North Wales Coast

We’ve brought the caravan to Abergeli, a temporary site we’ve wanted to try for a few years. The main attractions are proximity to home (only 40 mins) and the access to the North Wales coast.

It has occurred to me that I have, at different times, walked most of the north coast of Wales. It was never something I deliberately set out to do, it just worked out that way. We have done the walk from Colwyn Bay to Llandudno many times, it’s one of our favourites. We’ve also picked off Caernarvon to Bangor, and from the other side, Llanfairfechan to Bangor; Penmaenmawr to Conway and Conway to Llandudno. So apart from the short stretch from Llanfarfechan to Penmaenmawr we’ve done everything West of Colwyn Bay. So staying at Abergeli gave us the chance to chalk up another three or four miles eastwards.

The camp site is close to Gwyrch Castle. There’s no public access to the castle, which is a pity because from a distance it looks like a wonderful place. It is in the hands of a preservation trust right now so hopefully they can do something with it. I can’t help thinking the National Trust should get involved, it would be a terrific draw for them, given a bit of investment.

Our walk took us, about a mile, down to the coast. I didn’t expect much, to be honest, and to begin with the walk was indeed pretty dull. But it soon became varied and interesting and Sarah was amazed at the wealth of wild flowers we saw, especially the sea holly (pictured), swathes valerium, and hundreds of pyramid orchids. She was in her element and had her sketch book on the go every time we stopped.

There was a lovely little cafe/bistro nestling in a caravan park near Llanddulas along the way, and it was just in the right place for a rest and a cup of tea. The path continues along the coast until it drops onto the end of Colwyn Bay promenade and from then on becomes our often repeated walk along the bay, stopping off for lunch in the Forte cafe in Rhos-on-sea, before continuing on, over the Little Orme and down into Llandudno. It’s about 12 miles in all, and the great beauty of this route is that we were able to jump on a number 12 bus in Llandudno (after coffee in Waterstones) which brought us back to a stop right outside the castle gates, near our camp site.

An excellent day. Tomorrow I have my eye set on heading east, to Rhyl, because right now the game is on. The whole North Coast is within reach.

Hay Festival

I always worry a little about going away from home for a few days. But I take precautions: I double lock the house, I have a good alarm system and I set timed security lights.

I noticed my house keys were missing from my fancy snap-lock key ring. Ah, well, they'll be in the caravan somewhere. Then I got a call from my father-in-law. He'd been passing the house and noticed my bunch of keys lying on the driveway in front of the house. OMG! I lock the place up, make it secure, then leave the bloody keys outside for any passing brigands to collect, take away, then return later with his Luton van and colleagues to help with the heavy stuff. I think I need a new key-ring system.

It rained in Hay yesterday. When it rains here it doesn't do it by halves. Hay rain is serious, committed, professional rain. It rained all day and the ill-prepared, most of us, got very wet. Did I care? Well, not much. We had some good sessions at the festival site, especially Susan Greenfield, the neuroscientist, who, in just under an hour, managed to rewire my brain into buying her book. I swore, before I came, that I had more than enough books – at least forty must-read-next titles on my shelves. What I don't need right now is another one. But I am no match for a neuroscientist. Not only did I buy her book but I got it signed. An excellent read it is proving to be, too. I am most interested in her take on computers and IT and social media and how they will change our very identities. For good or ill? I'll finish writing the blog before I read that bit.

Today, Monday, was dry and at times, sunny. A lovely day. Two excellent talks at the festival, a fine meal at The Granary, and... well, I bought some more books at the Hay Cinema Book Shop. I am weak, I know, but I found a David A Hardy book of science fiction art, 'Visions of Space', for only six quid, and it is just fabulous. It's from the era of SF illustration that I most love, elegant cigar-shaped moon ships and Chesley Bonestell wheeled space stations. Wonderful stuff.

#Hayfestival

We're in Hay-on-Wye for our seventh visit to the annual literary festival. Things didn't start so well for us. We arrived in the evening, had a late tea, then set the bed up for an early night, and found that the locker where we store all the bedding was full of water. The duvet and pillows and pretty-much everything else was soaked. We salvaged what we could and spent the night with just one, single-sized, paper-thin blanket and a cotton sheet to protect us from the harsh mid-Wales June climate.

So this morning I set about tackling the problem. It was, of course, the water heater – the cause of so much woe in recent weeks. I thought I'd fixed it. It worked fine in Cheshire. I left Sarah to wring-out the bedding and drape it around the inside of the car, out of the rain, while I completely dismantled the water heater and scattered bits of it all around the field.

