THE morning after my arrival in Lancaster, I emerged from my hotel full of enthusiasm, energy and significant quantities of breakfast. A blue sky was bedecked with fluffy white clouds and the clouds were also full of enthusiasm and energy — but probably not breakfast — judging by the speed at which they were bombing across the heavens.
Tag: holiday_camp
CXIII – Llandudno to Rhyl
AS I start to write this, the sun is blazing in a blue sky and we are experiencing an unseasonably warm beginning to November, with the promise of an exceptionally cold spell to follow. I should therefore have made the most of the good weather and gone walking but — thanks to my prioritising socialising over organising — that has failed to happen. Today’s walk-related endeavour will therefore be limited to documenting my last perambulation.
XCVIII – Pwllheli to Aberdaron
TOWARDS the end of May, with a weather forecast of ‘heavy showers’ interspersed with ‘heavy rain’, I returned to that part of Gwynedd that used to be Caernarfonshire to embark upon a challenging couple of walks. The first, from Pwllheli to Aberdaron, was about 25 miles, which promised to be hard going in the expected rain.
XCVII – Portmeirion to Pwllheli
I AWOKE at an unearthly hour in Portmeirion, which was not entirely unconnected to the discovery that my phone’s alarm clock remains active even if the phone is turned off. Its beeping and warbling thus ate up any charge it had managed to recover overnight. Still, this meant that I was awake and, after a light snooze, I was able to watch the sun rise and to amble about the village in its first rays. It was lovely.
XCI – Llanon to Borth
THE storms that heralded the beginning of 2014 were followed by more storms and then more. The wettest January since records began was followed by a February that seemed to consider that a challenge. All manner of interesting coastal features were washed right away and I, not confusing ‘’suicidal’ and ‘intrepid’, remained in London and followed this on the news.
Until March.
Continue reading “XCI – Llanon to Borth”XC – New Quay to Llanon
AS I sit and write this, the rain intermittently pattering at my window, a steady stream of news articles is indicating that most of the coastal towns and villages that I have visited in both Wales and the West Country are, to varying extents, underwater. We knew that more storms were coming, combining rain and gale force winds; flood warnings had been issued. And then they combined with the pull of the moon to coincide with high tides. The results look spectacular but are disastrous for the communities involved.
LXXVIII – Tenby to Bosherston
WITH a whole month having somehow passed since my previous walk, I thought it was high time that I embarked upon another perambulatory adventure. I thus found myself alighting, on a cold, bright and misty Saturday morning, from the earliest train to reach Tenby from Cardiff (where I had stayed overnight).
LXXII – Rhossili to Llanrhidian
WITH flood warnings in place for much of Wales and heavy rain predicted for most of the foreseeable future, I had almost resigned myself to postponing any future walks indefinitely. But when the Met Office predicted that last Thursday would be one clear day amid the ongoing deluge, I seized the opportunity with almost reckless abandon.
LXVI – Cardiff to Barry
I AWOKE on the Tuesday morning to the sound of pattering rain. The skies over Cardiff were heavy and grey. Undaunted, I prepared for a third day of walking in wet weather and soon bounded out of the door of my hotel, having eschewed their meagre breakfast offering.
LXI – Weston-Super-Mare to Yatton
BY MEANS of the time-honoured method of not actually going to bed, I was up bright and early on the last day of June and so caught the first available train back to Bristol. There I met up with ‘Alice’ and together we caught another train to Weston-Super-Mare.