Long Weekend: Wales Visit #3 (Snowdon, Swimming, and Slate)

Family photo on Mt. Snowdon

After our trip to Wales in 2014, we decided we enjoyed the cottage so much that we would come back the next year.  On our drive to the cottage in 2015, we got the phone call that our secondment had been approved.  We decided as we left the cottage that we would keep the May bank holiday tradition going and come back once more in 2016.

Our friends in Bristol kindly made the (considerably longer) drive up for the weekend to join us.  Like our previous trips, the experience of driving from Derby to Betws-y-Coed was more than a bit hair-raising.  Let's just say that what happened in the car or by the side of the road doesn't need capturing for posterity.  If you've driven windy roads with children who get motion-sick, you'll know what I mean.

Like our previous trips, the cottage and view of the surrounding area made the trip worthwhile.  We've stayed in larger cottages.  We've stayed in a couple that have comparable character.  This one has a special place in our family's memories.  I think it is the windows.  More specifically, it is the windows with sills that you can climb onto and sit in relative seclusion from the rest of the world.  It is good for the soul to have places like that when you go on holiday.

Elise reading shot

Kristine reading shot

Clare eagerly got in on the window reading this year

Daddy !!! (in exasperation) - you're not taking my picture!

Negotiated Charis window shot

Even I got to grab the window during a rare moment it was free

Two 5 yr olds playing with fire (actually with a fireplace)

The children turned the stairs into a playground

Sausage, eggs, beans, and mushrooms - a holiday tradition

Shawn's lunch - the broccoli makes it healthy, right?

When all four parents like to hike, and you're close to Snowdon, it's tough to have a weekend agenda that doesn't include making the climb.  When your group includes five children under aged 10, it's tough for the climb on the agenda to reasonably be the whole mountain.  In the end, discretion triumphed over valor on Saturday.  We stayed together as a group and did a short walk up one of the easier routes (although not every one agreed it was particularly easy), with one pause for lunch and another to inject energy into flagging children via chocolate and biscuits.

Reconstructed route for our hike (it took much longer than 36 min)

Refreshment break

Peaks of Mt Snowdon in the background

Final stop to refuel weary little ones with treats and turn around

Charis hero shot

Shawn and Clare super-hero shot (if not "look at the camera together" shot)

Saturday completed the quota of pleasant weather for the weekend.  The girls did not mind this on Sunday morning, as we had already planned to continue another tradition - swimming at the hotel pool in Betws.  They would have enjoyed it anyway.  Adding two more children who enjoy the water, along with good-natured parents of said children, made it even better.  Let's just say we had trouble convincing them to get out when it was time to leave.  We grabbed some goodies for lunch before heading back to the cottage.  I stayed there with Charis and Clare while the others enjoyed a short, wet walk at a nearby river.

Elise in action

A friendship that has spanned the Atlantic for two decades now

Daddy, I'm not tired!

Monday morning we responded to even more rain by visiting the Llechwedd Slate Caverns.  The Llechwedd Quarry still operates, although the lower levels of the mine have been flooded with water.  This meant the tour "only" took us about 500 feet underground.  The special effects on the tour - audio at several stops, along with a hologram here and there with characters from the mine's history speaking about their lives - were very well done.  The content was sobering.  Evidently working in the mines provided a better income than other jobs at the time.  Those guys definitely earned their keep.  The girls left having decided that if they had lived in the area, it was probably better that they were girls and not allowed to work in the mines.

Slate art

Taking advantage of the playground before the tour began

The background would have been much more interesting if we'd paid for the adjusted photo

We had a little trouble finding a helmet small enough for Clare

This looked a whole lot easier on the hologram

The photos doesn't do justice to the scale of these caverns - one of several on this level on the mine, and all dug / blasted by hand

Kristine got to try out the chain that the miner would hang from when they worked

Final visual at the end of the tour

All aboard for the ride back to the surface

Goodbye, Melbourne Town Band

Melbourne Town Band photo before the St. George's Day concert

It was supposed to be just a concert.  I think it was also supposed to be just a small gift.  It turned out to be a goodbye that struck a chord.

I have learned from my years as a Third Culture Kid, and also from this secondment in the UK, that it's almost always easier to be the one leaving than the one staying.  I've also learned that it's easier to say "I'm leaving.  Goodbye" than to have someone else say "You're leaving.  Goodbye."  Like climbing onto the airplane instead of watching someone go through security, it keeps the focus on the adventure ahead rather than on what is being lost with the departure.

