears in the distance, among the 'cows' (actually, people), looking like a left-behind play setup, it's so far away. I feel sure that the road is now somehow pushed back.

We followed the signs and continued on and on. We turned right. We turned right again. We entered a mammoth car park, where men in uniforms told us, "No fee today"--wait, there's a fee to park?--and parked in a small sea of vehicles. We walked to a low building surrounded by swarms of tourists.

It costs, as it turns out, £55 for a 'family' to go because you must buy a membership in British Heritage. Which is separate from the National Trust, the administrator of a number of other sites on our to-see list. However, BH does administer Tintagel.

We stood there, debating advisability. A female salesperson swooped upon us, sensing her moment. She began her spiel, dazzling us with her accent and her assuredness. We joined.

You have to take a shuttle bus to the stones. A shuttle bus!


The value added is pretty considerable, though. There's a museum now that contains 5000-year-old cremated remains and a 5500-year-old skeleton found at the site. (They did forensic analysis and have tried to re-create his head.) Stonehenge itself is currently estimated to be more than 4200 years old, dating to well before the Druids. In terms of the Easter Island heads and the Roman Colosseum, Stonehenge occurred so long before their times that it was the dust of history for them.

It was cool.


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Reading, home of our EE

We went to Reading with renewed determination: We were going to find a Staples. At home, Staples is where I can print out the odd doc for work and where I can buy tech stuff like SIM cards, phones, and tablets. James had to print out an email about the festival tickets, and we needed some sort of resolution to our tech dilemma.

We entered so confident. The staff were pleasant, even borderline helpful. One drew us a map (typical for the locals providing directions, he drew us exiting the parking lot via a branch off a rotary, which is not humanly possible and made us go through the directions on the ground a few times). But James was charged about $6 for printing an email. And they had nothing that we needed or that could help. But they did know that there was an outfit in town that could, one that Victor had already told us about but that we had seen nowhere: EE.

EE saved our butts, once we found it. Of course, it cost us 50 quid. But we were happy. We went off to eat, noting a strange set of robotic moving legs pedaling a bicycle first.




We had hot meat pies--beef and horseradish for me, with cauli and cheese, venison and boar with chips for Judd. Alex ordered roast pork with cracklin'. They were all so, so good. And treacle tart with cream for Afters. Alex is in love with treacle tart.









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