cornerofmadness | lazy day

Since I needed one and it was 100+ degrees today. Bite me summer. I did watch The Green Hornet for awhile. It was billed as Bruce lee but this was the one from the 30's with Keye Luke as a young man. It was the serialized half hour movies that you had to go back to the theatre every week to follow. Truly lame storylines. The way the Hornet had to make the villains talk was to put himself in danger with them. Um...

My cousins came over today. I truly do not have a single thing in common with them other than DNA. They wanted to know about the trip but weren't interested in it (this is the cousin that helped set me up with the tour guide.

Wales Day two

What I didn't know was my guide didn't correct for the time change so I had set my alarm clock too early so I was up at 530 AM instead of 6. Whee. I did get to walk around, take pictures, drink a whole pot of tea (oh, I do like that about the B&B's here, a tea station in every room). The full breakfast was pretty good (no beans on toast like advertised and I'm not sure if I'm glad or sad). I don't like sausage but I tried it. Still didn't like it.

We headed into Gower to see a mixed site, parc le Breos, another chambered Neolithic burial. There are four excavated chambers, some 20 bodies found. While we don't know the significance of it, they were segregated into sex and age when buried and buried with a token of an animal skull, men got stag's, children got dogs and women, cows. Speaking of dogs, people seem to like whippets, labs and border collies here. Lots of nice doggies, including one whippet who kept trying to get her head in my jacket pocket. It was a nice site.

parc le breos, the cairn

the sectioned off burial chamber

me in the chamber

However, mixed with this Neolithic site is a Paleolithic cave up the hill. And I do mean up the hill, nothing but mud and slick as snot limestone rocks set in as steps (this is what I'm talking about, the blind woman went right up quicker than me). I did get to go into the cave just a little. It was probably a temporary house for the Paleolithic man but there were signs of ritual and burial there, too.

Cat holder cave

inside the cave.

By some miracle I didn't fall and die (I did have mud half way up to my knees) and we headed into Cowbridge where I tried to get out some pounds to pay the guide (takes cash only so I have to do it daily) only to find HBSC's ATM was tapped out when I drew out 100 pounds. Sigh. We headed out to see another site and had to go through Swansea so we swung past Dylan Thomas's house (nice looking place).

Dylan thomas's home

The next site, Maen, can't be approached. On a good day, you still have to ford a little creek, but it's swollen and fast now. I just took some distance picture. We went into the Black Mountains. I did ask 'am I missing something or is there nothing to keep the sheep off the road.' I wasn't missing anything, the sheep and cattle go wandering about. I love the elder/black thorn/ etc hedgerows and all the purple-pink foxgloves growing wild. They have some lovely magpies here and I got to see some red kites, what a beautiful bird. On our way through the mountain pass a herd of sheep are being driven up the road. Sheep are dumb. That's all I have to say about that, cute but dumb.

the stream (look at that sky)

Baaa

We hit Craig y Nos castle. I had asked to see it, but I didn't realize it was a Victorian Castle, but that's still cool. It's been on Most Haunted (all three of us realized we all wanted to punch Yvette in the face). The wealthy owner was a singer, the Lady GaGa of her day (and Rossini's mistress but her money was from the Baron she married). She made a theatre in the homage to the La Scala in Italy. The house didn't feel particularly haunted (But you can stay there and it does ghost tours, how fun) the theatre did.

Craig y Nos

the haunted theatre

on stage with Wendy

living room in Craig y Nos

We hit a small town for lunch (a disappointing cheese/leek/potato pastie) and saw the ruins of Castle Llandovery and a statue (creepy) of Llwellyn ap Gruffydd.

Llandovery castle

Llwellyn ap Gruffydd

We headed into Carmarthen so I could meet up with Gruffydd and Gwilym at Trinity St David's, which is our sister school and partner. It was an interesting school, a mix of old buildings (mid-1800s) and 1970's crap. I should have gone to Lampeter really since this school is almost exclusively Welsh language oriented and the other does archeology. They gave me a good packet in a school back pack that had a bunch of Wales sites to see and also 1) a book of student poetry/stories, 2) a novel from a creative writing prof 3) matted photo art. That was cool. They also bought me a freaking converter for my electricals!

From there we headed to the next B&B in St. David's in Pembrokeshire but we stopped to get out and smell the Irish Sea (I would like to go to Ireland some day) then to another coast line but I can't remember the name). I'll be here two nights. Not a bad place. I figured out the TV better and found a station that does nothing but mystery dramas. I might be in love.

I went to the Saffron Inn and got some Indian food unlike what we have back home. Dansak, never heard of it, got it with prawns and some nan, it's mildly hot and sweet and yummy. In addition, what I hadn't made the connection with is that this is THE St David's a major place of Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages (two trips here equaled one to the Vatican and three equaled going to Jerusalem). After dinner, I went down there. It is astounding. I will wander back tomorrow. (I had originally wanted to do churches/monasteries but too many of the latter were destroyed in the reformation). There is a gift shop. I'll need to stop in (my brother is a bit religious). Oh the graves in the kirkyard, how wonderful. (there are just so many cool kirkyards on the route here).

Also, I now know why rook rifles were invented. I did not know Rooks had such THICK beaks. They make an awful racket. I can just see someone inventing that gun going Shut (blam) the hell (blam blam) up (blam blam blam). I do like crows, ravens rooks and the like. I finally did get my little phone to work (and now the recorder batter is bad). Also there was chocolate chip cookies infused with orange. Delicious.