Urban Nature

I spent the afternoon with a friend who recently moved from my street to her new home near Oakwood here in Leeds.

We went to the wonderful Wellington pub on Wetherby Road for their carvery meal (£3.25 has to be the best deal in the area) and it was just as well that we were happy with soda drinks as, due to yesterdays record breaking rainfall, their cellar had been flooded and no draught alcohol was available.

It was almost the pub with no beer, immortalised in a popular song I remember from my youth.

Afterwards we went back to her place for tea and chat and I was entranced by the bird feeder she had on her main living room window. It was a basic plastic contraption like a large square letter C and it fastened to the glass with suckers so that the bottom of the C was the feeding tray, the back was a see through panel and the top was a 'roof' to protect the food from gentle rain.

With me so far ? Good.

Well with this setup, I was able to sit in the comfort of the living room and watch up close as birds and squirrels came to partake of the food on offer. The presence of the window seemed to give them enough confidence to remain feeding even when I'd get quite close to the window but the birds, being much more skittish, never hung around very long.

There was a little rose bush just in front of the feeder and many birds would rest there before making the short flight across to the feeder tray.

This was a good thing as it was almost impossible to get a decent shot of a bird once it was in the tray as the whole contraption was quite small and the suckers and the plastic frame tended to spoil the view.

This was my first attempt at getting a bird before it moved across to feed. I have to say 'bird' as I've no idea what it's called.

As anyone who has read my posts will know, I'm useless at naming birds, flowers and just about anything in nature but that doesn't stop me liking to photograph them. This fella didn't hang around and was off a second after I took this shot.

The birds would give way at the table to the squirrels and the real fun was in watching how these cunning creatures would make their way to the food.

The feeder was on a window about 5 feet off the ground with no window ledge to use as a staging point. That left 2 options - to jump across from the rose bush or to jump up from the ground. The squirrel in this photo was deciding if the food on offer was worth taking option 1.

The jump across would've been a real act of faith as there was no knowing if the tray would hold their weight. No squirrel was willing to make that leap while I was there and so I was treated to squirrel heads bobbing up and down at the base of the window as they worked out how much effort was needed to leap further up to the feeder. It reminded me of that game at fun fairs where you have to smack the heads of some creatures (moles usually) as they pop up at random from various holes.

The commonest method they settled on was to leap up from the ground and somehow grip onto the upright window frame just across from the feeder and then, stretching across with one front leg, would make a successful, if not very elegant, transition to the feeder.

This provided great amusement as we'd be sitting chatting and suddenly a squirrel would appear noisily on the window frame as if fired from a cannon. Then there would be a great scraping of claws on glass and uPVC as it tried to get a grip on the frame and usually this was followed by a slow slide back down like in a scene from the Road Runner cartoon when the hapless (not so) Wile E. Coyote would splat into a canyon cliff face.

This 2nd squirrel photo shows it still thinking about making the leap across from the rose bush but this time I've moved position to get it head on. I never did get a photo of one hitting the window as it was all over so fast - a blur of fur and flailing claws.

Once the squirrels had eaten their fill, they left and the birds returned. Again I've no idea what this fella was called but he looked cute as he puffed out his little colourful chest. Bless.

It was all very enchanting. I posted some photos of a wire ball shaped bird feeder at my brother's house in Wales some weeks ago but this one was even better as it brought the 'customers' so much closer.

I plan to return and set up the camera on a little desk top tripod I have and connect it to my laptop. Using the remote capture software that came with it, I can take photos using the laptop to operate the shutter and hopefully get better photos of the skittish birds as I'll be much further away from the window.

I don't think I'll ever get any exciting species (Leeds isn't known as a migration staging post for any exotics birds) but I'd settle for a sharp image of a common tit.

Stop sniggering back there.

I Do Like Mondays

Yesterday I popped down to Nottingham to visit with a dear old friend of more than 30 years. As usual we reminisced. Seems to be in the air.

The last few posts have shown me to be in a reflective mood and as today is my birthday, the mood continues. Mind you, given the atrocious weather today, it's not a bad idea to be wallowing in nostalgia. It rained heavily for 18 hours and still may return before tomorrow.

Well it's the first day of Wimbledon, so what can we expect !

I like watching tennis. Ok I like watching most sports even though I don't play any on a regular basis. I've never been a Sporty Spice and having been a glasses wearer since my early teens, I was a bit of a non starter when it came to school contact games. I wouldn't have minded soccer but my school insisted we play Gaelic Football and Hurling and given that both involved plenty of 'contact' and very little 'sport' I hated them both. Hurling can be especially hazardous as it combines a hard ball, a stick/bat called 'a hurl' ' to scoop this ball up and smack it to another team member or towards the goal and 15 opposition players trying their damnest to stop you doing both. Take this quote from the rules of hurling...........

Side to side shouldering is allowed although body-checking or shoulder-charging is illegal. No protective padding is worn by players, and although a plastic protective helmet with faceguard is recommended, this is not mandatory for players over 21.

Protective helmets !! No such mamby pamby safety gear in my day. The only protection we had were our skulls and young, still developing bones, were regularly bashed and generally subjected to all sorts of legal and illegal strikes. Of course we'd all been hardened by the legal and illegal moves made on us by the priests/teachers but that's another story. Your honour.

We also had handball. Now that's not the game most people think of when the name is mentioned and for all I know, it was unique to our school ! We had 3 or 4 handball courts which looked a bit like outdoor roofless squash courts. Like squash you hit the small ball at the serving wall in front of you and assuming it was above a service line on this wall, the ball was in play and could be smacked back to the wall making use of any of the other walls on the way.

The HUGE difference between it and squash was that no racket was involved - you used the palm of your hand to propel the ball and yes, it could really hurt. You could always spot good players who played a lot as they were the ones with hands like baseball mitts/wicket keeper gloves and you tried to avoid shaking hands with them.

But it was a (mostly) non contact sport so was on my short list of games I liked to play.

When I left school, I never saw or even heard of it again. Maybe I made it up. I made up a lot of things at school. I was a kid. It was my job. As Mark Twain said, I never let schooling interfere with my education.

In later life I took up golf. Another game where you hit a small ball. I've never played often enough to get very good at it but I still like it. Most of the time it may be a good walk spoiled (supposedly Mr. Twain again) but if nothing else, I get the walk as a bonus.

But back to today. Do I feel older ? Hell yes. The golf swing causes me to ache the next day. A long walk causes me to ache the next day. Eating an Indian or Chinese meal makes me ache the next day.

I'm going to skip tomorrow and go straight to Wednesday.

I Remember Nostalgia

I've always been interested in the charts...the music charts that is.

At school in the early 60's I'd listen to the new weekly singles chart with all the giddy excitement that a pre-teen could acceptably muster as a Catholic in an all boy's boarding school without needing to go to confession the next day.

Rivalries were common, of course, and we all had our favourite groups or soloists who we would defend to the hilt - even if their current release would've made Stock, Aitken and Waterman blush. The main split was between those who bought Beatles records and those who favoured The Stones.

