For me, that will be Wales and Ireland.  Ireland, because of my Irish half and my very good high school friend, Mary de Meulemeester O’Beachain.  Wales, because of my great old neighbors on Ile Perrot, when I was first married, and my new friends from the Queen Mary 2, Ceri and Andy.  It’s also an incredibly beautiful place, as the illustrations show.

On April 25, in Barcelona, I was up at 6:45am and downstairs for the 8:00am shuttle.  Checking in was easy, but I forgot to ask where the Lounge was, having bought business class when I checked in for my flight, yesterday.  It didn’t end up giving me much, except very slightly better seats, with a very little more legroom, and a better breakfast at noon.  The flight was delayed.  I had a helluva time finding the Lounge and, when I did know where it was, getting there involved climbing two flights of stairs or walking 100 yards to the right, to walk 200 yards to the lounge, and it wasn’t worth it to me.  I went to the KLM desk near me and ordered a wheelchair for my connection in Amsterdam, which had been shortened.

When we got to Amsterdam, the wheelchair attendant would not take me to the lounge because they had a two hour minimum time between flights for that.  I had no sooner been dropped off at my gate when the forty minute delay was posted.  That upgrade was not the best eighty-five bucks I ever spent.  But the plane finally arrived and took off again, with me in it and, these days, that’s as lucky as you get.

The driver I had booked on line, with the impressive name of Daniel Harper-Jones, was waiting at Cardiff airport and it was a very nice drive, through what had been a ruined landscape, thanks to 300 years of coal mining.  The land is slowly returning to pasture, but some of it is still seriously scarred.  It does manage to support a lot of sheep and it was lambing season.  There’s nothing like fields and fields of lambs to bring a smile to this face, unless it’s the faces of good friends at the end of the journey.  They popped over to Peterstone Court, my home for the next three days. We had a little drink together, before I had to make last call to dinner.  Supper was very well executed fish and chips, with soda water.   What a time not to be drinking, but I had to get control of the tongue thing, and it was time for my annual liver cleanse, anyway.

Peterstone Court is a lovely old place.  This is its library:

And this was the view from my room the next morning, Saturday the 26th:

Sheep and lambs!  Delightful.  What wasn’t so delightful was the walk up two long flights of stairs to what they called the second floor and I called the third.  It was a lovely big room and made me a fine office, after breakfast.  I ignore my diet for a comes with, full English, well, in this case, Welsh, breakfast.  I started with the self serve yoghurt and granola.  Then, nothing would do but I needed to try Welsh rarebit.  I had never had it before, so I asked the server and she explained it was toast with a cheezy chef’s concoction on it and a posh egg.  “That’s a poached egg” I ventured and was told the egg could be done any way I liked.  It was just a “posh egg.”  From a free range chicken, I suppose.  Anyway, it was delicious and I followed it with another piece of toast, on which I used about 1/3 the jam I usually do, cutting down on sugar, for the tongue thing.  I discovered, that if you put a lot of butter on the toast, you don’t miss the sugar.  Just a teeny taste of jam is enough.  It looks like that’s life, going forward.  The price I am paying for all those 4 o’clock desserts on board. 

Andy picked me up at 1:45PM and we tried to find a bank or a post office in Brecon (I think) who would take a paper twenty pound note, that I had been saving, mistakenly, it seems.  No one accepts anything but cards and plastic banknotes, now.  Canada has them, too, so I get it.  We might have better luck on Monday.  For now, we gave up.  I bought some socks in the little town.  You used to get such fabulous socks in the British Isles, but they, like us, dismantled the factories and shipped them to China, back in the eighties and nineties.  I remember in a small part, being part of that.  It was a terrible mistake and we are paying now.  The socks are nice but not a patch on the ones I was wearing, which were a good forty years old, and finally wearing out.

We circled back to Peterscourt, and Andy’s house, which was about a mile away, to pick up Ceri.  It’s in a place called Scethrog, in Powys, Wales.  Bob Weeks and I had a wonderful Maine Coon Cat, named John Cowper Powys, after the author.  I never did talk about that, while I was there.  There was no shortage of things to talk about, but now I regret not having talked about JCP, both cat and man.  This afternoon, we were off to a nearby lake, with a lot of both history and wildlife.  The locals were delighted with the weather.  It wasn’t raining, which is a rare day in those parts. 

