Our first wet day in Wales, and so a day of just chilling at our cottage, and a chance to catch up on the Oakstump while Chantal catches up with her photo course.
We arrived early afternoon on Saturday – just one false start, thanks to having to return home after 10 minutes for forgotten dog leads. The cottage and surrounding glorious views were bathed in glorious sunshine, a great start to the holiday.
Our friend who owns the cottage has built a conservatory on the side, only accessible from the garden, and since by evening there was a cool breeze we decided to have dinner in there. I was enjoying a glass of wine in the conservatory when Chantal came in with dinner, grumbled that it was draughty, and closed the door. I went to return to the cottage for something-or-other, and realised that I couldn’t open the door. This was unfortunate, since the only door-catch was on the outside. When Chantal shut the door, the catch had fallen into the locked position, and we were trapped.
The windows were made of Perspex, which flexed when we pushed them outwards, but wouldn’t flip out of the frame. Part of the ceiling was also constructed from Perspex panels, but these were fixed in place with sealant and wouldn’t budge. We were stuck.
I was relieved to see that I had a phone signal, but who should we call? It seemed a bit over dramatic to call the Police. Instead I called Steve, the owner of the cottage, who I knew had a contact number for a local farmer who grazes sheep on Steve’s field in front of the cottage. Steve’s phone went straight to voicemail, and so I left a message asking him to call me.
I now tried the small Perspex panels below the ceiling, and one of them, conveniently above the door, popped out and fell onto the grass outside the conservatory, but the one foot square frame was three feet above the door catch. One of my jobs while here is to do some bracken clearing and by chance I had put the long handled blade, lent to me for the purpose, in the conservatory. By standing on a chair and reaching through the empty frame with the blade I was able to flip the catch open, and we were free.
That night when I took dogs out to garden to do what they do before they go to bed, I looked up to see the night sky. With little light pollution the stars were amazing and so, since it is also a good time of the year for meteors, I called Chantal to join me. Almost 2 hours later we were still taking photos, and saw several shooting stars, but sadly they were all camera shy
On Sunday we had a quiet day pottering around the cottage, and going down to the river below the cottage where the dogs and I took a short walk along the bank before sitting by the river in the sunshine while Chantal busied herself with her camera and tripod. Do you realise what a myriad of sounds a river makes as it gurgles, splashes, glops, hisses and plops over stones and around rocks?
We took a drive up to Caerau Gardens, a wonderful place 1000 feet up in the hills, but only about 10 minutes from the cottage. As well as a café with wonderful views that specialises in curry, there are acres of gardens to explore, complete with an adventure playground where, once we were satisfied that no-one was around, we each had great fun on a zip-wire!
Yesterday we drove to Lake Vyrnwy, a large reservoir, where we did a short walk (Lesia is only able to do short walks at the moment) down to a Sculpture Park below the dam – the sort of sculptures that you can be interactive with.
We came home via Bala, and Satnav directed us along a gorgeous single track road over moorland, through forests and along wide and wild open valleys – naturally we stopped for Chantal to take photos while the dogs and I enjoyed the view.
With a promising weather forecast we are looking forward to the rest of the week – we are here until next Tuesday!
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