I didn't like either and it says everything about my lifetime musical tastes that my first bought single was "Mirror, Mirror" by Pinkerton's Assorted Colours. Hey it's not often you get to hear an electric auto harp on a song ! You could keep your Beatles and Stones.

That started me along the exciting, flower powered, substance sniffing, hotel room trashing, rock and roll world of......middle of the road music ! I graduated to heavies like Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, Rolf Harris and Peter Sarstedt with a dangerous dash of locals like Val Doonican and The Bachelors thrown in for good measure. Heady days indeed.

Like every teen in the UK, I'd watch Top Of The Pops and from my viewing point in 60's N. Ireland, the glamour of the show was a million miles away on another planet. Planet London in fact but it might as well have been Planet Mars.

Over the decades we aged together and I watched and listened to fashion fads and musical styles come and go. Through it all, even though I may not have liked much of the music, I felt that by watching the show and keeping an active interest in the weekly charts, I was somehow still 'with it' and 'hip' even though my use of both those phrases clearly showed I wasn't either and that, in fact, I'd long since lost touch with musical reality.

Throughout the 80's and 90's I was able to name most of the songs played on Radio 1 and could even name many of the DJ's. Still I'd check the charts and although the names were becoming more and more bizarre to me, I stuck with it and could hold my own in music related conversations.

My own tastes were still very much down the middle of that same road with artistes like Elton John, ELO, Queen, Moody Blues, Rod Stewart, Celine Dion, Madonna (early years only) and Picketywitch.

Ok, maybe not the last one.

As we moved into the new century, I found it harder and harder to enjoy, or even understand , much of the music in the charts and regressed more and more to the decade I knew most about and 'felt 'comfortable in......the 60's. Thank God for Oldies radio stations and then, with the combination of the internet and mp3 downloads, I was able to collect every single I ever wanted from that decade..........even that one by Pinkerton's Assorted Colours. The circle was complete.

These days I admit I've lost the plot completely, so to speak. It started long before TOTP's came to an historic end but even that event seemed to mirror my capitulation to modern musical tastes. I read the singles and album charts now and again but don't know 99% of the artists. I want my groups to have names starting with 'The'. It also seems to me that there are no solo artistes anymore as evidenced by the proliferation of the abbreviation 'ft' (as with the current number one "Umbrella" by Rihanna ft Jay-Z). What's that all about, as Peter Kay would say ? It's a whole new world and one that mystifies me now.

In conversations with younger people I might say I like the Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs even if I'm not too sure if the first are some sort of ice bound simian primates and the other are a little known tribe of lederhosen wearing Germanic Indians. I just cannot admit to being musically backward.

But I am. I'm a musical dinosaur, liking my music over easy and expecting my groups to have a lead singer, a couple of guitarists and a drummer.

And so imagine my surprise when I looked at the current album charts and saw that 7 of the Top 10 were what I'd classify as 'oldies but goldies'. The top 3 were The Travelling Wilburys, Bon Jovi and The Police. No.5 was Genesis, No.6 was Hank Marvin (what's the betting he'll be emailing Cliff, packing his bags in some Perth suburb and jetting back to become the darling of the chat show circuit), No.9 was The Who and closing out the Top 10 wass Paul (Bus Pass) McCartney.

Can you imagine the combined age of that lot !! Cream rises to the top and all that.

For a while I had thoughts of a new lease of musical life. I might have started looking at the charts again on a regular basis. I might have tuned in to MTV or VH1 now and then. Who knows, I might even have moved back to Radio 1 and abandoned Terry, Ken, Steve and Chris for a while.

Had the musical world come round to my way of thinking ?

Had the great British paying public risen up as one and decided to give the oldies another chance ?

Sadly no. The charts simply reflect the fact that today is 17th June. Father's Day. Nuff said.

I'm off to play "Mirror, Mirror", have a good old wallow and be there with Terry in the morning.

Combining Habits

My previous post opened up long forgotten personal memories of childhood and relatives - and for me, the two didn't often provide happy memories.

I was an incredibly shy and introverted kid and all my life, I have never felt comfortable in a group of people.

Part of my problem grew from having very outgoing, extrovert and confident relatives - at least on my mum's side. We didn't spend much time with those on dad's side and even he enjoyed the in-laws more than his own family members.

As I mentioned in that post, mum was one of 12 and that meant 6 aunts and 5 uncles and half were in farming in some way or another. Two of the aunts and 2 of the uncles moved to England either before I was born or not long after. This still left plenty and when I was around them, I felt intimidated by their confidence.

I did have favourites and even though I never saw much of her, I loved my Aunt Louisa. There were 2 good reasons for not seeing her a lot. First she was one of the aunts who lived in England and second, she was a Mother Superior in a closed order convent !! Basically nuns there were not allowed to leave the premises.

Before I left for a life in England myself, the Vatican changed the rules (oh now what a surprise) and the nuns could leave from time time to time if they wanted. Aunt Louisa, or Sister Perpetua, to give her 'religious' name, would visit maybe once or twice a year and was so different from my other aunts that I loved her from the first time I met her.

She was a Whoopi Goldberg meets Julie Andrews sort of nun. Very funny, didn't seem particularly zealous at all and was a hoot to be around. She lit up a room with her presence and personality - although as we always associated with Catholics, her appearance was guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser on so many levels !

One event stands out vividly in my mind and again it's from the days when summers were long and hot and I never wanted them to end. It was hay bailing time and this WAS hard work back then. My uncle had invested a fortune in a new combine harvester which pooped out the classic
boxed bales of hay and not the huge wheel types that we see these days. They may have been smaller but they were still a challenge for a puny teenager to haul up onto a trailer to take back from the field to the farm.

But it was still fun. The craic was great and although I rarely contributed to any of it, I started my lifelong fascination with listening to people. When you are shy, there isn't a lot else to do !!

Mid afternoon, Aunt Louisa hovered out (I always thought when women became nuns, they traded in their shoes for some hover mechanism as it seemed to me that they glided everywhere on a sort of celestial cushion of air) to bring us some lemonade in true 'cotton picking' style. As usual she was taking some friendly banter from her family members for not 'mucking in' and helping with the hay bailing and, with that wicked glint in her eye that I loved to bits, she said she'd help out by driving the harvester.

No one was more surprised than her when her oldest brother and the owner of the harvester said....ok then, up you go !!!

I took this photo. It's slightly faded due to age and, being taken several decades before digital photography came about, has had to be scanned to get it up here.

It's one of my favourite photos as it completely sums her up in my mind. It's a 'caption photo' if ever I saw one and my effort was made in the title of this post.

It makes me smile to see it now as it immediately takes me back to those carefree sunny summer days when I didn't have to be constantly worried about being bullied at school for my shyness, my looks and the fact that I came from a small rural village.

I was out in the fresh air, out in the fields and on this particular occasion, out with a wonderful aunt who made me feel that I WAS special. She listened to me, gave me advice and generally was there for me and I was all the better for knowing her. Her smile and laughter lit up a room and lit up the heart of a small timid boy who needed such a light in his life then.