When we arrived at the lake, the first thing we noticed, was this beautiful swan, swimming with the male mallards. 

It looks like the sheep weren’t the only ones with young families.  Sure enough, we soon came upon mother ducks leading their broods around.  We never did see mama swan, and the ugly duckling, though.  Only the cute ones:

The lake has a lot of history, dating back over a thousand years, when a king lived, in exile, I guess, on a very small island in the middle of it.  Those are the beginnings of the Brecon Beacons, in the background.  I saw a lot of them, and they are gorgeous.  Here’s a better picture.  I have a lot of them.

We drove around a little more and went back to my friends lovely home, where Ceri showed me around her fascinating garden overlooking the flood plain, while Andy was very busy in the kitchen. 

It was really a terrible time not to be able to enjoy a drink before dinner, but Ceri and I did have a lovely chat in their den, with their cat, MacCallum

She’s a beautiful Bengal, but just as stand-offish as Robbie.  

In a very timely fashion, meaning just as I was getting hungry, dinner was served.  It was amazing.  Local salmon two ways, caught by Andy and served fresh and smoked in his own smoker. 

The main course was, of course, lamb:

And was it ever delicious.  Oh, yum.  It was roasted to absolute perfection and those potatoes were to die for, too.  I ate too much, of course, but I wasn’t drinking, and the food was fabulous.  I needed to enjoy myself thoroughly, and I did. 

Dessert did have Proseco in it, a whole bottle, but I am assuming the alcohol had evaporated.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

This was the Proseco jelly.  It was light and scrumptious.  I could not have been in a better restaurant, no matter what I was willing to pay.  We repaired to the den, while Andy did the washing up.  Where did Ceri find that man?  I want one.  MacCallum remained stand-offish, but demanding.  Ceri and I found ourselves doing door duty.

Andy joined us presently and we solved the problems of the world, until it was time to take me home.  We hadn’t been on the road two minutes when we saw a flash and heard a bang.  We were going towards whatever it was, and it was soon obvious that it was fireworks.  Andy was trying to figure out where they were coming from, while they kept getting brighter and louder.  We turned in to my inn and it was clear that they were coming from right on the property, the swimming pool to be exact.  I have had some good welcomes in my life, but never anything quite like this:

See that window at the upper left of the building?  It was mine!!!  Can you imagine what I would have thought if I had been all nicely tucked in for the night?  Huge thanks to my hosts for keeping me out!  I suppose you also want to know what the fireworks display was in aid of.  You are demanding.  Some staff members I knew were coming in the front door, while Andy and I were still talking in front, so we asked.  It was a wake.  And I thought I knew how to do a celebration of life.  Next time, and it will likely be my own – fireworks.

On Sunday, the 27th, after another decadent breakfast and an even more decadent massage, we were off, right into the mountains.  It was an even better day, with full sunshine, rare in these parts.  I like this picture with the sun on the gorse bushes in the foreground:

And the views were spectacular, but for some reason, I got better pictures the day before.

Nepalese take out was on the menu tonight, Ceri’s contribution.  There’s an Infantry Battle School in these parts, and it’s the Royal Gurkha Wing. The soldiers are real Gurkhas, from Nepal.  So naturally, a Nepalese restaurant sprang up and it does take-out, which the locals are happy to buy, along with the soldiers.  It was yummy.  No pictures, though.  I haven’t found Indian food to be particularly photogenic.

Monday the 28th, we found a solution to the paper 20-pound note problem.  A clever teller wouldn’t change it but told Andy to deposit it in the ATM and withdraw twenty pounds.  When they empty the ATM they’ll never know who put the paper note in.  Wonder if that would work with counterfeit?  Never mind – I googled it.

Off we went to Tretower Castle and Court, in Crickhowell.  Good of Google to provide that, too.  I wasn’t paying attention.  The castle, mostly in ruins, dates back to the 11th century

 and the Court to the 14th.  Like all these things, it had fallen badly into disrepair, but this one as lucky and a group of concerned citizens raised the money to have it restored in the 1930s, for us to go play in.  We had some fun:

And we tromped around the place, soaking up history and our own fun company.  It was my turn to do dinner, so that was at Peterstone.  It was very good and a very nice way to end three wonderful days with some of my very best cruise buddies.  I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did (they did say so) and that we get to meet again, sooner than later. 

