Wales Trip Day 1: Llandrindod Wells, Radnorshire
Before leaving the UK we intend to do a fair amount of sightseeing. This is an account of a week we recently spent travelling in Wales. Its not a live-blog, but I noted a few observations each day so that the posts read a little as if I had had a computer with me. (And its not as if anyone reading this cares where I actually am sitting when I post this!)Our hotel was located some 30 miles away in Llandrindod Wells - a pretty little Victorian Spa Town on the edge of the Black Mountains. The journey gave the boy a chance to sleep and we took in some more spectacular scenery.
We were very well served with our choice of hotel. We had chosen the
Metropole, a Victorian hotel which turned out to be located right in the centre of town, with a large car park. Everything looked spick and span - the hotel building was evidently fairly freshly painted (in a rich Victorian green) and the decor within was clean and spotless.
Our room
We had booked a room in one of the towers, which meant that we got a bed, room to set up the travel cot, and a sitting room area, which meant that there was plenty of room for a toddler to run around and let off steam. The only thing wrong with the room was that the water pressure in the bathroom was a bit low, but nothing to complain about. And it didn't cost us much more than I've had to spend on a pokey room for one in an anodyne Holiday Inn while on business trips (on a tariff here that included Breakfast and Dinner).
The hotel pool was located in a nice conservatory, and was refreshingly cool - you noticed it when you got in but not after a minute or so in the water. There were some floats and toys to keep children busy with and our son (who loves pools) had a great time.
And then it was time for dinner.
I have been to many restaurants in London and Oxford, and other expensive spots around the south east, so I have had my fair share of 'posh' or fussy food. I can honestly say that I have never had better haute cuisine than we ate at this hotel. The portions were just right, for all three it tatscourses, the food prepared to perfection (even the fish fingers on the children's menu, were actual cuts of cod that had been battered) and it tasted wonderful. Furthermore, despite the quality of the food, and the care taken arranging it on the plates, the hotel restaurant was absolutely family friendly - we didn't for a moment feel self conscious about having a toddler at the table with us. The hotel restaurant also evinced a certain pride in its performance that you don't always see - the menu contained brief resumes of the Head Chef, Sous Chef and Restaurant Manager (who had worked her way up from joining as a temporary waitress), and explained that the junior chefs were being trained with a view to obtaining formal qualifications.
Simply fantastic - if you are planning on staying in this part of Wales, consider the Metropole Hotel a must.
To be continued...
Wales Trip Day 1: Hay on Wye, Brecknock
Before leaving the UK we intend to do a fair amount of sightseeing. This is an account of a week we recently spent travelling in Wales. Its not a live-blog, but I noted a few observations each day so that the posts read a little as if I had had a computer with me. (And its not as if anyone reading this cares where I actually am sitting when I post this!)Hay on Wye lies exactly on the border between England and Wales (having entered Wales in Monmouthshire we approached it from the Welsh side). It is a small and pretty English country town, which would be picturesque but unremarkable if it were not for its unique selling point - that it is the secondhand bookshop capital of the UK. Something like 30 secondhand bookshops, dealers and other related shops are crammed into the town - the centre of which would easily fit within a decent sized Shopping Mall.
Apparently, things ended up this way because an eccentric in the 1970s bought Hay Castle, declared the town independent and himself King. One of his first acts was to declare the town to be 'booktown' and amazingly people heeded his decree and (despite the distance from the major urban centres of the UK) came and opened their bookshops. My wife comments that this poses the question, does the opening of the shops validate the declaration of independence by clearly accepting the social contract!
Whether that is the case is sadly academic, as we found out when we parked. The Oxford Road car park sits on the Beacons side of town, and lies below a hill. As you come to the entrance it looks fairly small, but as soon as you come over the top of the hill you see that it is (by British municipal standards) vast. Despite Hay's pretensions of independence the car park is administered by Powys County Council. [Powys, for all its historical meaning as an area is confusingly not a County at all. Hay is in the county of Brecknock (or Brecknockshire), but UK local government structures no longer reflect the real counties]. The car park is terribly marked - you can see at least two generations of older parking space markings overlapping with the current ones. Thanks to this we wound up with a ticket for parking in a bus bay. We are appealing this on the grounds that the car was parked within a clearly marked car space, and that if they want to change the markings they should scrub out the old lines before painting new ones. If you are planning to visit Hay, watch out for this.
