Well, for the last couple of weeks - my real life has managed to catch up with me and sort of dragged me down... I usually am not a self-pitying kind of person, but here and there I have a hard time coping with everything that life throws at me. For the past two weeks people around me haven't noticed that. I can be a pretty good actor if I want to.
Leaving Caerphilly and the dragon, we followed our route and our next stop was at Port Talbot. You're probably questioning yourself why and if I told you the truth why I had chosen Port Talbot for our next sleep over... well, it has to do something connected with my work and that's all I'm going to say about it.
Seeing what we wanted to see - until the night fall, we wondered what to do next and although I knew that very close to Port Talbot is settled another great estate, I didn't mention this to my OH.
But then back in our hotel room, he found it on the internet. Of course I jumped at the proposal that we go and visit the place. Although it was quite late in the afternoon, we still managed to scoot around it.
Coming in at the entrance, the first thing that caught my interest were the Orangery and the ruins of a chapel or church close by.
I like the ancient places so of course I just had to enter it and my daughter followed. After coming out we realised that my OH took our son and walked around the park keeping to the gravel paths, where there were no steps. OH simply hates them.
And then it happened - my Lizzie's moment. You know - from Pride and Prejudice?
To tell the truth.
I love Pride and Prejudice. The book, the series - especially
BBC's 1995 one, the movies.
Although the 'lake scene' is/was memorable,
the one I just couldn't thought it might ring true was the scene when
Lizzie sees Pemberly for the fist time.
You know, this one.
Watch only the beginning - about 18 sec.:
Yes, exactly this happened to me, when I came out
of the ruins. I looked up and followed the pathstraight on. The path my OH and son
didn't take… and I saw this!
I stood there and I just couldn't stop a laugh from escaping. Loud. The only thing different was; I couldn't stop so quickly as Lizzie did and I couldn't look away either. Finally my daughter came to me and asked:
"Is everything OK with you, Mum?"
Only then I forced myself to stop laughing although deep down in me, I still did. We walked the path straight forward. I wanted to see it up close as soon as possible.
Unfortunately we were too late to do the complete tour, although it's worth fully exploring.
But to be honest - I had my moment there. The one I'm never going to forget for sure.
And there is always hope, someday I'll be back again.
Copyright Notice: All the
photos in this blog post are taken by me or my family. Without the
permission of me (my family) no use or reproduction of this photos can
be made.
Our first destination was Caerphilly Castle. I knew
that's where we'd see the amazing sculpture of the dragon coming out of the
earth. The dragon was put there in March 2016 to support their football team in
Euro 2016.
Being a bit 'nuts' about dragons from my childhood onward (way before I even heard about the #GOT), you can imagine that was something I just had to see.
We came to Caerphilly a bit too early to be able to get
inside the great castle walls, so we took a stroll around it. As probably you
all know but it was new to us, Caerphilly castle is the second biggest castle
in the UK and the largest castle in Wales. Its history literary jumped out at
me.
Although we walked slowly, we realised we'd be back at the gates too soon, so we took a rest on the eastern bank under the massive willow tree. Patrik needed his morning snack and Loris took photographs.
It would be perfect
like the photo below (taken by my daughter), if... Unfortunately there is always if...
I actually never understood parents that let their
children disturb the animals. No matter where. I always teach my children this
simple fact; ‘If an animal leaves you in peace, leave it in peace too, no matter which animal that is.’
Simple! And luckily my children understand that. I'm not the perfect parent - far
from that - but I actually go crazy when I see other parents that just don't care
what their children are doing.
Seeing another family with two kids doing exactly that -
chasing the ducks and geese and other feathery animals - I couldn't help
myself. I commented. Loudly. Well, don't you think that bothered them even a
little. No way. As the time was getting close to the opening hours - by the way
if you'd like to visit this magnificent site - the opening hours is at 9:30 am - my
OH dragged me away, hoping to get me away from them as far as possible. No such
luck.
Although we went ahead of them, they passed us by and...
Entering the castle walls, I went to buy our tickets,
although seeing the dragon on the left side at the entrance.
As I did my
'homework' before going on the holiday I took for us the Cadw (pronounced: Cadu - I'll explain later where and when I learned that) Family Explorer
Passes for the whole week - I saw they were quite surprised for us to know
about it, but they were happy to sell it to us.
At last I let both my kids near the dragon, firstly making sure
that they didn't bother that family that went in (and to the dragon)
before us. The gigantic sculpture of the dragon was/is amazing and so authenticable
to what the dragon should look like. Of course we took some photos of all of us
there.
Just before I walked away from the dragon, to explore the
castle itself, the dragon's nostrils were filled with steam and you should heard my Loris screaming with joy.
Well, to be honest - even I was excited...
Copyright Notice: All the photos in this blog post are taken by me or my family. Without the permission of me (my family) no use or reproduction of this photos can be made.
