July 10: Wales

Fortunately, I recovered from covid and tested negative in time to go to Wales with Carl to celebrate our 20 year anniversary while the kids had adventures with Grandma and Grandpa. Carl and I spent some time in the middle of farm land in southern Wales and also had some nights at fancy manor houses, including Plas Dinas. Plas Dinas was the family home of the man that Princess Margaret married so she spent lots of time there. We explored castles, took a train part way up a mountain, ate delicious food, had a seagull try to steal my ice cream, drove on impossibly narrow roads bordered by tall hedgerows, and tried to pronounce ll in Welsh. Carl did the fastest zip line in the world. About 100mph. I watched. My hip did well with all of our walking. Climbing over stiles was the most challenging bit, along with some of the very narrow stone spiral staircases. Yesterday we had a long day of driving to get down to Bournemouth in England, stopping on our way to visit the smallest house in England. It was incredibly tiny. I will now stay in Bournemouth for a couple of days to review some Alexander Technique things with the friends I studied with pre-pandemic. Carl will fly home today. 

Astonishingly, on one of our first days we found a carved wooded crocodile statue and our Airbnb had a wooden spoon with a musical note carved into it! What are the chances?! 

The girls have had a good time exploring the library, a bookstore, a giant chair, swings, and getting ice cream. I miss them a lot and I’m jealous that Carl will get to hug them sooner than I will. It has been wonderful to text with the kids a bit, which is different from when we have been away on trips in the past. Sarah mainly texts strings of gibberish but I think she still likes the pictures we send. Given her penchant for saying “it’s a been a style” I had to send her a picture of Carl next to a stile. After all, I’m not sure if she really has been saying “it’s been a stile!” Amy likes to joke about flying bananas so we had to send her a picture of a truck that was labeled The Flying Banana.