That light went out suddenly, and much too soon, on 19th October 1980 and I often wonder what part she'd have played in my life if she'd been around longer.

As it is, she probably left an indelible impression on many people in her 'professional' life as you can't become a Mother Superior without doing so. But for me she was always Aunt Louisa and I will never forget what she meant to me.

The phrase about a picture being worth a thousand words has never been so true.

Just Call Me Harry.

Many decades ago, when we all lived in a sepia world, I would often spend my summer holidays on a relatives farm in N. Ireland. I had many relatives on my mother's side alone as she was one of twelve (my grandparents were THAT Catholic) and many of these relatives had farms.

It's strange how, when we look back on the summer holidays of our childhood, they all seem to be filled with long hot days and the occasional slightly damp night. Ahhhh the joys of puberty.

Now when I say holidays, I don't mean I sat around on the grand farmhouse patio, sipping lemonade from a tall glass while the paid help milked the cows or gathered in the crops or worried the sheep.

I was put to work and it wasn't easy, I can tell you. Well I just have.

Never mind some la-di-da big girls blouse prison. They should've sent Paris Hilton to a working farm for 16 hours or how ever long she's going to end up spending away from mommy and daddy and a toilet seat that isn't encrusted with the number two's of LA's not so finest.
That would've sorted her out in no time and given her a much different personal fragrance to boot.

Anyway, down on the farm, one particular day will live with me forever and, in classic style, the scars will also be with me forever. Well one scar at least.

I've no idea what age I was on the day in question, but lets say I was.....12. That would make sense as I'd have been old enough to have been home from boarding school (oooh get him !!) and yet still young enough to have felt I was indestructible. By days end, so did everyone else.

I loved to ride on the tractor. Hell I loved to DRIVE the tractor and on a farm, a 12 year old could do that now and then when uncle was being generous and aunty wasn't looking. On this day we were cutting up the soil in a field and so the tractor was pulling a piece of machinery I called a disc but I think was really called a harrow.

Here is a picture of one I found on t'internet so will probably get sued for pinching it. First offence, gov'ner.

The one we were pulling wasn't hinged in the middle like this one is, but was one long line of razor sharp disks which, when dragged over the soil, would carve it up and so let air get down into it. Actually our harrow had 2 rows of discs, to be sure, to be sure. There endeth my knowledge of the contraption and it's uses.

I said I sometimes worked on the farm. Never said I knew much about it.

Now even the non farmers among you may have noticed that not many tractors are set up for passengers. Well not back in sepia day at least. Farming is mainly a solitary career and as well as being short on cigarette lighters, pine air freshener 'trees' and furry dice, tractors have only one seat. Muggins was happily perched on a cushion fashioned out of a couple of jackets and wedged between the one seat and the huge right side wheel arch....on top of the axle really.

Normally this would have been a fairly secure location as the wheel arch provided good support for my right hand and I could grab some part of the seat with my left hand. Given the noise of a tractor at full revs, few words could be exchanged between uncle and myself which was fine as nothing needed to be said anyway. I was enjoying being out in the fresh air (built in air conditioning came as standard) and was bouncing along in a world of my own.

The next thing I knew, I was being fussed over in the farmhouse by some frantic relatives and feeling that I was having the worst hangover in history - if I'd known what that felt like at 12.

It appears my uncle suddenly sensed he truly was alone and when he looked to his right, I wasn't there. With no real evidence to go on, theories abounded within the family from.................

- the jackets shifted under me and I slid backwards off the tractor.

- I glanced back to look at the birds trailing us and slid backwards off the tractor.

- we hit a slight bump in the field and I slid backwards off the tractor.

- I was depressed by the onset of puberty and flung myself backwards off the tractor.


The one thing in common was..........I'd left the tractor in a backwards direction and this meant I had to have been run over by the twin rows of the harrow. I have no memory of the incident at all and as it was such a long time ago, I have little memory of what happened after it. I do remember lots of raised, slightly stressed voices and a bit of crying - although that was probably coming from me.

My only injury was a cut on the side of my forehead which, being a head wound, bled a lot. I don't know if I got stitches or if I even was taken to a doctors or a hospital - farms, by their nature, aren't close to hospitals or even towns for that matter.

So why do I not remember more details ? Well for years afterwards, the story of my miraculous survival was recalled at every family gathering and believe me, there were plenty of them. Every time it was mentioned, some seemingly small detail was either missed out or exaggerated and after a while, it was being said that "he was blown 10 feet into the air off a speeding tractor don't ye know, and fell under the spinning discs of some hellish agricultural behemoth and then his uncle, in a panic, reversed over the poor lad a few times for good measure. Another pint for me, Shemus".

The one constant in all this was that a blessed miracle had taken place. You can always trust good Catholics to put a positive spin on everything and I was talked about in whispered tones as some sort of early Jose Mourinho (ok an obscure reference, I know). The reason for this miracle was down to my wearing a cloth scapular around my neck and this was always worked into the story.

Oh don't get me going on scapulars. They seem to be the religious equivalent of Nectar Points and like a lot of articles and practices in the Catholic Church, can get you a reduced 'sentence' if and when you end up in Purgatory. Strange.......Paris Hilton just flashed into my mind again.

Go to the site and read about them if you want and find out about the bizarre world I grew up in. My theory is that the scapular got caught on some moving part of the tractor and that is what caused me to be violently pulled backwards off my snug and cozy jacket seat in the first place.

In any case, I've carried the scar ever since - I once tried to leave it on the top of a sightseeing bus in Paris but it found it's way back to me.

It's a sort of lightning bolt scar and it flares up every so often. Not so much miraculous as........magic.

A Snail's Pace

This is a first, I think.

The first time I've created a post based on a single photograph.

I was getting ready for bed about 2am this morning and suddenly realised I'd not left my bin out for collection. Now the wagon tends to drive by any time around 10am and I'm never in a fit state for anything at that time so I try to leave it out the night before.

So dressed only in my flapping dressing gown, I wheeled my bin to the end of the driveway and as I stood back, something caused me to look down and I saw a snail moving along the pavement.

Now this probably happens all the time but I've never actually seen it before.......well not one as large as this one anyway. It was huge and the shell looked almost pretty in the moonlight. Ok remember I WAS tired....not drunk.....but tired.

I went inside and got my camera and was faced with a tricky situation; it was too dark for the auto focus to work and when I set the lens to manual, I couldn't see enough to do it myself either.

So I took a series of photos at different settings and hoped for the best. What this must've looked like to anyone glancing out their bedroom windows will thankfully never be known. I was flashing in more ways than I really wanted to but as it was 2am, I felt sure my antics would go unnoticed by any sleepless neighbours.

Here is the result.............................












Not the most exciting post ever........but then it's been a bit of a slow day ! Sorry.

Wales - Day 7

Thursday, my last full day in Wales and I spent most of it in a castle.

It's like that there......castles everywhere. Castles to spare.

I left Aberangell and headed north on the A470 to Dolgellau. In fact I stayed on the A470 all the way up to the north coast as my destination was Conwy. But I needed personal fuel for the trip and went back to the same cafe in Dolgellau that I'd been to on Monday.

