travel
Staples RIP
Glancing across Parc Tawe after finishing the food shopping the other day I saw a shocking sight. Staples was no longer there. It took a while for the eye to confirm that it really had disappeared, and a while longer for the brain to absorb the meaning of the disappearance. The truth was that some […]
Wales Coast Path, day 90: Conwy to Llandudno
We’re quite a crowd, today, six of us. Enough to cause anxiety, with our clompy boots and bulky rucksacks, to anyone encountering us on the Coast Path. As well as M we have two other guestwalkers, Ca, and M-A, who’s waiting for us at Conwy station. A misunderstanding in the café nearby gives us one […]
Wales Coast Path, day 89: Llanfairfechan to Conwy
Guestwalker M joins the three of us today. Together we walk down to the railway station at Pensarn and wait for the train. It’s a cool, dark day, with a threat of rain. A few yellow-jacketed workers make sporadic attempts to relieve the glumness and dereliction of the place. We catch the train, change at Llandudno […]
Wales Coast Path, day 95: Flint to Chester
In sunny Flint C and I make for a recommended café in Church Street, Yr Hen Lys. It deserves the praise. The coffee is good and the bara brith even better. Back over the railway line, we make for the castle, only glimpsed the day before. A silhouette sculpture – Flintshire has dozens of them, […]
Wales Coast Path, day 94: Talacre to Flint
Today is industry day. We’re back in Talacre, after a pair of slow bus rides, and plan to reach Flint. It’s even colder this morning – it sleets for a time later – and we’re dressed as if for the Norwegian Arctic. This time we do call in at Lola and Suggs for a coffee. […]
Wales Coast Path, day 93: Rhyl from Talacre
Rhyl in the rain is no fun. We’ve arrived from Abergele on the no.12 bus to find the connecting service has just pulled out of the bus station, five minutes before it should have. We take to the depressed streets in the hope of finding refreshement, and just as hope fades and we’re beginning to […]
Wales Coast Path, day 91: Llandudno to Pensarn
I’ve always had a soft spot for Llandudno, despite its pretensions and its appeal to royalty, domestic and foreign. It has many attractions: the languid curve of its bay bookended by the two Ormes, its numerous coffee shops, its graceful shopping arcades, its pride in whitewashed tidiness, the splendour of the Mostyn Art Gallery, the […]
Wales Coast Path, day 92: Pensarn to Rhyl
Caravans and coasts go together like Morecambe and Wise. It’s seldom that we walk a day on the Wales Coast Path without seeing at least a few caravans. But the coastal strip between Pensarn and Rhyl, our gentle afternoon introduction to the north Wales coast, is so caravan-saturated that, on the top of a double-decker […]
Two Scilly visitors
On 22 October 1707 Admiral Sir Cloudsley Shovell was guiding his fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ships back towards the England coast after a failed attempt to defeat the French fleet near the Mediterranean port of Toulon during the War of the Spanish Succession. It was a difficult voyage. The weather was stormy, and Shovell, […]
Cribarth
It’s the morning of the Pumpkinification of Donald Trump. Three of us have fled the bloggers, tweeters and trolls, to the head of Cwm Tawe. We park in Ystradgynlais, near Ysgol Golwg y Cwm, and walk up to the track of the old Swansea Vale Railway. This and the Brecon and Neath Railway it connects with […]