I knew all of this conceptually as I approached the St. George's Day concert with the Melbourne Town Band.  It may not be the absolute last concert (there is one more the weekend before we pack our house in June), but it is the last "big one" that involves heavy preparation and the sense of accomplishment that comes from being part of a job well-done.  In the couple of weeks preceding it, and as I walked down to the Royal British Legion for the concert on April 22, I reflected with gratefulness for my time with the band.  Brass instruments are tough to play recreationally without a group to play with (and a venue where you can play without others - say sleeping children - being disturbed).  It was an unexpected perk of the secondment, once we knew we would live in Melbourne, when I discovered the band and realised I'd have a chance to dust the cobwebs off my trombone.  I will miss this group, who welcomed me despite my inability to share their love for Pedigree Ale.

I processed all of this through the "I'm leaving" lens.  Part way through the concert, Brendan, the director, paused to say "We have a goodbye to say to someone who, when he joined us, we always knew would leave.  Shawn, please come forward.  Thank you for playing bass trombone with us for the last two years.  Your time has not been wasted.  We have a small gift to give you."  The statement changed my mindset to the "You're leaving" lens.  That hurt a lot more.  The emotions rose in my chest as I walked forward to receive the gift, and I had a little trouble concentrating on my music during the remaining songs.  On the positive side, that means any mistakes I made during those songs were all Brendan's fault.

The gift was a farewell card signed by folks in the band, and a set of 5 mug coasters with the MTB logo.  Karen Worrall, one of the principle cornet players, and also a glass artist who owns KJ Designs, made the coasters.  Normally she makes coasters in sets of 4.  5 was someone being considerate to make sure there was one for each person in our family.

We consume large quantities of hot drinks in our home (such comes when a TCK from Africa marries someone who believes coffee is its own food group), but we own relatively few coasters.  The ones we own all have special memories.  I bought a soapstone set with animals etched on the surface during my final trip to Nairobi.  My brother and sister-in-law gave us a set from Brazil.  This set will join those ones - providing visible memories of our time in the UK, and of my time with the MTB.

Long weekend: Swindon (Stonehenge, swimming, and a goodbye)

Family photo at the Oldfields' home

We have spent the last two Easters with my cousins, the Oldfields.  This year we were in Germany for Easter, so we made the trip down at the end of the school break.  Such is doable when the break is two weeks long with inset days added at the beginning and end.  Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold both raise the hair on my neck because our first trip through them was so painfully slow (despite subsequent trips not having any problems).  Our experience this trip fell in the "good ones we won't remember" category instead of "painful ones we will remember."

The girls had four items on their agenda.  They wanted to play with Jasmine the cat.  They wanted to visit Stonehenge.  They wanted to go back to the adventure playground at Bowood, and they wanted to swim.  Unlike our trip to Edinburgh, the ratio relative to days in the trip wasn't that bad.  It should have been straightforward, right?

Not exactly.  It turned out that Jasmine has added a term to her title.  She is now the cantankerous cat, having reverted to pre-Oldfield behaviour for reasons they didn't understand.  This meant constantly reminding the girls that they needed to be very careful with how much love and attention they gave Jasmine.  For other reasons nobody really understood, Jasmine had also evidently decided that anyone who ignored her deserved her affection.  She deigned to honour my lap with her presence several times during the visit, while the poor girls had to keep their affection in check.  I guess that's par for the course in terms of cat affection.

Cranky cat bestowing affection on someone who didn't want it

Stonehenge is only a 45 minute drive from the Oldfields.  It should have been a no-brainer destination on one of our Swindon trips.  Except Kristine and I are pretty stingy about paying for expensive tourist traps.  And we justified our stinginess by convincing ourselves the girls were too young to appreciate an expensive tourist trap.  We changed our mind this time for two reasons.  We found out Stonehenge is free for National Trust members (hence not having to fork out 50 pounds for the family).  Elise and Charis have both studied enough British history that they know about Stonehenge now.  That means it's not just the parents dragging them to an educationally enriching experience.  They asked to get dragged to an educationally enriching experience.