It was one of those occasions when what I wanted to say, didn't come out right. I just meant that when I'd left the cafe on Monday, it never entered my mind that I'd be back in Dolgellau wanting breakfast again given my touring plans. What came out of my mouth was "hello, I ate here on Monday and I never thought I'd be back here again".

Opps. Even though I tried to talk my way out of it, I'm sure the cook was told to add something 'extra' to my breakfast. My egg did seem a bit more runny than last time !!

Afterwards, my drive north took me the other way up the steep Bwlch Oerddwrs pass that I'd been on the previous day and I was pleased to see that my fence post 'flower' was still in place. It's needs it's own webcam so I can keep an eye on it. See to it, someone.

At noon I approached Conwy on the north Welsh coast and once again I found a castle that was not only impressive but was totally visible from the main road.

With no town map to hand, I just drove on over this bridge and as I went past the castle, the road split two ways. One clearly went into the town centre and the other, the one to the left and the one I took, went under a part of the castle walls and immediately became so narrow that vehicles had to take turns to pass through the stone arch.

Even large cars risked losing their wing mirrors but my little Clio was fine.

Once through the arch, I noticed a bowling green on the left which was in the shadows of the castle and there was a small road next to it where several cars were already parked. There were no signs that you had to pay to park on this road and so I found a spot and once settled, I couldn't believe the view out the passenger window.

This was the photo I took from inside the car and I'd have been happy enough to have driven off at that point as I'd no intention of going up into the castle anyway.

I'm not a great one for going into castles as mostly there is not much left to see and we ARE sort of blessed with loads of them in this country so I've seen my fair share.

I set off to walk back up to the split in the road and go into the town. After only a few yards I heard a noise and looked to my right and saw there was a train passing along the side of the castle. How clever of them to build a castle so close to a railway line as this must have been so handy when the royals fancied a trip down south. A nice relaxing start to a Crusades trip maybe. Always good to get to The Holy Land all refreshed and ready for a good scrap.

Seriously though, it was cool to see this mix of old and new. It was a first for me, that's for sure.
The structures added for the railway line weren't totally in balance with the castle walls but only 600 years of weathering can do that.

I walked on up the road back through the arch - having to time it so a car wasn't passing through as there wasn't room for us both.

Just before taking the fork into town , I went down to the harbour. On the way, I passed this building that I initially thought was a pub.

It turned out to be a place for finding out about family crests and coats of armour and all that good stuff. The huge SALE sign kinda spoiled the view in this photo but come on, how often do you see a full suit of armour outside of a museum ? I'll photoshop the SALE sign out later.

There wasn't a great deal to see along the waterfront - apart from great views looking back up at the castle. I walked out over the road bridge that I'd come in on as I wanted to check out a foot bridge that led to the castle.

When I found that it didn't lead into the castle and that the 'jobs worth' toll collector wouldn't even left me stand on it to take a photo without crossing his palm with silver, I left him to it.

I got back to the fork and headed down the narrow road to town. Even without the wall and the castle, Conwy was a neat little place with clean streets and not too much in the way of tourist tat. As with every town I'd been to in Wales, there were no obvious fast food outlets at all and they were the better for it.

I did sucomb to an ice cream, however, as the sun was out and it was getting quite warm - and I'd walked a fair distance already. I picked soft scoop which the purists would moan about but which I always prefer over other types. They did have rum and raisin flavour and I WAS tempted but stuck to my original choice and walked around the streets happy with my decision.

As seems the way with most castle towns, Conway had steep streets going off in all directions and with it being a walled town, every so often a street would have an arch crossing it - although not many as narrow as this one.

Again only one vehicle could pass through it at a time and this was the perfect urban speed control solution.

Who needs those awful 'sleeping policemen' or speed cameras when all you need is a narrow archway. Brilliant.

Ice cream devoured and wanting a change of scenery, I went back up to the castle and had a look at the displays and information brochures inside the entrance complex. I suddenly decided to pay and go inside the castle as it looked quite complete as opposed to an outer shell with little or nothing still remaining inside.

There are plenty of web sites with better photographs of Conwy Castle than I was able to get but I'll include a few here - I took about 50 as, after all, I WAS there and it was incredibly picturesque.

It was built by Edward 1, King of England, between 1283 and 1287 and as work only went on during March to October each year ( labourers were a lazy bunch and had a good union even back then ), that was amazingly fast by any standards. It has 8 towers and the 4 which look back into Wales, so to speak, have extra towers added to the top of the already tall ones as you can see in this photo. I don't know the reason for this design feature - maybe the lookouts needed more height when keeping a watchful eye out for tourists....sorry, fearsome warriors........approaching from the land side.

All were accessible and I climbed every one even though there were over 100 winding steps to their open tops. The views were spectacular and it was fun to see heads and bodies popping up on the tops of ajacient towers.

I think most people, and there weren't many of them this day, were satisfied with getting to the top of just one tower as after all, they were pretty much all the same. Muggins, on the other hand, spurred on by having actually handed over pension money and feeling the need to photograph everything from every possible angle, went up the lot. If it was above ground level, I was up it.

I did make myself useful by taking photos of other tourists. When I see couples taking photos of each other or trying to set up their tiny digital cameras without a tripod to get them both in the picture, I always offer to take the photo for them.

I have much more success doing this when I actually have my own camera gear with me as then they don't think I'm an opportunist thief who would more likely run off with their camera than take a photo of them with it.

If only they knew that age and health prevent me from running anywhere these days. I guess I could cunningly stroll away with their precious camera but I'm sure even a couple with crutches and a walker could catch me within a few seconds.

Not that I would do so anyway. But hypothetically speaking..................

Located on the coast, the castle was a haven for birds, mostly seagulls. They were everywhere

but not in numbers sufficient to be a concern. I never had to worry about being dumped on from a great height when I WAS at a great height.

This much smaller bird was posing on a part of the ruins near me so I snapped it.

No idea, so don't ask. Not an albatross or a bald eagle but I'm out of ideas after that.

When I'd had my fill of the 4 taller towers on the landward (is there such a word ??) end of the castle, I moved along the battlements to look at the views over the town. This is the view of that same street I walked along earlier and you can see the narrow arch which forms part of the town wall.

You'll have to enlarge it of course.

By now I almost had the place to myself - and as I was up on one of the most complete medieval castles in the country, I was thrilled to not have to share it with anyone else.

I'd paid good money after all and wasn't used to sharing.

But I was aware that a certain wi-fi router was due to be delivered to my brother's house today and I needed to be back if it had arrived.

For once I blessed the invention of the cell phone and just for the hell of it, and to test out the bypass stitches once again, I climbed up to the top of a tower and did an ET. I have to admit that I was more than slightly thrilled to be told the router was not being delivered until the next day ( so much for all the promises, pain of death and so on ) and so I was free to stay longer and drive back at my leisure. Well we had a table booked at The Brigands Inn for 7:45 but it was only 2pm by this time.

I took one last shot from the far end of the battlements looking down on the A470, on the left, that I'd come in on.

