Now I am back home and no longer in the land of steam driven wifi, I can continue the story of our Welsh adventures.

Day 4 Ynys-hir Reserve

This is a day to make use of my RSPB life member status and we visit the reserve at Ynys-hir. The reserve is a pleasant setting but notable for its lack of wildlife. Tally, one robin, one thrush, a few squirrels and an unidentifiable, distant bird of prey. In the absence of my own coat, which is sitting on the peg at home, I have appropriated a waterproof coat from the caravan. One of those two words, waterproof and coat, accurately describes this garment. Half way round the second of two trails the heavens open, mostly it seems on my head. We squelch back to the car and call it a day.

Day 5 To Brecon and Llangorse Wildflower Meadows

Time to journey 60 miles down the A470, back towards home and move to a new site at Brecon. This has the advantage of us being able to access more than three TV channels and it has wifi that reaches to the van. Ok, so it is officially the slowest wifi in the world but it beats sitting in a car park. We arrive by lunchtime and decide to explore the nearby wildflower meadows at Llangorse. ‘Park by the common’, it says. First problem, identify the common. It turns out that it wasn’t the tiny, scrubby piece of grass where we leave the car. We do find the enormous common on foot but I am not convinced that we reached the wildflower meadow, unless it was an area of unmown grass with some clover growing on it, not quite the poppies, cornflowers and ox-eye daisies that I was expecting. We did find a Crannog, an ancient lake dwelling familiar from our trip to Scotland and plenty of ducks. If you are wondering why we didn’t use a map, there is a bit of a map issue for this part of the trip. As usual, I made sure I purchased an OS map before leaving home. This is the Brecon Beacons, surely I need a map called Brecon Beacons? No. It turns out that there are three that cover this area and I have chosen the wrong one. Map of the western half of the Brecon Beacons anyone?

Sad to see Emma Raducanu’s enforced retirement from her Wimbledon match on our return to the van.

Day 6 National Botanic Garden of Wales

The National Botanical Garden of Wales is on the itinerary today and this is the furthest we plan to go from a site. Today we have our fair share of road re-surfacers again but all the roads that aren’t being re-surfaced are having their verges/hedges cut, so the stop-go board count rises even further. The sat-nav insists that we have reached our destination. We haven’t. We drive round the block a bit in search of helpful brown signs. After a few miles we pick these up and discover that we should have turned left when the sat-nav insisted on us going right. The gardens were definitely worth the drive and the effort. There is plenty to see, including an Eden Project style biome and a bird of prey centre. Inevitably my favourite parts were the less formal apothecary’s garden and the allotments. There is a display associated with medicinal plants and some beautiful quilt panels depicting herbs. I also learn about the physicians of Myddfai, whose story began with Rhiwallon who was the thirteenth century court physician to the Prince of Deheubarth, Rhys Grug. Their tradition continued until 1739 and the Red Book of Hergest, which records their remedies, is held out to be one of the most important Welsh manuscripts from the Medieval period. I couldn’t resist looking for an English translation.

We return via a local supermarket of our choice. This is the second time I have been in a shop since March 2020. I still have 1000 steps to hit my daily target, which I’ve maintained all year. It is now raining persistently. My options are to circle the site in the rain or to make myself look like an idiot jumping up and down by the cold counter in M********* whilst my companion loads up the yoghurt and milk. I’ve tried getting soaking wet doing laps of a caravan site before. Fun it is not. I go for surreptitious jogging as I examine tins of beans and load the bag at the checkout. Yay 1000 steps accomplished.