Tuesday, April 29, I was on the road again, off to Ireland.  Andy picked me up around 9am and took me to the train station at Abergavenny.  It was going to be a complicated enough trip, as I had to take a train to Manchester to catch a flight to Dublin.  It was a bit soon in the season to have Cardiff to Dublin, nonstop.  The traffic is seasonal. 

That would have been fine, had not there been damage to the track somewhere near Hereford.  After a bit of a panic, and some nice, friendly locals, it was determined that it would likely be OK, just involve a bit of a bus ride past the damaged track.  It looked like I had plenty of time.  After getting off at the second stop, on to the bus, off the bus, back on a train, it didn’t look that good at all.  Luckily trains have conductors, and nowadays, conductors have smartphones, and the conductor was able to advise me to get off two stops before I would have and take a taxi to the airport.  That cost me another 26 pounds, and a few more grey hairs, not that it matters at this point.  I ended up making it, but it was a very stressful journey all in all. 

My high school friend, Mary, met me in the airport and took my sorry ass home with her.  We weren’t going to have dinner together because she had gone and won the president’s prize at her Bridge Club.  I had got to order what I wanted her to leave me, and it was smoked salmon and Irish brown bread, with cream cheese and capers.  I was perfectly happy and glad enough to rest on my own from the stress of the day.  I was pretty well knackered.

Then the lights went out.  Of course it was still light outside, so I just thought it was an Internet glitch, until resetting the router did nothing at all.  So I went around the house, trying all the light switches, but nothing came on.  I looked out the window and there were a couple of little knots of neighbors chatting in the street, but, for all I knew, they do this every night.  Mary has been living in this house for a good 50 years.  She and Sean bought it when they moved back to Ireland, which has to have been about 1974.  It’s fun to visit a place you have been visiting every few years for most of your life.  There’s a nice homey feeling about it.  Homeyer with the lights on, mind you.  I was careful to have myself in bed before it got fully dark.

The lights came back on before Mary got home.  She only had to deal with the alarm, which was flashing.  I was sound asleep. 

We really only had one full day together.  I was informed I needed to stay longer next time and I was not, under any circumstances,  to come when I wasn’t drinking.  So we made the most of our day.  The weather was glorious here, too.  First, we went to visit Sean, where he is staying in memory care.  The facility is beautiful, spotless, and located a very pretty walk, from a very pretty town.  We took Sean for the walk.  I wish I could say he remembered me and all the fun times we have had, but sadly, not.  I know only too well how nasty it is.

Mary and I stopped back at the house, because it was as close as anywhere, and grabbed a bite to eat.  It was shrimp on toast, pretty darn good for a little grab.  Her daughter, Mairin, whom I also love, dropped in and that was a treat.  Then we drove off to the seashore and a picturesque old mental institution.  Mary thought it was warm at the seashore.  I was freezing my ass off.  This reminded me of pretty much all of my trips to Ireland. 

There was no better place to have dinner than Mary’s house.  It was simple, but delicious, and wanted only some wine to be perfect.  We, too, had lots to talk about and relished the quiet.  I care more about the friends I visit than the places.  Mary has been one of my closest friends since I was 13.  We don’t look a day older, do we?

The next morning was the first of May.  I was up at 5:30am to catch my plane.  Mary would get up at 6:30 to drive me.  At 6:20, I opened my email to find out that the plane was delayed, an hour.  I woke Mary up to tell her she had another hour to sleep, and worked my email while I waited.  It didn’t get any better when I got to the airport.  The plane was further delayed and it’s no longer nonstop to Montreal.  You go through Toronto, which is 350 miles out of the way.  The 2.5 hour connection I was grousing about, turned out not to be enough.  It would have been, if I had not let the agent in Dublin convince me to check my bag.  She said it wouldn’t matter, since I was going home.  The bag could follow me.  That may be true in Europe now, but over here, you still have to be on the same plane as your bag, and someone had decided I wouldn’t make it and put my bag on the next flight.  So, I took that, but the bag missed it.  I got home two hours later and the bag got in the next day.  You have to love travel to put up with it these days.  And you all know, I do. For the summer, however, I’m home with Robbie and happy to be here.