The foot path or bridge to the right of the A470 is the one I'd wanted to go along earlier but was told it didn't lead into the castle.

Looking down on it, I'm puzzled where it DOES lead to in that case. I think I was told a porky.

After well over an hour I'd had enough and left the castle. I went back through the narrow road arch to get back to the car and was delighted to see that several games of bowls were taking place on the green between my car and the castle.

Crown green bowls or just bowls is another of the activities I used to associate with pre death experiences. Past life images flashing before your eyes, tax man knocking at the door, doctor telling you everything will be fine........... and playing bowls. All classic signs that you're on the way out.

But since buying a place in Florida and, ok getting on in years myself, I've had a rethink about such games. I love the bocce games we play in Florida and now quite fancy having a go at this more popular grass variant sometime.

I can't imagine many more scenic locations for playing bowls.

I drove around Conwy to see more of the town and the walls and then as time was getting on, I decided to go back to Aberangell.

Rather than head back down the A470 again, I checked the map and took the B5106 to Betws-y-coed as it ran parallel to the A470 so wouldn't take any longer but looked like it would give better views of the River Conwy.

It was a delightful little road and did offer wonderful views across the fields to the river.

I stopped at one point as there was a small pull off area and took this photo to remind me of the scene.

Then I drove on to Betws-y-coed and when I reached the junction with the A5 and saw a sign for the Swallow Falls, I took a slight detour as I'd heard they were well worth a visit.

I've since read that they are, quote "spectacular, among the 5 most visited tourist sites in Wales". Well that's an almost criminal statement and does Wales a great disservice. I wouldn't even class it among the 5 best tourist sites in that part of the junction with the A5.

I slid a pound coin into a slot, went through the turnstile and walked a few paces to see these Swallow Falls. There are 2 viewing areas and the lower one is apt to get you covered in a light spray from the falls. Neither show anything worth paying £1 for, in my opinion. Yes I took photos, many photos. Hey I'd paid £1 and wanted some memory of the occasion.........even if it was just to remind me that not all guide books and online sites are truthful.

I won't bore anyone with any of the photos I took as, really, they aren't worth your time. I've seen better, much better......even in mid Wales.

So I got back to Aberangell in time to change and shower ( or shower and change............ ) and head off with bro and sis-in-law for a lovely meal to thank them for putting up with me for the previous week.

My time in mid Wales had been a complete revelation. I'd been several times before but never to tour like this. Either it's been cold, wet and miserable or I'd not been in the right mood or all of those - but I never had particularly good thoughts about the country. That's all changed forever and thanks to whatever fading memory cells I still have, plus over 600 photos and about 30 mins of video (and this blog), I hope I can 'revisit' it often without leaving the house.

Of course it's only a 3 hour drive to Aberangell, so I might just go back before long and I strongly encourage YOU to get there too.

Just beware of police speed traps near Corris. And lots of sheep poop, and cow pats, and bird droppings, and.......................

Wales - Day 6

Guess what ?

Give up ? What, not specific enough for you ?

Ok......well I came down this morning and there was The Leeds Weekly News sticking half way through my letterbox. Was I upset ? No. Was I annoyed ? No.

After getting such things off my chest in yesterday's blog post, I was calmness itself and with a fixed smile of resignation on my face, I removed the offending rag and SHREDDED IT INTO TINY BLOODY PIECES AND THREW THEM IN THE BLOODY BIN. GRRRRRRRRRR.

S'ok, the red mist has gone now and I can get back to Day 6, Wednesday last week, of my trip to Wales.

I didn't go far from base this time as we were expecting a wi-fi router to arrive in the post and I was going to set it up for my brother and wanted to get it done before the Champions League Final at 7:45pm which we wanted to watch.

I went right out the gate, direction wise I mean, and headed to Machynlleth. As I approached the golf club, I decided to work up an appetite by going up onto the course and take some photographs.

This first view is from the 2nd tee and looks down on that nameless and numberless road I mentioned in an earlier blog as being one of the most scenic I've ever been on in this country.

I know it doesn't look much like your classic golf course but I'd describe it as an inland links course in some ways. There are no narrow tree lined fairways here.

I initially thought there was little or no rough either but even the munching sheep on every hole couldn't get rid of it all and my brother said it'll grow a lot thicker as the summer progresses.

As I'd not even held a golf club for a couple of years, I was pleased to have such an open course to get back into the swing of things........literally.

This is the view a little to the left of the first photo and shows the 1st green and the clubhouse on the other side of the little clump of trees.

The first is a dog leg and you're not allowed to 'take it on' as that would endanger any walkers who might be on the hill to the left of the clump of trees as we look at them.

Again you can just see the road at the bottom of the photo and driving right to left, it's only about half a mile from here to the town of Machynlleth.

I walked on up the course, which involved quite a climb, and came to the 8th tee. As usual there were a few sheep around and the two on this particular tee looked like they had a story to tell. What a state they were in. I hoped some local resident was suitably shamefaced and racked with remorse......if not a shocking hangover !!

It's only a 9 hole course and so the 8th is also the 17th.

The sheep are so used to the golfers and know they're safe - from most of them - that apart from a quick glance up, they carry on munching and keeping the grass down.

Can't see them being introduced at Augusta any time soon but a lot of lesser courses could make use of these natural lawnmowers.

Back in the car and getting my breath back, I looked at the map and decided where to go for breakfast. My only definite destination was the foot bridge across the estuary to Barmouth and so after passing through Machynlleth, I went along the coast hugging A493 to Aberdovey (or Aberdyfi to be Welsh about it) which was a lovely little seaside village with colourfully painted houses and a very pleasant sea front.

I pulled up at a parking area which allowed free parking for 45 minutes and I was beside the low sea wall which, at this point, had these 2 birds scanning for any morsels of food being handed out or, more likely, being dropped by passing tourists.

As you'll gather from my previous posts, I'm not much good at naming birds so I don't know if the one on the left is a variety of seagull or something completely different.

The wall was on my left so these birds were visible through my passenger window and not for the first time, I missed the electric windows from my previous cars.

Still ,they were so relaxed and content on the wall that they didn't move when I leaned over and wound the window down to take these quick snaps. The one I knew to be a seagull did get fiddigty and just before it decided to fly off, it posed nicely for this 2nd shot.

Across the road, the A493, I spotted The Sunflower Cafe which had a few tables and chairs outside and this seemed a good place to have my breakfast.

It appeared to be owned and run by a husband and wife team from London, but I'm only going by accents and the fact that he talked a lot about West Ham football club !

Their son was helping out as well so it had a nice friendly family atmosphere.

Remembering the proximity of the seagulls, I picked a table inside and passing up on the delicious cold choices on the menu, I went for the less healthy but more filling cooked English breakfast. Yes I know. If it's any consolation, I berated myself for a while afterwards.......with every satisfied burp in fact !!

Full of stomach and slightly lighter of wallet, I left Aberdovey to the birds and continued around the coast on the A493, looking for the foot bridge across to Barmouth. I was pretty low on petrol and after a few miles, the warning light came on, followed by a warning noise that scared the bejesus out of me. One or the other, guys.......I don't need both.

