Heart of Wales

 

Welcome to Wales. 

What a strange trip I had. I started to get a complex after being searched firstly at Zurich for explosives and then in Cardiff having to wait for my bag, last one out, before being interrogated by a very pleasant and good looking customs man as to whether I wa carrying drugs or alcohol.it seems whatever they use to check cases picked up my 3 boxes of kirsch chocolates ! Anyway thankfully I was allowed into the country with my gifts.

I love arriving here and seeing everything in English and Welsh. I will be adding some Welsh to my blog especially for those fascinated by unusual languages.

 

Annie, my sister, has arranged  our trip by train through Wales and small part of Shropshire for 5 days.

Despite having some very good weather over the past week, Wales is truly the green green grass of home which Tom Jones sang about. Rolling hills, farmland, sheep with their lambs , fields of golden buttercups, and hours of almost no large towns - very similar in this respect to Nz.

What a cute little one carriage train The Heart Of Wales train is.

 Stopping at little villages in the middle of nowhere with lovely wee stations which at the start of the twentieth century were bustling places with dozens of long steam trains passing through per day as opposed to two or three one carriage trains now. 

We stopped for lunch at Llandrindod Wells.

 

 Sleepy place, once thriving metropolis with 4 large rather empty hotels datibg back to those days. Even the magnificent wisteria outside the Metropol is 100 years old 

 

 Pretty picnic area by the lake - we didn't eat frogs legs !

 

Now we are in England ,Shrewsbury, for the evening. Off to the West Coast of Wales  tomorrow.

I like this poster ! Please don't ask me how to pronounce the Welsh.😚