We've had a short but lovely visit from Vytas, our oldest. He arrived on Friday evening and left for the five hour drive home, after breakfast this morning. Yesterday he and I drove up the mountain road to Nant y Moch where we walked up to the abandoned quarry to see the view and eat our lunch and then onwards. Despite the grey clouds overhead it stayed dry but was very windy.
Back home Vytas and Peter played a type of wargame (a board game) before we all enjoyed a Chinese take-away dinner after which Vytas and I went for a walk to the beach. Earlier Vytas was able to help me with a few things around the place including getting Spellcheck to work on my PC. I should have been going to 'Settings' at the top right corner of my screen rather than in the main menu. Who knew? In the garden he made a valiant attempt to move the sundial in the front garden but after uncovering not one but two levels of integral plinth buried in the ground I called a halt to that idea. He did carry a heavy concrete birdbath down the steps to where I'll be able to move it to somewhere more sensible. In return I sorted out some quite a few plants that might survive in his dry and shady garden.
After bidding a fond farewell to Vytas this morning I had the prospect of going out with the walking group to cheer me up. As we were once again meeting at Pontrhydygroes I didn't have to worry about finding the meet up location beside the water wheel.
This time we headed further up the valley. A short walk along the main road brought us to a stile and a very overgrown footpath through some woods. As we battled our way through nettles, brambles and bracken that grew right across the path, not much fun for those of us in shorts, I could hear Pete H. remarking that it had been a while since he walked that route. We got through unscathed apart from some stings and scratches. Eventually we came to a steep stone lined gully that was the miners' path to the lead mines from the valley below.
That brought us to the top of the hill where we stopped to eat our lunch in the sunshine with a glorious view back down to the Ystwyth valley and the hills beyond.
From there we circled round the top of the ridge with far reaching views in every direction.
As we began to make our descent we found ourselves by a fast flowing stream in native oak woodland.
Finally we emerged above the village to a different view of the waterwheel. Like last week we called in at the Tea Shed, had tea or in my case coffee and a slice of cake and carried on chatting. Then I had a lovely drive home along empty hilltop roads. Though once I got to the main A road it wasn't so much fun being stuck in a queue behind a small car being driven at a steady 35mph through 30, 40 and 60 mph speed limits. It was such a relief when that car turned off to Aber and the rest of us could drive at a more sensible speed along the final stretch of the main road.
1 comment:
A beautiful walk and so glad you had a nice visit with your son. :)
Post a Comment