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More than a wet weekend in Wales Last year was a ‘big’ birthday for Amanda and her sisters came up trumps with a present: a voucher for a stay in a treehouse in Wales! Now the most impressive thing about this is that for themselves this would vary from, “nice idea, but I'm not sure it's quite me...” to “OMG that is my worst holiday nightmare on earth!”, but they correctly identified that it would be perfect for Amanda (and me - a voucher for two!). Kudos! [Aside: ‘kudos’ (or κῦδος if you want to show off) is the Greek word for ‘glory’ or ‘renown’, used as an expression of praise for excellence, but somewhere along the line in social media contexts it became the plural of the nonexistent word ‘kudo’. I am fully aware of the futility of raging against language change, but this is still sufficiently niche that one can be smugly superior about knowing the original usage. {Further aside: maybe it's not that new: “Merriam-Webster accepts the false-singular as a word as early as 1926.” Blimey!}] Where was I? Oh yes, we have two nights in a treehouse in Wales... So Amanda thinks that it would be a fine idea to actually make the booking for her birthday this year, and gosh, if you book Saturday and Sunday nights, you can have Monday free, so even better. Now, we aren't keen on the idea of driving all the way to Wales and back in the course of a long weekend, so we think we'll make it a proper short holiday and expand it to a week and a half or so. A couple of days travelling each way, then staying at some other places in Wales, yeah, that's going to work, and by our standards dead cheap (remember we've just come back from Antarctica which cost something like the UK median annual salary, so there's plenty of room for economy!) What's halfway between here and north-west Wales? Well, the old Severn Bridge is probably about right in terms of time (rather than distance), and what do you know, it has a parkrun! Yes, there's an international (ish) parkrun across the bridge from Wales into England and back again, so what can we do? Do we have a choice? Is there really such a thing as free will? (Yes, ok, maybe I am writing this after a glass of wine (or two)). And while we're talking parkruns, there's one at Pwllheli too. “WTF is Pwllheli?” you may ask, and I'm not going to condemn you for it. There's a Channel 4 TV series "Our Welsh Chapel Dream" which we've been watching, about this crazy couple restoring a near-derelict old chapel there, and it's in the same general NW-Wales area as the treehouse. (Extra bonus marks if you can pronounce the name: it's sort of “Poohhhhheli”, but the ‘ll’ sound in particular does not exist in standard English, and one of the things I have learnt over the years is that when you make exactly the same sound as the natives, you are completely mistaken and they hear something completely different. Don't worry, it works in reverse too: when foreigners say something that sounds nothing like natural English, I promise you that they are exactly duplicating what they hear you say.) Ok... Portmeirion is not that far either. Odds are that if you know the name it's for one of two reasons: either the glass and ceramics range or 'The Prisoner', a cult TV series from 1967. We tick both boxes, although we've found that only a tiny minority of the Portmeirion wares are to our taste. The place itself is a holiday village where you can stay, not just a tourist attraction to be visited, but we don't know this as we're planning our trip. Right, the plan is finalised: drive to Alveston near Bristol, staying at the Premier Inn there, a short drive to the Severn Bridge parkrun. Then to Brecon and stay one night, then north to the treehouse in, err, the middle of nowhere really, it's near, err, well, nowhere anyone's heard of. About 25 miles NE of Aberystwyth (near where Amanda's friend and former colleague Carolyn lives) is about as good as most people can use, or a bit SW of Snowdonia National Park. Then to Llanllyfni, roughly equidistant from Caernarfon and Pwllheli and the Festioniog Railway, which we would like to check out. After that we'll visit our friends Patrick and Katie near Stafford on the way back, before our final night in a (not really) shepherd's hut just outside Stratford-upon-Avon. So let's begin: Day 1 ~ May 15 ~ Home to Severn Bridge Day 2 ~ May 16 ~ Severn Bridge to Brecon Day 3 ~ May 17 ~ Brecon to (near) Machynlleth Day 4 ~ May 18 ~ Treehouse (near Machynlleth) Day 5 ~ May 19 ~ Treehouse Day 6 ~ May 20 ~ Treehouse to Hedd Wen (not really near anywhere!) via Caernarfon Day 7 ~ May 21 ~ Hedd Wen, visiting Portmeirion and Harlech Day 8 ~ May 22 ~ Hedd Wen: Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog and back by train Day 9 ~ May 23 ~ Hedd Wen, visiting Pwllheli and Tremadog Day 10 ~ May 24 ~ Hedd Wen to Snitterfield (Stratford on Avon) Day 11 ~ May 25 ~ Snitterfield to Home year index |