UPDATE: We heard about our appeal and they cancelled the parking ticket!
A nice, simple to understand car park...
After parking we wandered around town, had a spot of lunch and started looking at some of the bookshops - including a fantastic little shop which specialises in old children's books. We found a couple of nice old fashioned activity books (now terribly un-PC) there. By this point it was getting late in the afternoon, and our son (who is 2) was in need of a nap. So we decided to head for our hotel, which had a pool and return to Hay in the morning.
To be continued...
Wales Trip Day 1: Into Wales
Before leaving the UK we intend to do a fair amount of sightseeing. This is an account of a week we recently spent travelling in Wales. Its not a live-blog, but I noted a few observations each day so that the posts read a little as if I had had a computer with me. (And its not as if anyone reading this cares where I actually am sitting when I post this!)The first part of our little trip is not terribly interesting. Having crammed the car full of provisions, turned our son's DVD player to the dulcet tones of Dora the Explorer and navigated our way out of Swindon onto the M4 we headed straight along the motorway. It was wet, and apart from which side of the road we were on could have been anywhere in the West.
The M4
Not that its a boring drive. Just outside of Swindon you pass Barbury Camp - site of the battle that allowed the invading Saxons to establish the Kingdom of Wessex in these parts (and drive the Welsh into Wales). Further on you pass close by Bath - one of our favourite cities. And there are some fabulous views. However, because it was raining I didn't get any photos to illustrate this with, so it probably best to skip on promptly.
The Second Severn Crossing We passed around the outskirts of Bristol and over one of the Severn Bridges and into Wales. There are bigger and more impressive bridges out there, but the two on the Severn are still cool.
The motorway services at Newport are too small and have a horrible car park. [US readers: in its wisdom our government does not allow merchants to put big adverts up along the interstate before exits, so if you want a break or something to eat you have to go into one of the designated 'service' stations which are every 50 miles or so on the motorway. Each one is run by a firm that has been granted the monopoly on that particular stretch, and the results are variable].
Just after Newport we turned off the motorway, and made our way north past Cwmbran and up into the
Brecon Beacons National Park. This was one of the reasons for choosing this route to our destination (Hay on Wye), and the scenery rewarded us spectactularly. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures here - so follow the link to the Park website if you don't know it.
The roads were very good too. A lot of work has clearly been done on the roads over the past few years, and we travelled along quite quickly as a result. Having pushed out of the other side of the Beacons, we arrived at Hay on Wye, which lies on the border with England. It is an odd and wonderful little place - the Town of Books.
To be continued...
Work in progress
Just a note to say that this site is very much a work in progress right now. I'm not exactly new to blogging (of more anon) but time right now is not really on the side of spectacular site design. We'll concentrate on the content first. Also, my previous blogging exploits were pure politics, while I'd like this to be a bit more general, so the writing style is new to me and may take a bit of getting used to...
About us
We are a young family, currently living in the UK but about to move to the USA, where my wife is from. As such we will be in the unenviable position of being able to talk about the realities of LEGAL immigration into two countries, and I'm sure we will in due course!
Why the move? Too many reasons to say really. I could make political hay and say we are moving to get away from eye watering tax rates (over 40% of every further pound I could earn would be misappropriated by the Government), an interfering nannyish government, the loss of our traditional liberties (guns are almost gone, self defence too, with free speech and private property close behind), an impending demographic catastrophe across the English Channel, and the imminent introduction of ID cards. But if I did, I would be lying. However, I'd also be lying if I said that those things didn't factor into our decision.
Now don't get me wrong. Britain has been in worse scrapes than this - and we passionately hope that things will turn the corner and I'll be dutifully mailing in my ballot paper until they disenfranchise me (in about 15 years time I believe). We're not turning our backs on Britain and intend to watch closely and visit often, but we believe our future to be elsewhere.
And where in the US will that be? Unknown. I'm quitting my job and intend to relax for a month or two before finding another (the past two years I've commuted 160 miles a day by bus, so I fancy a break). We'll be staying with my mother in law in Arkansas until I find a job, so we'll start looking around that part of the country first. In due course I'll post a CV here, but if you know of any openings in the Mid West or South for a Management Consultant / Software developer (MCSD) give us a shout!
