October Flies By

The first weekend of the month was a write off, as I spent most of it working. I never want to see a sickness reason code again in my life. (And to be honest, I never wanted to see one in the first place, but such is life.) I racked up a lot of time, so took an extra day off on the Thursday of the next week to make it a four-day weekend. Helen was off too, but she was off to deepest darkest Somerset with her mum to visit other family members. Something I politely passed on, and so I was left to my own devices.

I didn’t spend the whole time playing solitaire on my laptop (though the draw to it was real), and I was up and over in Horsham before midday, full details of that trip out are in a piece I’m writing on my Medium page.

I’d let the furry fussy pest out before going out, and when I returned, Sniffles was laid between the plant pot and the meter cupboard to the side of the front door. It is a good snoozing spot for him as he’s protected on three sides. On hearing footsteps, he lifts his head and looks around to see who it is coming before he recognises it is someone who will let him in, and he lets out a welcoming whine. Well, I’m not sure if it’s welcoming, it sounds more along the lines of ‘where the fuck have you been?’

He did the same thing when I got in from wandering around town on Friday. There is something about the way he does it that makes me laugh. It reminds me of Brad Pitt playing Mickey the Pikey in Snatch when Tommy and Gorgeous George turn up to buy a caravan and he’s squatting down having a crap and his head bobs up to see who it is that has arrived. Sniffles has mastered that action.

Anyway, on my way out on Friday I was aiming to stop and sort out physiotherapy sessions. Helen had bought them for me for my birthday and after some unsuccessful phone tag I was still no closer to a session four months on. The physiotherapist is only around the corner from where I live so I thought I’d knock on the door. So, I ambled down Southgate Drive and knocked on the door. I did think it was odd that there was a big Volvo estate blocking most of the drive that I had to squeeze around to get to the door. And when the door opened it is hard to say who was the most confused about me asking about physiotherapy sessions; me, or the old Asian woman who answered the door.

The actual house I wanted was on Southgate Road, not Drive, so I went there on the way back from town. I walked past it once because I though the blocks in the large driveway were all saying number 10, but it turns out they were all the physiotherapist’s logo marking out parking spaces. I knocked but that didn’t sort out a session. They were going to give me a ring on the Saturday to sort one out. Two weeks later and there has been no contact.

The confusion stakes carried on later in the evening. Sniffles was curled up on the blanket in the corner of the sofa when Helen rang me. As I was talking to her, Sniffles got up, looked around, and then wandered over to me and looked up before heading back to the corner. Only to come back and end up with his paws on my chest staring at me all confused. I put him down and he got the hump and went to sit on the box of Halloween decorations in high dudgeon glaring at me. He eventually came back and investigated what I was doing, but it would seem he was confused that he could hear the voice of the nice lady who usually feeds him, and fusses over him, but couldn’t see her. He was looking at me as if I had somehow imprisoned her in my phone and was wondering when she was coming back. As when the phone call ended, he curled back up in his corner of the sofa and went to sleep.

After writing group on Saturday, which went quite well considering I was winging it big time. I headed for another afternoon of walking. I got a bus to Turners Hill and meandered back to Tesco’s at which point the walking boots I’m still breaking in were making both feet and knees scream at me, so I got the bus home and vegged on the sofa all evening.

Sunday saw a bit of cooking (well, chucking bits in the slow cooker for a chili, so cooking might be stretching it) and sport watching. The GP was odd, the football mildly entertaining, and the American football very entertaining. The 49ers eased to an easy win and top the division after five games as all the other teams in the division lost. And this win despite more injuries to key players (which came back to bite us the following week as we lost to the Falcons of all teams).

Crawley meanwhile lost whilst I was out walking on Saturday. 3-0 away to Grimsby Town. I had considered going to that game and had scoped out travel times for trains and hotels for overnight stays as there wasn’t much to do with Helen being away, but I decided against it. It was a wise decision by the look of things, as another poor result saw us ending up as the strongest team in the football league – bottom – holding all the other teams up. And it saw Kevin Betsy being sacked.

I still want to go to Grimsby. Well, Cleethorpes really, as I want some photos for other pieces I am writing.

Work was still shit when I went back, but it was only four days before ten days off. Although most of that time was going to spent with relatives of mine or Helen.