As I was getting over 47 miles to the gallon, I knew I could ignore the warnings for a while and being a 3 week old car. I shouldn't need to worry about the pipes fouling up with the sludge at the bottom of the tank. This gave me a confidence to carry on which was unwarranted as for all I knew, there wasn't a gallon LEFT in the tank. I'd not read that part of the handbook and just ASSUMED you always have a gallon left when the alarm goes off.

I suddenly found myself a few miles from Dolgellau (and numerous petrol stations) which meant I'd missed the foot bridge across the estuary. I turned around and drove back and looked even closer for some sort of sign. When I passed a narrow road to the right that had a small railway sign at it's entrance, I thought that might be it and so I stopped to ask at the next commercial business. I was told that WAS the road down to the foot bridge and so back I went again.

All this time I was thinking I might have made a big mistake not going on into Dolgellau for petrol but hey, call me young and impetuous. PLEASE call me young and impetuous cause really I'm old and quite scared by a lot of the decisions I make these days. This being one of them. Why DIDN'T I go on into Dolgellau and fill up ???!!!

I went down the narrow road a few hundred metres and came to a parking area close to the world's smallest railway station. It was a hut really but then it wasn't a mainline station and didn't need to be anything more.

As usual there were sheep everywhere and as I started on my walk along the side of the line towards the bridge, this little fella kept a wary eye on me.

Not so little actually.

There was an electrified fence on each side of the tracks but it was soon obvious that sometimes the odd sheep decided it was worth a bit of a shock to get onto the line.........or maybe worth a couple of shocks to cross over to the other side completely.

Coming towards me was this railway employee trying to get a sheep off the tracks. Quite how he planned to achieve this wasn't immediately obvious to me as he just seemed to be slowly herding the animal along - maybe he knew there was a gap in the fencing, probably 20 miles away, and was pacing himself.

In any case, the sheep was clearly enjoying this pantomime a lot more than the employee who was probably wondering how to put this on his time card and if he could claim extra for multitasking as a shepherd.

The people behind him had just come off the footbridge and were making their way round past me and on to the car park.

Young shepherding employee had an older colleague who had gone the other way and was walking the line in true Johnny Cash style.
I think there is a task where you hit the actual railway track with a metal rod and listen for the noise it makes and use this low tech method to determine if the train will cross the bridge or leave it.

If I was that interested, I'd Google it but it did seem that this man was doing just that.

Well either that or he was just a vandal with a hard hat and a florescent jacket ( maybe an ex-Easyjet employee ) as every so often he'd take his big rod and smack it against the track.

Stop tittering at the back, Jones Minor.

By now I was well along the elusive foot bridge and so about halfway across the Mawddach Estuary. In front of me, at the end of the bridge, lay Barmouth where I'd been by road a couple of days earlier.

There were raised sandbanks on the left and the beautiful coastline on my right and almost straight ahead on the land was this lovely, if slightly bizarre, house with a speedboat 'parked' in front of it.

What a location ! I thought I was along the California coastline somewhere near Monterey.

Even the mountains in the background helped with that impression.

The sun was out and it was quite a beautiful setting for a home.

I was impressed with the numbers of pedestrians and cyclists who were using the bridge at this time. It was a toll bridge but the only pay booth was at the Barmouth side and so I never had to dip in my pocket. This pleased me enormously of course and I decided the money saved would help pay for the breakdown truck that might be needed to get me to Dolgellau if my fuel starved car decided not to start.

This was the view towards Barmouth which was pretty enough in it's own right.

Again I loved the neat rows of houses seemingly carved out of the sides of the mountains that now protected them.

It was just after midday and the sun was blazing down from an almost cloudless sky. It was very warm and apart from the distant clanking noise of the track bashing railway employee, the only sounds were from the circling seagulls from nearby Barmouth harbour.

I looked over the bridge to the right and it was like a view from a cruise ship entering a Caribbean port. Was I really in mid Wales ??

This photo doesn't really capture the view as I saw it. One of those 'gotta be there' moments really.

I stayed a while longer enjoying the peace and quiet and then went back to the car. Thankfully it started ok and got me to Dolgellau where I had the luxury of passing one petrol station (well it WAS charging £1.02p a litre) and finding another one which just happened to be at a Renault dealership. Sadly no discount.

I wanted to get back to base to install the wi-fi router so once I'd left Dolgellau, I got on the A470 (what else !!) and took this mountain pass route to Aberangell. It's called Bwlch Oerddrws - Bwlch being the Welsh word for 'gap' and what a gap it was.

This link takes you to an aerial photo of the pass and the A470 that takes you along it. This is the photo I took and was taken from the small parking area at the top of the pass which is usually packed with cars as this is prime walking country.

I had to park, blocking in a couple of cars but as I wasn't stopping long, I knew it didn't matter.

I was standing on one of the highest passes in Wales and looking down the Dyfi Valley. The peacefulness of the location belied it's history as three centuries ago, the area was a stronghold for thieves and bandits.

A few miles further down the valley and back on the flatlands, there is a lovely hotel/pub/restaurant called The Brigand's Inn where my brother works a few hours a week and where we had a meal before I went back to Leeds. But that's for the next blog.

Back at the parking area on top of the pass, someone had managed to stick this plant or weed or flower into the top of a wooden fence post. It was a strange thing to do and yet I liked it a lot. I wondered how long it had been there and how long it would remain. Based on it being firmly embedded in the wood and that generally walkers are not the sort of people who would remove such a joining of man made and natural elements ( I'm classing the post as man made here), I think it might be there for years to come. I hope so.

On my way down the pass I stopped one last time as I came upon another example of a tiny community living in the shadows of the mountains. There was another lovely churchyard and this time I suspect that the building in the middle of the village was the church or chapel.

It was just after 3pm and I needed to be back. It was only a few miles along the A470 to Aberangell.

When I got there I learned that the router had not arrived and a phone enquiry informed my brother that it would be delivered tomorrow, for sure, definitely, on pain of death or worse.

As it was a lovely afternoon and sis-in-law had cut the grass and tweeked other parts of the garden, I took one more photo of the front of the house as it was looking particularly attractive in the sunshine. The self contained flat is open for business ( now that I've left it ) so feel free to make enquiries and do yourselves a favour - book in and try a break in mid Wales sometime soon.

End of gratuitous and shameless plugging.

We had an early supper and settled down to watch the Champions League final - sorry Liverpool fans.

The plan for the next day was to go up north to the top of Wales and check out Conwy Castle which looked jolly impressive to me.

Today I'd driven the least miles of any day so far but I had lasting memories of the views from Barmouth foot bridge and the even more stunning views from the top of Bwlch Oerddrws.

I don't care who you are or where you are. That's a good day out by any standards.

Soapbox Alert

I try, I really do try.

I try not to be the classic 'grumpy old fart' but advancing age, living alone and probably having way too much free time on my hands are all conspiring to turn me into the North Leeds version of Victor Meldrew.

One of my constant struggles is to stop myself shooting out the door to confront the free newspaper and unwanted flyer delivery people who can't seem to get it into their heads that putting their rubbish half way through letterboxes is a BAD thing.