The GPS in our trusty Golf is usually reliable.  This time she took us to Stonehenge via some pretty windy and narrow (even by UK standards) village roads.  As we got to within a mile and traffic ground to a halt, I began to mutter under my breath.  It turns out that traffic grinds to a halt at this point because everyone is slowing down to look at Stonehenge, which is viewable from the road.  The girls looked out the window, saw Stonehenge, and were excited.  The parents looked out the window, saw Stonehenge, and understood why the halted traffic suddenly moved quicker just 500 m down the road.

The weather forecast called for cold rain in the afternoon.  We gambled that we could get to Stonehenge in the morning, spend a couple hours there, and be back in the car before the predicted rain hit.  Yes, we knew this was England.  Yes, we still took the weather forecast seriously.  No, we evidently haven't lived here long enough to know better.  The sun was shining when we left Swindon.  It was cloudy and cold when we pulled into the parking lot at the Stonehenge visitor's centre.  Kristine wisely pulled raincoats out of the back and insisted we all put them on.  By the time we collected tickets, boarded the shuttle, and made the 3 minute drive to the stones, we started seeing raindrops on the shuttle windows.  By the time we disembarked from the shuttle, the heavens had opened with cold, sleety, rain.  This meant we had a memorable visit to Stonehenge.  It also meant we had a pretty short visit to Stonehenge.  A figurative silver lining to the real clouds was that the rain meant there weren't many people coming out from the visitor's centre to see Stonehenge.  As a result, we didn't have many crowds to battle for either our view or our photos.

Kristine: What kind of crazy person would want ice cream on a day like this?
Elise: Look, Mommy - an ice cream truck!

Only one daughter obeyed my instructions to look gloomy in the rain

Trying to look gloomy

Failing at looking gloomy

Gloominess reduced thanks to rook landing on the Ranger's arm

Note the iconic rainy English landscape in the background

Bedraggled hero shot in front of Stonehenge

Viewing of Stonehenge and walking the circuit around it complete, we made our way through the rain back to the shuttle, felt sorry for the Stonehenge staff who had to stand in the rain (one woman was dancing around in what we took as an attempt to stay both cheerful and warm), and spent a little time exploring the visitor's centre.  The huts were marginally interesting (beds made out of sticks after you duck your head through a door doesn't exactly capture the imagination).  Pulling the stone was fun (although by this time the rain had subsided so lots of people wanted a go).  The museum was engaging.  The girls enjoyed the display that showed Stonehenge changing through the centuries.  I appreciated the way the museum gave voice to the different theories and opinions about Stonehenge's origins without implying that there is a conclusive single answer.  Visit complete, we checked the return route on Google and made our way back through wider, slightly less winding roads.

Spot the stone?

Come on, Elise - pull harder!

We decided the huts were more fun to look at from the outside than the inside

Enjoying the "Stonehenge through the centuries" display

Rain on Sunday and Monday meant we got extra swimming in, but no trip to the adventure playground.  So on the girls' agenda we hit 2 out of 4.  I enjoyed these trips to the swimming pool as much as any that we've done recently.  Elise has started weekly swimming lessons at school.  In her words, "I had a good foundation from IUPUI and Butler.  These lessons have helped me remember it."  She even experimented with butterfly on this trip (dolphin kick - pretty good; arm motion - needs practice).  Charis was doing basic doggie-paddle during our visit last Thanksgiving.  This time she started using proper arm motion for front crawl, and made it the full length of the pool on her own.  Clare cheerfully made friends with anyone in the kiddie pool, and spent lots of time with her own head fully under water. 

The Gospel reading was Jesus' appearance to his disciples by the lake.  Not sure decorating fish helped Clare remember the reading much, but it kept her busy and happy

Elise helped John work on the crossword puzzle

I've taken lots of flack for my supposed Marmite obsession, but I couldn't resist bringing this with me

Despite visiting a family of Marmite-lovers, Clare was the only other person who liked it

The weather that rained out hopes of the adventure playground

Elise (no cap) and Charis (yellow cap) enjoying their swim

The gloomy skies Monday afternoon mirrored our moods as we said goodbye to the Oldfields and drove home.  I told Carol that I'm sure we could have done the secondment without family. After all, most people don't have a choice.  I'm glad we got to do our secondment with family.  The time with the Oldfields during our stay in the UK is high on the list of things memories I will treasure.

Farewell photo with the Oldfields