When work came to an end on Thursday evening, we went and picked Helen’s mum up and headed north. We were heading for Lichfield, as an overnight stop on the way to North Wales for a seventieth birthday afternoon tea.

Three times on the journey to Lichfield the ‘smart’ motorway signs signalled to move over for workmen in the road ahead. After there being nothing the first two times it was tempting not to move over the third time in a boy who cried wolf fashion.

We turned on the sat nav for the last stretch, only for it to immediately to yell turn left, only for that to be the exit to the south and a nine-mile detour to the next junction and back before we were on the right track again.

When we got out of the car at the Holiday Inn Express at Lichfield Helen’s mum asked where the cardboard box was. What box? The box that was in the porch. Well, at a rough guess, it’s still in the fucking porch, as it’s the first we’ve heard of a box. (A neighbour was rung, and the box retrieved).

Between Lichfield and north Wales, we were told of how Helen’s mum likes to stroke bees. Which both of us found a bit bonkers, but no one else we spoke to at the party batted an eyelid at. Who knew stroking bees was a thing?

Breakfast in the pub was interesting, as the coffee was served in a cafetiere, but appeared to be instant coffee.

The invites to the party did not have a standard start time on them. Some had midday, some 12:30 and others one o’clock. Most of the relatives going to the party were in the pub first, seemingly delaying the going to the party until the last possible moment. This included Bob whose party it was. In total there were thirty-five people invited, and a miraculous thirty-one of them turned up. But there was a mini exodus from the room just before the party games started. Strategic absences involved to avoid playing feed the baby and blind makeup. Packing up only took a few minutes compared to the hours setting up the room did, and most of the relatives headed to the other pub in the village straight after.

When it comes to it being time to leave the pub to drop off a couple of people at Joanne and Bob’s and to pick up Helen’s mum, we find that the room key to our room is still in the village hall, and there is no one there for us to be able to get it. Fortunately, there was a spare so we could get into the room and get the car keys. We may also have left some tweezers behind, as before dinner Helen’s mum asked if we had any tweezers as she couldn’t find hers, and she needed to screw the curtain rail back up. I still don’t know what the hell was going on, but our rooms didn’t have any curtains, let alone rails to hang them off.

There may well have been a spare key to our room, but it wasn’t fully legit. It allowed us to lock the room when we retired for the night. But it would not open from the inside in the morning. We had to get one of the staff to go into the crawl space outside the other end of the room for us to pass the key out of the window for them to come around and open our door from the outside. And that wasn’t even the worst part about breakfast.

We get out of the pub and drop Helen’s mum off at Joanne and Bob’s and head north to Morecambe for four nights at my mum’s. Despite the attempts at force feeding and the horrendous driving conditions over the next three days out, it wasn’t a bad stay. There are lots of write ups from those days out on Medium (or will be depending on which order I post things).

We met up with Joanna and Bob at Lymm services on the way home for a handover of Helen’s mum, and after dropping her off we were more than happy to collapse on our sofa and do nothing.

I know work is rubbish, but sometimes having time off can be more tiring.

A Welsh Christmas

Christmas away with lots of family would be a new one on me. A farmhouse in Pembrokeshire means a long journey to get there, and I’m worrying before we start. Mainly at how we are going to get everything in the car. Four people, luggage, presents, food etc., but thankfully no pets. We have people checking on and feeding the cats, and Charlie’s been put in a kennel for the festive period. A whole host of new people for him to bark at randomly.

We just about manage to cram everything into the car and start off. As far a Maccy D’s for brunch, before heading for the motorways – M23, M25, M3, M329, M4 and then the A roads from where the motorways stop, and then to B roads, and then the paths between hedges before we arrived at the farmhouse in the dark and the rain.

Twenty seven trips between the car and the house to unload (that may be an exaggeration, but not by much), and we were there. It’s a nice large house and it all looks good, but as the week goes on there are signs that the house is a bit tired.