Turns out the 'O' ring, which connects the main tank to the wall fitting, had a kink in it. I smoothed it out, refitted the unit to the wall, connected up the pipes and switched everything on.
"I can smell gas!" shouted Sarah.
I sniffed around the gas fitting but could smell nothing.
"There's gas in the caravan!"
Nonsense. The gas fittings were outside by the... ah. I'd forgotten to reconnect the pipe to the unit inside the van.
So we opened all the windows and let the rain in while we ventilated the caravan. And I reconnected the gas pipe.

But everything seems okay now. Water heater is re-assembled. No leaks. No gas. Bedding is steaming away nicely inside the car.

All ready for our first event in the How-the-Light-gets-in philosophy tent, a discussion about time's arrow. This is what I'm here for. A bit of brain food. Escape from the real world.

Jodrell Bank

We’re back in the box at last. Water heater problems seem to be fixed and the sun is shining. We’re staying at a site in Cheshire, near Brereton Heath Country Park, and today, Saturday, is our wedding Anniversary. 33years. We’ve come for a day out at the new discovery centre at Jodrell Bank. (actually, we were not allowed mobile phones at Jodrell Bank, for obvious reasons, so it was Sunday before I found enough bandwidth to post this blog)

Here’s a photo, taken inside the rather excellent cafe, of clocks showing time around the universe. 

There’s Mars time where each minute is about 61 Earth seconds, and there’s Venus time where barely four seconds elapsed while we were having our cuppa – and the clock goes backwards, retrograde, just like Venus itself. Also there’s Jupiter time with the second hand racing around, and Black Hole time where it has stopped completely.

Then there’s Jodrell Bank Time, powered by Hydrogen atoms and accurate to 100 billionth of a second – so it seemed appropriate to take a photograph of the exact moment in time(to within 100 billionth of a second) when the anniversary of our 33^rd year of marriage came up.

 And we toasted it with a nice cup of tea. The clock says 10 o’clock, by the way. We got married at 11 o’clock, but you have to account for British Summer Time.

[I should do a similar thing in October when my 39^th anniversary of working in the day-job comes up, but then I’d have to that one in Black Hole time.]

Anyway, fantstic view of the Lovell telescope from the cafe,  jaw-dropping no matter how many times I look at it.

 

Incidentally, the discovery centre is brilliant and we would come back to Jodrell again just for the cafe, because lunch was awesome. I had a Cheshire Cheese and Rhubarb Chutney Bruschetta with salad. I ate too much, and to prove it here’s a picture of me attempting to eclipse the 76m Lovell Telescope with my stomach.

Bank Holiday Blues

It’s Bank Holiday Monday. The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. So why am I here? Why not caravanning?

Why am I not travelling in a box?

It comes down to this. I don’t like cold showers.

At the end of last season I noticed water pouring out from under the van. A connection into the water heater had cracked. When I fiddled with it, it disintegrated. That was a week before we went away for our last outing of 2011. I by-passed the heater and we managed with cold water only, in October! It was great, felt like real camping. But we’re never going to do it again.

Winter came. The clocks went back. The caravan went under cover. I ordered the missing part (which came a week later) and then forgot all about it.

Until last week.

So, Bank Holiday weekend I’m doing a job I should have done four months ago.

Here’s a potted guide:

Carver Water Heater on the path ready for action

Thread full of gunk, needed careful cleaning

Saturday. I removed the (already disconnected) heater unit from the caravan. Had a dog of a job clearing out the remains of the old connector, picking bits of plastic crap out of the thread with a bent nail, and I got as far as the part where I didn’t have a spanner big enough. So we headed off to B&Q, bought the spanner, looked round the kitchens, went for a coffee, wasted the day.

Here's my nice new adjustable spanner,
 before it got coated in dollops of silicon sealant

Sunday. Got everything connected. Slow and methodical. Carefully applied silicon sealant around the hole in the caravan wall, then offered the new unit up. Nice clean job. Screwed everything back in place. Now it could rain if it wanted because all the pipe work would be done inside the van. But inside the van I noticed the pipes didn’t match the ones I’d attached to the nozzles.

 Note: for future reference the non-return valve connector is for the cold inlet, not the hot outlet. I’d put the nozzles on the wrong way round. So I unscrewed everything, getting silicon sealant all over me and the boiler and my tools and the neighbour’s cat. Then it started to rain, so I taped up the hole with a plastic bag and went into the house to sulk.

Monday. Relocated the nozzles in the proper holes. Repeated all the Sunday morning steps, somewhat less carefully than before, and coated myself in yet more silicon sealant.

Hose connected. Nice neat job.
 Pity it's connected to the wrong side!

 Connecting the pipes was a fiddle, because I had cut some of them away (last year) so each pipe was an inch shorter than it used to be. The key to the job was to join the pipes with the boiler in place but not attached to the caravan. This gave me a bit of room to manoeuvre.

