Wales

I do believe this is the first entry I've ever posted to WT away from home. Well, there were one or two from work, long ago, but that hardly counts, being only away in the most pedantic sense. This, on the other hand, is a whole different country; albeit one with rather permeable borders.

We are here visiting Ian's parents -- and by "we" I mean myself and Ian, but also (not altogether coincidentally), Ian's sister Bethan, her partner Chris and their one-year-old Ilan, who are up from London as well, making for a rather crowded and in-law-intensive time. Now, I like the in-laws well enough, but even so this isn't quite what I'd generally think of as a holiday.

In any case, today we went for a bit of a walk in the mountains, specifically to seek out some stone circles Bethan had long been meaning to find. I'm always up for seeing prehistoric relics in a dramatic landscape, and this turned out to be a very enjoyable hike with some fantastic views, a couple of which are rather inadequately captured here.

What with repeated visits to my recently-acquired nephew, and Ian's birthday (which we celebrated belatedly -- indeed this trip to Wales constitutes part of the celebrations -- since he was in Dublin for work on the day itself), it has been a very solid week of family duties; and work has been pretty heavy too. Even though things are generally upbeat on all those fronts, I'm feeling a little weary about now.

What I could really do with, frankly, is a proper vacation. It has been years since I was last even out of the UK (the one-day business trip to Hannover last year doesn't count), let alone doing fun and restful things in the sun. So the good news is that a holiday is finally on the cards. It may not be the epic journey I might wish, perhaps, but a holiday nonetheless, and only two and half weeks to go before departure. Huzzah!
Posted by matt at August 6, 2005 05:58 PM