I'd no sooner opened my downstairs curtains this morning than I saw what appeared to be my letterbox giving birth to a glossy magazine. However some unseen umbilical chord stopped this magazine from plopping safely onto my porch floor and instead it stayed there, twixt and between as though unsure what to do with itself. As I was on my feet already and so in a good starting position to become 'ACTIVE grumpy old fart', I unlocked the door, went outside and caught up with the delivery man just as he was putting the next magazine....yes, half way into my neighbour's letterbox.

Based on previous events of a similar nature, I knew better than to waste time explaining to him my reasons for wanting items pushed right through my letterbox so I just let rip with "can you PLEASE push these mazazines all the way through letterboxes in future ?" I was met with a blank stare and he slowly removed the magazine entirely as though he thought I was accusing him of delivering an explosive device. As far as I'm aware, not one copy of 'Jewish Life Leeds' has ever blown up or even spontaneously combusted. I may stand corrected of course.

I quickly sensed I was dealing with someone who did not have English as his first language.

I'm not sure he had it as a 2nd or 3rd either. I went into full Jacques Tati mode and with a series of mimes and single words....which as usual I ended up shouting at him as one does when talking with foreigners as though we think that will better help convey the message.......I finally got it through to him that it was a great (albeit novel) idea to actually push the magazines right through the letterbox.

He gave me a smile that lifted the gloom on an otherwise grey morning and we parted firm friends with email addresses exchanged and promises to keep in touch forever.

Well we parted.......that bit was true.

Unbelievable as it may seem, I'd no sooner returned home and removed my semi delivered magazine from the letterbox and transferred it safely into my wastepaper basket, than I saw another delivery happening before my eyes. My letterbox creaked it's initial warning and the start of a plastic bagged package appeared....and then stopped. Even Mother Theresa would've been hard pushed to ignore this 2nd violation of the 'letterbox law'.

This time the delivery boy/man was in a rush and set off like an Olympic sprinter, so giving myself a blast on my asthma inhaler to help me keep up, I shot out the door again ( I'm actually thinking of installing a revolving door if this keeps up ) and managed to catch him just as he got to my neighbour's door. I know this sounds highly unlikely given I live in a semi, but anyone taking the proper route from my door to my neighbour's door has to go back out my drive, along the pavement, round a corner and then along the driveway to their door. I, on the other hand, can scoot in front of our windows and get to the same door in seconds. Very handy in times like this and helps give the impression that I'm not someone to be messed with as I'm obviously faster than Ben Johnson even without the drugs.

I had his immediate attention as for one thing he wasn't expecting anyone to suddenly appear near him out of the shrubbery but mostly because I was doubled up and wheezing heavily as though I'd just taken part in the Pamplona bull run. Thankfully he waited while I regained my composure and my breath and I asked him why he was pushing his 'Yorkshire Cancer Society Clothes Collection Bag' ( to be picked up on Friday ) halfway through letterboxes ???

Again I got the bemused smile of the newly arrived immigrant, this time accompanied by a bit of bowing from the waist. Very odd and somewhat disarming. Still, my well honed mime performance was another hit although I sent him on his way feeling I'd entertained more than educated.

Of course now I'm on tenderhooks waiting for the delivery of the Leeds Weekly News as that unwanted free rag is almost always semi delivered. I know where I'D like to deliver the Leeds Weekly News and Corporal Jones' famous expression might be appropriate.

Writing this account of this morning's events has helped calm me down and saved me having to take a double dose of BP medication. Always a good thing.

I don't usually have any unwanted clothing to give to these collection charities (hey lumber jackets and bovver boots MIGHT come back into fashion and then where would I be ??) but I might make an exception on Friday.

I'm thinking of putting a shirt out my letterbox for them to collect........half way of course.

Wales - Day 5

Day 5 was a Tuesday and weatherwise, the worst of the 8 days I was in Wales. It didn't rain but for all of the morning and most of the early afternoon, the skies were as grey as a Welsh slate mine. As my first destination was to be a town for breakfast, I didn't mind too much.

So after negotiating the 2 gates again, I took the A470/A489 the 8 miles to Machynlleth where I picked the left turn at the A487 T-junction (yesterday I'd gone right, towards Dolgellau) and headed to Aberystwyth.

Speaking of the A487, when I'd been returning yesterday, I was going through the tiny hamlet of Corris and while enjoying the scenery, I noticed the driver of an oncoming car flash her lights at me and give me a wave. It all happened so fast and I glanced in my rear view mirror to have another look at the car and saw it was a small white one like mine. Maybe even a Clio. I was deep in thought wondering why she'd have 'flashed me' and my initial idea was that it was a 'hey, we've got the same car' sort of thing which I know went on with VW Beetle owners many years ago. It was a kind of Herbie Syndrome back then.

Seconds later I passed a white van which had lots of lettering on it and I thought I saw the words 'speed' and 'Heddlu' and knew that meant police. I'd no idea what the speed limit was at that point as it changed so often on those roads.

When I got 'home' I told my brother of the incident and he laughed and said the driver had been warning me of the speed van but he said if I hadn't been stopped by the 2nd part of the sting crew further on, then I was ok. When I got back home to Leeds last Friday, one of the letters waiting for me was a notice of intended prosecution from the North Wales Police saying I'd been caught doing 35mph in a 30mph zone ! Grrrrrrrrrr. I think when I was distracted by flashing woman, I'd pushed slightly harder on the accelerator. Sadly that's going to be my only defence.

Actually I was shocked that I was only doing 35mph !!

Back to Day 5 and back to my drive to Aberystwyth. About 12 miles from the town I drove past an old building with a huge waterwheel on one side of it and felt it was worth going back and investigating it further.

I love coming across something totally unexpected and this was one such case. I'd found the Dyfi Furnace which was built in 1755 to produce iron. It used charcoal from the surrounding woodlands and waterpower from the river.

After only about 50 years in production, it was abandoned. Later on the buildings were converted into use, first as a sawmill and then for various agricultural purposes.

The blast needed to raise the temperature inside the furnace to the melting point of iron was produced by two sets of bellows powered by this waterwheel. From this we get the phrase 'blast furnace'.

Since 1977 the remains have been excavated and conserved. There is no admission fee but the building itself is closed to the public, which is a shame. I walked up the little path at the side of the waterwheel and came upon the upper part of this waterfall.

I had the place to myself partly due to the time of year and partly, I'm sure, because it was so easy to drive past it with barely a glance. It's on a sharp bend in the road with no warning of it's presence and it was only by my turning around and finding the small car park across the road that I ended up there myself.

And what a find it was.

The only sounds were from the waterfall which managed to drown out the occasional noises from passing cars. After watching the falls from this vantage point, I walked down past the waterwheel, onto the edge of the road which at this point was effectively a bridge and up the other side of the fast flowing river. This time a narrow, well trampled grassy path, led me deeper into the woodlands and gave me a much better and more complete view of the waterfall.

Even the overcast skies couldn't diminish the scene - well not that much. Being quite deep in the glade, the sky wasn't really a factor anyway.