The top oven only works as a grill. The main oven maxes out at 200 degrees C. The dishwasher struggles when filled anywhere near capacity. There are three games rooms, with a total of two pool tables, table football, table tennis and two dart boards. Sadly, neither of the pool tables are up to much. The larger slate bed one has a sagging slate as if someone has been pogoing in the middle of the table for years and is only really suited to 9 ball as the cue ball is the same size as the rest of the oversized balls. The other table is a wood one with foldaway legs and balls slightly too small for the table. There were a lot of rolls on that table and definitely no Royce. The cushions were dead and absorbed all the speed of the balls with no bounce at all. The place had been advertised as having broadband. The old dial up connection of the 90’s would have been quicker. Either that or they need a new horde of hamsters to turn the wheels.

Then there were the beds. A strange collection of different styles and mattress types. On the first night I turned over on the poor attempt at a memory foam mattress and suddenly the middle part of the mattress sank into an abyss. It was a low base bed with thin slats. Now, I know I’m a fat git, but just turning over shouldn’t dislodge three slats. Investigation in the morning suggested it wasn’t just me that has had this problem with the bed. There was evidence that the slats popped out more often Captain Oates. I put them back in and spent the rest of the week trying not to move as I slept for fear of disappearing into the abyss, but they didn’t pop out again.

There’s always a first time for things to happen to you. And so it was when there I was, lying in bed when I realised it was raining on me. We’d left a slight crack open in a couple of windows to let some air in to the room to counteract the stifling heat of the central heating from hell.

I had woken once when the curtain had knocked the lamp onto the bed. The crack had changed into chasms and the curtain behind the headboard was being blown well into the room, whereas the curtain to the side of the room was being sucked out into the night. I got up and closed the windows back to their cracks not thinking a lot of it and went back to bed.

I’m not sure how much later it was, but the windows were wide open again, and the curtain behind the bed was now pretty much floating horizontally over me in the bed, and the rain was driving in through the hole it should have been covering, all over me and the bedside cabinet, and the carpet next to the bed and all the bags of presents lined up against the far wall.

I got up and closed the window again, all the way to this time, with no crack at all, and then closed the window on the other side of the room after wrangling the curtain back in from outside. By the time I’d done this and got back to the bed, the wind had opened the window behind the bed again. I pulled it shut and locked the thing, before heading back to a somewhat damp bed. Meanwhile not a drop had made it to Helen’s side of the bed.

Being rained on whilst sleeping was something that I hadn’t even encountered whilst camping numerous times whilst in the scouts.

Although the farmhouse is in the middle of the wilds, it’s not that far from some good places to visit. Haverfordwest was the nearest large town to do all the shopping. Our car load went the more scenic route (yes we went the wrong way), past Carew Castle to get there. We saw two large buildings whilst in the town. Aldi and Tesco. And got some very long souvenir receipts (together they were nearly as tall as me). There was another (intentional this time) detour on the way back to the farmhouse to see what the nearest large village looked like. We did a lap of Narberth, and it looked very nice, but we didn’t manage to get back to walk around it. It’s funny how times flies like that. Speaking of which, that was pretty much Sunday wiped out.

Monday saw five of the six of us already at the farmhouse head over to Pembroke Dock. Some of us passed Carew again, before we got to park up near to the castle. Run by a private trust it meant we couldn’t use our English Heritage cards as we can for any CADW sites.

I hadn’t been to this part of Wales before, and all I knew is that the whole area is festooned with castles. What I didn’t know is that Pembroke Castle is one of the most impressive ones anywhere in Wales. Or that it was the home to some of the most important families in medieval history. It had been built by the de Montgomery family, and changed hands through the Marshall’s, de Clare’s, de Valence’s, Hastings’, and Tudor’s. An impressive list, with at the end of it Henry Tudor was born at the castle. And he ended up becoming Henry VII.

There is a lot of the castle intact. Lots of the barbican and gatehouse buildings are complete (if a bit leaky), and the outer walls are about ninety percent complete. Parts of the keep still stand, including the grand tower and dungeon tower, but most of it is now roofless and in ruins.

It is an impressive structure and I managed to climb (and squeeze) my way to the top of all six of the towers that are open to the public. I’m not sure how William Marshall would have coped inside the castle though. He was reputed to be six foot six tall, extremely rare for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and with armour and a helmet on he would have had to walk in a crouch around most of the passages and staircases. I know this as I, who is only six foot two without a helmet, managed to clout my head on ceilings four times as I wandered around. In fact, I could have done with a helmet, as I still have a headache as I write this four days later.

