All exciting stuff...grant and myself finished work at 1pm and had the wagon loaded to leave at 1.15pm.....a quick jaunt to the garage to make sure the tyres were at the correct pressure and to the post office to send some letters off....grant drove to Brecon.....only one mistake when I hit the handbrake button thinking it was the window control....all good fun at 70mph on the A470.......then to Brecon town...we were after some absolution via a visit to Brecon Cathedral....I've never been there before but I must admit it's quite awe inspiring.....I will update the history of it...but I'm guessing it was something to do with King Henry VIII as was one of his patronages......a bit odd, knowing his fondness for religion..I know it was initially set up in the 1200's and developed from there.... anyways a very nice place to visit.....I lit a candle for this trip and slipped a one pound coin in the box provided...(Religion is not free)...so Grant filmed his bit for his instagram site...and I wandered around...and very peaceable it was.

Right back on the road...with me driving this time...we headed to Rhayader en route to The Elan Valley reservoirs..Rhayader was a nice place still living in 1954 and I like places like that.we just passed though and there was a great smell of farming fertiliser...that's s*** to you and me....and it stunk....such is life in the country.....

Then we got to the Elan Valley...high in the hills and it's a different country folks....me and Grant both said it's a bit like central Turkey....we stopped off and the scourge of dickwit dog owners was evident everywhere....your dog craps ..you put it in the nice plastic bag and then throw it in a corner so that it''s just left there...personally I would hang them for this..but that's just liberal old me.....so yes.there's that to spoil it for everyone. Being this high up the weather was very cold....actually couldn't believe it...wearing fleeces and coats. The lake is currently drained at the top parts.....but the views were pretty stunning I will ad pics later....after this we were now heading to the old Lead Mines of Bryntail .....this is very much off the beaten path and is actually Richard in tehe shadow of a huge dam...but you get to see how the lead mine worked as much of it is still standing ...it started in the mid 17th Century...and Children were lucky enough to be employed to crush rocks with hammers....along with their mothers. So we wandered for a while...next up was the trip to Barmouth through the mountains of north Wales..it's always amazing to me how the scenery changes......again it's like a different country....you get to see more of turkey and even similarities to parts of southern China....

The weather changes for the worst and we eventually get to Barmouth just as darkness is setting in......we drive around trying to find our gaff...I haven't asked Grant about this so don't know what to expect.....I said to Grant "what's this place called?"......"The Crystal House"....he said...probably more like The Crystal Meth House I said.....we found the place ...it was up for sale and so were a few neighbouring guest house.......I guess the Barmouth dream has faded for these people.....we were greeted by a barking pit bull terrier and Mrs, Lady who was busy doing something else...and I guess we weren't high up on the priority list...we were told the door was open and the key was on a hook behind the door.....we walked up the stained carpet and soiled hand rails.....Nice one Grant.....it was £35 per person tonight.......apparently a bargain in this rapidly approaching third world nation of hours.....not to be too uncharitable it was clean but I couldn't wait to get out of there.....so as usual I didn't even look at the room...slung my stuff in and said lets find a pub...as we walking out I thought that I hadn't seen a bathroom in our room and so automatically thought it was a shared bathroom at the end of the hall....that would come back to haunt me later on.....anyway so we were now in a very grim Barmouth in drizzly grey rain as the light was fading.....we walked past the Funfair that looked like it was about to commit suiciide....and then past the "Traditional Chip Shop'" and was impressed by the amount of tradional litter that had been strewn across the floor.........it was one of those h my good what are doing here moments.....if you drive through Barmouth in the sun it looks very pretty ...do it the way we did and you wouldn't dream of stopping...but we had and were now here for the full experience....I needed a haircut and luckily enough the local barbers was open......yes I should have looked at the bill of fare.....the two blokes working there looked like the rest of us but didn't seem to speak English,....they were friendly enough and one of them kept saying to me "where you leave?"....that took a while to work out.... he faffed about with my hair which should have taken 30 seconds and dragged it out for 40 minutes,,,,,,yeah yeah,,,,,,thanks that'll do,...how much ...£18 pounds...you thieving b******s......so I paid up.

Next we after a pub and so wandered in the rain until we found a boozer called The Last Inn....a bit weird as it was the first one we saw when we drove into Barmouth.......it was a bit of a gravy dribbler place with families chowing on down....not my favourite scenario...but there was a place where moaning gits like me could sit by ther bar.....there were no local people here and we gathered that Barmouth has been colonised by people from Coventry....absolutely....so we sat at the bar and paid £11.20 for two pints of beer........the only thing of interest was listening to the colonial locals having a conversation about how civil war in merry old Blighty seems highly local....so there you go, that's the word going on in the pub...and probably many others....

Grant said he was hungry and we headed out into the rainy street.....we did look at a curry place but is looked like a poncey place and was full of the middle classes......so we bailed and opted for the compulsory kebab shop....they only accepted cash there...good for them. So we ordered two lamb kebabs....they didn't charge extra for eating it in the shop...so we chowed on down...luckily there was a bin there and mine went straight in there...the best place for it...unluckily ia'd eaten about quarter of it...me and processed crap don't get on...so the mail was in the post.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS ALIVE AND WELL IN BARMOUTH.

Then as we wandered through the rain...we struck gold and found a big packed old school boozer called the Royal....prices immediately dropped by 50% and a jolly old time was being had by all. There were slotties and another downstairs bar...it was a proper geezers pub...we got creamed on the slotties and decided to sit by the bar to see what was going on......there was a bloke who was pretty friendly who decided to have a loud rant about the current state of affairs on merry old Blighy...it Sir Kier Starmtrooper were there I dare say the riot police would have been called and the clientele would have been denounced as far right racists.....however, everyone was fully behind the rallying cry.....if only I had a cartload of forks and burning hay I could have made a mint. I don't have an opinion on this dear reader...I'm just reporting on what was going on in the pub.

So a few beers were sunk and we headed home.....I knew the disgusting processed kebab meat was going to give me major stick.....sleep cam quick until about 3 pm when I decided I needed a wee.....remember I thought the bog was down the hall....so off I go and open the door down the hall...I wander into a build site and think this is a bit odd for a bog...out of the darkness came a mickey mouser (scouser) accent....."derm....what are you doing mate?....I said I was looking for the toilet...he said well it's not in my flat mate....it's in your roooooooom. I apologised and made a hasty retreat...back at the room...yes there was a a toilet and shower....I'm just so lazy ..I didn't even notice.

Anyways....tomorrow we head North for more jolly japes.

apologies for grammar errors..I will correct later on....

cheers.

LG