I'd climbed, slid and partly fallen down to this water level but the view was worth it. I was only a few minutes walk from the main road to Aberystwyth but it seemed like I was in some storybook grotto and was almost expecting to see some pixies or fairies crossing my path.

I suspect I watch way too much tv.

By now my grumbling rumbling tummy was louder than the waterfall so I went back to the car to continue on my drive to Aberystwyth.

I don't have too much to say about the town. For 9 months of the year it's population is about 21,000 but when the students go home, it's left with 12,000 residents. It has a pretty seaside front and a smart clean shopping area set back from the beach and promenade. And that's about it.

I'd spent some time finding a parking spot close to the pier and when I finally explored it, the pier was a great disappointment as it only housed an amusement arcade - a British 'institution' which should only be seen in museums and labelled 'awful places where those of low mental abilities would spend their time and money on wet afternoons at the seaside'.

I went inland and had another hearty breakfast to help fill my stomach and forget the dreadful pier. Mission accomplished, I went window shopping down the main pedestrianised street trying to avoid the usual tourist traps and shops selling everything from Welsh flags to inflatable dragons. I did see one tourist item which took my fancy as I have a US friend who likes both chess and sheep. Don't ask !

The shop had several chess boards on display in the window and one had dragons and sheep as the pieces. The pieces, especially the cute little sheep, looked like those characters in an Aardman Animation movie and I now know I should've bought it for her.

I left Aberystwyth on the A4120 as on my map it looked like a scenic road.......and it was. It lead to somewhere or something called Devil's Bridge which took my fancy.

It appears that there are Devil's Bridges all over the world, which is understandable considering how far and wide are his evil works.

This one is described on one website as follows -

"From Aberystwyth there is a beautiful road along the Vale of Rheidol to Devil's Bridge, about 9mi/15km to the east. Here the River Mynach flows down through a deep gorge in a series of spectacular waterfalls, with a total drop of 300ft/91m, to join the Rheidol. There are three bridges, the lowest of which, believed to date from the 12th century, is known as the Devil's Bridge. Tradition has it that this bridge was built by a monk from Strata Florida Abbey, 7mi to the south. The two other bridges were built in 1753 and 1901 (the highest one a rail bridge)".

When I got there I found entrance turnstiles on both sides of the road taking you to different parts of the area below the road. I had a choice to make and I didn't like that. I was on holiday and retired and didn't need the stress of having to make a decision......and on a full stomach too.

I took a photo of the sign on top of one entrance and decided - to drive on. I'd seen a lovely waterfall already and anyway I overheard people coming up from the bowels muttering that it wasn't worth the entrance money and that you could hardly see the falls for the vegetation. Nope, my valuable pension pennies stayed firmly in my pocket.

I joined up with the A44 and drove east to Llangurig and then onto the seemingly neverending A470 again to points south. It had cleared up a lot but still quite cloudy.

Now and then the sun would shine through and as I crested yet another hill, it seemed to be lighting up the picturesque scene before me.

I eventually came to Llandrindod Wells and decided it was time to start back even though I wasn't all that far from home as the crow flies.

I went up the A483 towards Newtown and as usual, found beautiful scenery all the way. What is it about this part of the UK ? It does seem to have been blessed.

It was mid afternoon by now and getting brighter by the minute. I looked at the map and tried to find the best route back and as time wasn't really a factor, I looked for roads with a little > or < on them to show they had steep gradients. Unlike for Mr. Custer, the more arrows the better.
I did good.

When I got to the outskirts of Newtown, I decided I wasn't ready to end this trip so I headed south on......yes the A470 again. I swear every 3rd road in Wales is the A470.

I reached Llanidloes and had my first run in with the Welsh language. Let me set the scene while you look at another typical view of the area.

I got to a junction just outside the town and I knew I wanted the B4518 northbound. To make matters simple, the B4518 went the other way too. I just needed to work out from the signpost which road to take........and remember that here in the UK, minor road signs do not give compass points so the sign wasn't being helpful by having B4518 North on it.

I compared the sign to my map and couldn't make it out at all. The sign gave a town name on one road to the right and I couldn't find it on the map at all. It had 2 names on the road to the left but one was "Town Centre" so that was no help. Under that was some long Welsh name and I couldn't find it on the map either.

I was next to a huge furniture store and went in to ask for directions. The owner was a friendly guy who went back outside with me to look at my map and point me in the right direction.

He told me I needed the road on the left and at that point I told him that the town mentioned under "Town Centre" wasn't on my map.

With the sort of look reserved for adults talking to little children, he said that it wasn't a town name but was Welsh for........"Town Centre" !!!

I'd forgotten that in Wales, road signs of all sorts from directional signs to warning signs, are in English and Welsh. I'd never seen one for town centre before and so didn't make the connection.
I mean you wouldn't, would you ? D'oh !

He also gave me a suggestion for the final leg of the drive home as he told me to leave the B4518 before it hit the.......yes the A470 once again and take a road so minor that it didn't even have a number.

The B4518 took me past Llyn Clywedog and the Clywedog Dam. It didn't look impressive when I first saw it at ground level but as I climbed up the steep road, the view to the left became more and more scenic.

For a change there was a viewing area at the top of the hill so I was able to pull off the road and take in this view back down to the dam.

It was one of those occasions when one's eyes take in a lot more than a standard camera lens can manage and it cried out for a panorama shot.

I went and got my tripod but to be honest I've never managed a decent panorama with it and so in the end I just did the old 'hand held swivel at the waist' trick. On reflection I should've used the monopod but forgot about it.

Again it wasn't great but still manages to capture a little of what I was looking at. Better than nothing would be the phrase of choice.

A few miles on and I came to the turnoff suggested by Furniture Store Man and I think I was on the single most visually stunning road in Wales if not the UK. It was breathtaking and so ironic that I can't even tell anyone it's number as it doesn't have one. I tried Mapquest but no joy. Maybe if some UK reader of this blog has an Ordinance Survey map of the area, they could post a comment and let me know the name or number of this road.

First the road rose steeply up to a plateau and presented me with a typical mountain top view. This was very different from the lush green sheep filled valleys I'd seen till this point.

The sky was almost totally blue but the far off fluffy clouds only added to the ambiance.

I could see for miles and on the far ridge I saw the line of wind turbines which I could also see from my brothers house. I'm finishing this post with 2 photos of this view and this first one is a long shot to show how the narrow road wends it's way through this landscape. I'm not sure how long this road is but I had it 100% to myself. Not one other car passed me or came towards me and when I did get towards the end of it just on the outskirts of Machynlleth, I realised that I'd been on this road before.........for a few seconds on Sunday when playing golf.

This was the same road that we had to cross to get to the 2nd hole and again after driving off the tee on the 9th hole. What a small world.

This final photo just zooms in a bit on the ridge with the wind turbines as in some odd way, they didn't spoil the view and actually, in my opinion, added something to it.

In total I'd probably only driven about 130 miles all day but I'd been out and about for just over 8 hours.

The next day was to be warm and sunny and I couldn't wait.............................