After exploring the castle and the cave beneath that has been used since 10,000 BC called Wogan’s Hole (not named after Terry, but the other way around, despite how old he was), and the exit through the gift shop (yes, pen, fridge magnet and guide book) it was time for a pub lunch. We found the King George, sat on the waterfront, the water in question being the moat to the castle, which still surrounds two sides of it. It was one of the friendliest pubs I’ve ever been in. And the food was really nice and cheap as well.

The remaining four family members turned up that evening. Two by car – with what I’m sure were actually twenty seven trips to unload all their stuff – and the other two picked up from Carmarthen coach station – with two small bags each. We were now at our full complement of ten for the rest of the week.

Christmas Eve saw a leisurely brunch before two car loads of four headed off to St David’s, the smallest city in the United Kingdom. Built around what had originally been a sixth century monastery to St David, a village had grown up around the site. From the eleventh to fourteenth centuries a large impressive cathedral was built on the site of the monastery, and the now ruined Bishop’s palace was built on the other side of the small river. The village with a cathedral then became a city, but never really expanded much after that.

Originally the whole holy site had its own city walls with gatehouses at strategic points. A lot of the walls are still there, but only one of the gatehouses survive, an octagonal tower that stands above the churchyard to the cathedral, at a level with most of the rest of the current city.

The cathedral itself is impressive in size, and although there are some touches of grandeur, a lot of the old stained glass had been ruined by the puritan pompous prick, Oliver Cromwell. What is amazing all the way through were the ceilings. Patterns, symbols, detailing and so many different styles. As always, it’s definitely worth a look up. It is bigger than it looks from the outside, and there is a lot to take in. The corner of the south aisle houses the gift shop, and the trinity of standard tourist tat were purchased.

Helen and I took a wander around the outside of most of the Bishop’s palace, which was a CADW site, but wasn’t open to the public. It would have been a magnificent building when it was complete.

Outside of the cathedral grounds it doesn’t take long to explore the rest of the city, it really isn’t much bigger than some villages, but it is well worth visiting. It also houses another large church. The back can be seen from the path on the way up from the cathedral and has a distinctive window with the star of David in it. It is the Tabernacl Presbyterian Church of Wales, and was unfortunately closed to the public.

For the third day on the trot there was a stop at a supermarket on the way back, I’m not sure what for this time, but it probably added to the pile of stuff that needed to be carted away on the Friday.

Christmas morning came and people gradually made their way to the living room. The whole day seemed to pass in a haze, there was some moaning that people had got dressed before the opening of presents as it was tradition to open them in “jammies”. A bit difficult to do when you don’t own any “jammies” or have the room in your car to bring dressing gowns (again which I don’t own anyway). It was much better that I was dressed to open presents, as the alternative was being sat there in just my pants, which no one wants to see.

The sub-standard ovens meant that Christmas dinner took a lot longer to cook than was initially thought and so it was already dark before it was ready. I’ve never seen so many Christmas films in a day before or at least parts of lots of films that I have managed to avoid for years before. There were at least half a dozen films I’d avoided for my entire life before they were on in the miscoloured little screens in the corner of the living room and kitchen.

There were games played by some people in some rooms, whilst others found solace in being in the hot tub, which wasn’t a time machine. If it had had been then I might have actually used it at some point.

Boxing Day started slowly, and it was afternoon before two carloads headed off in different directions. Some headed for Carmarthen and the sales, whilst other headed for Saundersfoot and a walk along the coast. It was unconfirmed whether those walking to Saundersfoot passed Saunders’s head or Saunders’s backside on the way.

These trips out showed an issue for the Friday morning journey home. Six people needed transporting in a car with five seats and lots of luggage. I tried to ignore that one whilst everyone else was out as I enjoyed the tranquillity of solitude and took the opportunity to try and make a dent in completing the Christmas jigsaw. Which despite my best efforts wasn’t going to be completed before heading home, as it needed to have been started on a few days earlier.

When everyone got back from their excursions it was games time again. First up was Trump Cards, not Top Trumps, but a game to guess whether the quotes on the cards were made by idiot in chief Donald Trump or not. This was followed by Cards Against Muggles, a Harry Potter version of Cards Against Humanity. I had never played any version of the game before but having played this for a couple of rounds I think I need to get a set as it is right up my street.