Last step was to fill the system with water, test that the heater worked and, with the system under pressure check for leaks. Amazing! Everything dry and clean. I did a little jig of delight and dug out the sites books. If it stops raining and if the temperatures climb above the current arctic lows we’ll give the van a weekend outing in the next couple of weeks.

But for now, Bank holiday over, back to work.

Spanish Steps... and the rest

Last day in Rome, and we took a gruelling route around as many of the things we hadn't already seen as possible. This was extreme tourism. Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps (pictured), Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Trastavere, Colosseum (again). We walked for eleven hours until are feet and out backs failed.  

The highlight was - I don't know - it was all wonderful. But we sat on the Spanish Steps for a long time watching the antics of the rose grifters. We were the first victims so we knew how they worked. As you walk into the piazza the smiling young man swoops. Couples are his favourite. He thrusts a bunch of roses into the lady's hand.There is no refusing. The flowers are yours. "For the beautiful lady." Then he walks off. A few moments later he is back. "Take your photograph? With the roses?" And then you know that he is not going away until you pay. So the male half of each couple is pestered and badgered. I relented after a few minutes and handed him two euros. "Not enough," he says. So, in each case, the lady tries to hand the roses back. He doesn't want them, he just wants money. Only paper money is enough. He didn't get paper money from us so in the end we were left with one rose, the consolation prize. All up and down the Spanish Steps there were couples with roses - a badge of gullibility. It really was fascinating to watch the subtleties of how he and his many colleagues worked.

The rest of the day was no less fascinating, and we had learned how to stare-down the street vendors in a way that sent them scurrying.  We ate ice cream. We watched rain pour through the hole in the Pantheon roof  (the only time it has rained during our trip to Rome). It stopped again as soon as we went back outside. We threw money into the Trevi Fountain - two coins to ensure we return. I really hope there is something in this. We have every intention of returning.

Tomorrow we fly home. I have a gig in the evening. The wonders of air travel, hey? But this is the 'Travelling in a Box' blog. We'll be hooking up the box and heading for the hills again soon. But our trip to Rome goes right up into the top five of the holiday league table. It has been a cracker.  

   

Tivoli

Headed out of Rome today to see the Villa d’Este at Tivoli. We felt we needed a rest and some chill time.

First off we were mis-sold our BIG ticket, and given one that only covers inner Rome. So when we arrived at Ponte Mammolo where we had to change from Metro to bus, we had to buy another ticket, and it wasn’t obvious where to go to do this. We returned to the bus station, tickets in hand, to find the bus packed full. We chose to let it go rather than stand all the way to Tivoli.

So now we were first in the queue. The bus arrived ten minutes later. It’s the first stop on the route so at this point there’s nobody on it. Only half a dozen people are waiting in the queue – but then from nowhere there are hoards, barging and elbowing and pushing, and within seconds the bus was damn-near full again. And we were still outside on the pavement. We need to get the hang of the Italian school of queue-jumping.

We did get on this bus and (only because of a bit of late seat swapping) managed to get the last two seats.

The bus ride to Tivoli is about one hour. It’s not one of the world’s great public transport experiences. Neither was the trip on the Metro for that matter. Derelict factories and graffiti daubed roller-shutters – it’s pretty depressing.

Anyway, after fifty minutes or so the bus leaves the industrial wasteland and winds up into the mountains through groves of olive trees, and all is forgiven. The Villa d’Este itself is tranquil and restful and full of water: fountains, waterfalls, cascades. Really magical. Smaller than I had expected and twice the price printed in the guide book, but worth the visit. The main fountain (pictured) is worth the trip alone.

The bus journey back home, though, was an ever-present demon waiting in the wings. This time when the bus arrived we tried using elbows and rudeness, but we are English and we just don’t have the technique mastered yet, and again we were lucky to get a seat.

The journey back involved going downhill. There were hairpin bends. A UK bus needs considerable work to pass its annual inspection - just a single missing length of seat-trim is enough to fail it. The downhill slalom from Tivoli is the point when you realise you are in a vehicle that would fail even to get into a scrap-yard back home, there being so few serviceable and salvageable parts on it, not the least of them being the brakes. We went hurtling down that hill, and on every bend the seats – apparently not anchored to the bus floor – were tilting and swaying and rocking and always threatening to cast us into the minging, greasy darkness of the bus aisle. It was almost a relief to get back to the mobile graffiti hoarding that passes for the city Metro.

It was good to get back into Rome. Most cities tend to be noisy and threatening, especially at night. Rome is the opposite. Even quite late after dark it is friendly and feels quite safe (unless you are crossing the road.) It seems it is outside the city where you feel vulnerable and at risk.

Tomorrow is our last day. There’s a lot in the city of Rome that we haven’t yet seen. We’ll stick to the places our feet will take us.