Porthmadog
Sep. 28th, 2011 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerThe third day dawned grey and overcast after the sun of yesterday, and once again we started late and skipped breakfast. I found a car park with some spaces, after a few false starts, and wheeled Jan along pavements broken at intervals by drainage gullies which do interesting things to you if you're in a wheelchair, and so eventually found our way back to the main street and the Bookshop.
It's not huge. It's not that well organised. But it's a real one-off bookshop, not a Waterstones or W H Sith, and we glaumed happily and Jan found lots of postcards and a bunch of Shire Books which she hadn't encountered before. It was only as we were leaving that I found a small selection of books about The Prisoner, which I would have liked to have more time to agonise over, but by then it was time for lunch.
We've noticed before that not all fish and chips are the same. Apparently there used to be this guy in Sutton Bridge called Cashy Cawthorn who did fish and chips that Jan could stand to eat (she normally has a severe aversion to eating fish), but he was long gone by the time I came on the scene. We've had fairly nice fish and chips in Glastonbury, in Scarborough, and in Fishguard that one time, but if you want to know what fish and chips should be like, if you want the beau ideal of battered cod and chipped potatoes, Lilly's Kitchen in Porthmadog is the place for you. Put it this way; Jan enjoyed hers. As for me, well, wow.
We were piling up reasons to come back (Bookshop, incredible fish and chips, Portmeirion, not one but two little railways, scenery, that café (though it's a sure bet by the time we get back it will be gone), and it was time to set off again. I enpetrolled the car, and off we went, me trying to reverse the directions I'd used to get here, because (let's face it) I didn't know any other way to do it.
The winding roads over the hills were much more pleasant in daylight, and there were several places where if we'd just been out for a jaunt I'd have stopped to take a picture or several. Unfortunately at some point I got lost, and went round in a circle, and when eventually I found the A5, I was a good bit further along it than I had intended, and Jan was black and blue from all the jouncing around and not happy.
We stopped for a loo break at an organic farm named Rhug on the wrong side of Llangollen, which was so organic that there was neither running water nor electricity in its loos. We stopped again (having finally got back onto the designated route) at the same services near Telford so that I could walk off the cramp again. And then we thundered down the M54, the M6, the M5, and the M4, and I finally chucked the stupid directions, got off on to the Bristol ring road and back via Bath, which was a route I knew well and probably saved us about an hour. We got back about nine.
The vicissitudes of the journey aside, though, we are both glad we went, happy to have had the chance to be there at Vera's farewell, and are talking about (if we ever get to the point where we can plan an actual holiday) going back. There's so much to see, and Wales is indeed a beautiful land. Also, fish and chips.
If we do, though, I think we'll do the journey in two halves and find somewhere to crash in between.
It's not huge. It's not that well organised. But it's a real one-off bookshop, not a Waterstones or W H Sith, and we glaumed happily and Jan found lots of postcards and a bunch of Shire Books which she hadn't encountered before. It was only as we were leaving that I found a small selection of books about The Prisoner, which I would have liked to have more time to agonise over, but by then it was time for lunch.
We've noticed before that not all fish and chips are the same. Apparently there used to be this guy in Sutton Bridge called Cashy Cawthorn who did fish and chips that Jan could stand to eat (she normally has a severe aversion to eating fish), but he was long gone by the time I came on the scene. We've had fairly nice fish and chips in Glastonbury, in Scarborough, and in Fishguard that one time, but if you want to know what fish and chips should be like, if you want the beau ideal of battered cod and chipped potatoes, Lilly's Kitchen in Porthmadog is the place for you. Put it this way; Jan enjoyed hers. As for me, well, wow.
We were piling up reasons to come back (Bookshop, incredible fish and chips, Portmeirion, not one but two little railways, scenery, that café (though it's a sure bet by the time we get back it will be gone), and it was time to set off again. I enpetrolled the car, and off we went, me trying to reverse the directions I'd used to get here, because (let's face it) I didn't know any other way to do it.
The winding roads over the hills were much more pleasant in daylight, and there were several places where if we'd just been out for a jaunt I'd have stopped to take a picture or several. Unfortunately at some point I got lost, and went round in a circle, and when eventually I found the A5, I was a good bit further along it than I had intended, and Jan was black and blue from all the jouncing around and not happy.
We stopped for a loo break at an organic farm named Rhug on the wrong side of Llangollen, which was so organic that there was neither running water nor electricity in its loos. We stopped again (having finally got back onto the designated route) at the same services near Telford so that I could walk off the cramp again. And then we thundered down the M54, the M6, the M5, and the M4, and I finally chucked the stupid directions, got off on to the Bristol ring road and back via Bath, which was a route I knew well and probably saved us about an hour. We got back about nine.
The vicissitudes of the journey aside, though, we are both glad we went, happy to have had the chance to be there at Vera's farewell, and are talking about (if we ever get to the point where we can plan an actual holiday) going back. There's so much to see, and Wales is indeed a beautiful land. Also, fish and chips.
If we do, though, I think we'll do the journey in two halves and find somewhere to crash in between.
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Date: 2011-09-28 08:54 pm (UTC)FF