A concerted effort to work through all the previous days’ leftovers was the plan for dinner. Despite knowing I wasn’t going to finish the jigsaw I went back to it after dinner as there was no way I wanted to see any more dire Christmas TV. I’d been subjected to enough of it to make up at least a decade’s worth. I’d lost count of the number of times someone had come into the living room, put the TV on, put some rubbish on, and then buggered off leaving the trash playing with just me in the room.

The journey home.

We knew it was going to be difficult getting home. We had two extra people to fit into cars who had arrived after the initial influx of people to the farmhouse. Neither of the other two cars had any space either because of the amount of stuff they had brought with them. Six people in to a five-seater car, with six people’s luggage for over two hours to Cwmbran train station wasn’t going to work. With two people needing to get there to get a train north from there due to it being the first station open for people trying to get north as most of South Wales from Swansea eastwards was on rail replacement services it was going to be difficult.

Something needed to give, and that was going to be me. I volunteered to get the train and rail replacement from Narberth to Cwmbran with my luggage. When sorting out the night before there was a train from Narberth at 7:48, about a ten-minute drive away from the farmhouse. A half six alarm was set and off to bed it was.

Only to be woken up to find that Transport for Wales had cancelled all trains from Narberth in any direction before two in the afternoon. It was time for plan B (not the rapper). There was an 8:58 train from Carmarthen to Bridgend, and rail replacement from there straight through to Cwmbran. It was however a half hour drive each way for Helen to drop me off at Carmarthen.

As I paid for my ticket (which in hindsight I didn’t need to as it was never checked), the train time changed to say it was going to be late and would not be going until 9:15. Impressive for a train that was starting at Carmarthen. To add to this, it stopped at more stations that originally planned, and the train felt and sounded like it was going to blow up each time it slowly pulled away from a station.

When the train eventually chugged into Bridgend there was only a couple of minutes to catch the Cwmbran replacement bus service. Which was full so I couldn’t get on, which I would have been able to do if the sodding train had been on time.

Then the imbeciles manning the rail replacement service at Bridgend then advised me, and a number of others to get on a replacement bus to Cardiff, where there would be more buses to Cwmbran than the one an hour from Bridgend.

So, we did.

And there weren’t.

In fact, the only Cwmbran replacement services were the one an hour ones starting from Bridgend. So, when the next one arrived at Cardiff it was already full of people who had got on at Bridgend, like I would have done if the morons there hadn’t told me (and the others) to go to Cardiff.

So there was now a crowd of quite irate – mainly Mancs – who wanted to get to Cwmbran, so when the next coach pulled in and was unloaded, instead of sending it off empty to Newport, they wisely decided to send it to Cwmbran. And it was full in a couple of minutes and we were off.

On the journey a kid (I reckon about eight) who was sat two rows in front of me puked on his seat and then turned and sat in it. Before his dad got the chance to clean it all up, their dog had helped itself to the puke and so there were only fumes left. Fumes you don’t need on a coach packed with people.

Meanwhile, the very cramped car was caught in slow moving traffic along the M4, and it only just beat me to Cwmbran even with me being an hour later than planned.

Lunch was at Harvester, where after twenty minutes sat waiting for a table (with menus for us to browse), we were shown to a table and then made to wait another fifteen minutes to be able to order. We were waiting so long that the couple who needed to get the train from Cwmbran had to end up taking their food away to eat so that they could catch their train.

There were now only four people and luggage in the car which gave slightly more breathing space for the journey the rest of the way home. We took a detour along the M48 and over the old Severn bridge as traffic reports had the M4 bridge as choc a bloc. It was foggy over the river and unlike on the journey to Wales, it wasn’t possible to see the other bridge as we passed over the river.

We crawled again once we re-joined the M4, and after a pit stop and change of driver, we came up against more crawling traffic pretty much all the way along from Swindon to Reading. Turning off at Bracknell sped things up, and we had free flowing traffic all the way back to Crawley, where we arrived some eleven hours after I’d left the farmhouse that morning to start the journey.

Overall it was a good week, but I’m not sure I want to be doing this kind of thing every year at Christmas. Give it at least a couple of years before we try this kind of thing again, and when (or if) we do then one thing is for certain. We need to hire a minibus.