I love my job

Our guests stay with us for many reasons but at this time of year they are mostly on holiday. We mainly meet guests at the beginning or the end of their journey. However last week we had a lovely Swedish family stay with us twice, once en-route for a week’s tour of North Wales and the second time stopping off again on their way back to Liverpool Airport for their flight back to Stockholm.
On their arrival for the second visit it was lovely to see them again and over tea and bara brith I asked them how their week had been. They were so enthusiastic about the wonderful holiday they had enjoyed. They had taken in many of the sites we had recommended on their first stay and it was so nice to hear their very positive comments about all they had visited, where they had stayed and about the welcome they had received everywhere. They left after lots of affectionate farewells, an open invitation for us to visit them in Sweden, and promises of a return visit to see us and more of this lovely country. I love my ‘job’ and well done North Wales.

Beautiful Brecon

I have been absent from my computer for nearly two weeks - although checking and responding to the most urgent emails via my phone (isn’t technology wonderful) - I haven’t surfed, blogged, face booked, looked up information that I don’t need on Wikipedia or checked out the latest gaff on YouTube. How have I managed to do this most amazing and liberating thing – a short break in our well loved caravan in the Brecon Beacons with no wifi access.

Les and I decided that we needed to get away for a few well earned days of rest before the start of a (hopefully) busy summer in our B&B. Guilty like many of rushing off to exotic locations or different parts of this great British island of ours – we decided it was about time (24 years of living in North Wales which we know extremely well) that we discovered another part of Wales.
We plumped for the Brecon Beacons and were not disappointed – coupled with extremely lovely warm sunny weather for all but one of our days – Brecon is a truly breathtaking area with wonderful undulating green hills and valleys. We recently had some Australians stay with us and they described the green in Wales as ‘it’s so green it hurts your eyes’. Well we knew exactly what they meant; travelling from our home in Carmel down to Brecon took around 4 hours (3 stops for the dogs and towing a caravan) and the country side en-route was never disappointing.
Arriving at our caravan site we were welcomed with a much needed cup of tea by our friends who had travelled from Milton Keynes. We tried the local pub that night (a late birthday celebration for two of us) and the food was fantastic – and it was in walking distance. Could things get any better?

Our dog Sam who is a Standard Poodle and nearly 11 years old is a seasoned caravan traveller and quickly settled down – but how would our 7 month old Border Terrier Willis behave. Unbelievably he was great – quickly getting used to a new routine (that’s’ of course no routine when you’re on your holidays) and we are now proud to call him a real Caravan Dog too.

Brecon is a lovely little town with many small independent shops and on our first Saturday there was a Farmers Market. They still boast an indoor market place where it was held and the number of stalls, quality of produce and variety was impressive. We feasted on local pies, pates and salads for lunch – enjoyed so much more outside in the lovely sunshine.
We managed to walk every day and visited three of the national parks centres – one of which was called Craig-y-nos and had been the home of the Opera Singer Adelina Patti until her death in 1919. The house became a hospital but closed in the 1980’s and is now a hotel but the grounds were taken over by Brecon Beacons National Park Authority in 1976. The grounds are vast and we spent a couple of hours getting quite lost. The rhododendrons were amazing and I have never seen the formation of branches and trunks like it before.

Another lovely walk was around the Reservoir at Talybont.

Our few days away quickly came to an end like they always do but we realised what a great and relaxing time we had had. Driving back into North Wales we also re-discovered how beautiful it also is. Sometimes we are all guilty of not appreciating our immediate surroundings – its lovely to go away but so nice to come home when you are lucky enough to live in such a picturesque spot.

Needless to say I hadn’t been in very long before the computer went on and I started dealing with emails, calls and of yes here I am blogging again. Happy Holidays everyone.