holiday picspam the third
Sep. 6th, 2011 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaAnother week is upon us - and it is Tuesday already. How did that happen?
I had a fab day on Saturday with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
welshdreamer, bagpuss1966, salsk and a bunch of other lovely people from nf.com, eight of us in total for a day spent in the park, down the bay and in the Lego shop! I did have to abandon the group for a short time, though - my cousin Stephen was over from Japan and in Cardiff for one day only, so we had a very impromptu family get-together in his honour (I counted 14 adults, one teenager and four under-5s, which is a fairly small gathering by our standards but still a pretty good crowd!). Then after hanging out with the fam for a while, I left them to it and dashed back across town to rejoin the group, who all came back to my place for an evening spent eating chocolate and crisps in front of classic episodes of Neighbours. Cue lots of ohhhhh and awwwww over characters long gone, and as for our exploration of the musical stylings of former cast members...I can't remember when I've laughed so much! Emily#1 left sometime after 11 and the guys headed back to their hotel at about 1am, which left Janet, Gaynor, Sal and Emily#2 for a mass sleepover at my house!
In less good news, my Aunty Lel is back in hospital after having a fall on Sunday morning - she's grazed her leg badly and they think she has pneumonia again, just when she was doing so well. She's hoping to be allowed to go home again today, but we'll see. And then this morning I heard that my cousin Gavin (the one who had a kidney transplant a couple of years ago after years of dialysis) had to have an emergency operation yesterday to remove the shunt from his arm - it has needed to be removed for a while, but he's been putting it off, but then yesterday it burst, which kind of forced the issue! If he does have complications with the transplant and ends up back on dialysis, they'll have to use the other arm.
Time for some more holiday piccies - final instalment.
Okay, so the Sunday before last I went with the family to Margam Park, a country park estate which sits on the hillside just above Port Talbot - the site is a real hodge podge, as it was originally the location of a medieval Cistercian monastery, then after the dissolution of the monasteries it was acquired by the Mansel Talbot family to become a Tudor mansion, which was then knocked down a couple of centuries later. The current manor house, Margam Castle, was built in the 1830s by Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot, the landowner and industrialist who built the port and steelworks at Port Talbot - which, of course, was named after him.
This is Margam Castle as it is today:
The mansion was badly damaged by fire back in 1977, and although it has undergone substantial restoration since, only a small portion of the building is open to the public. I would love to see more of the interior, though, because - well, just look!
Close to the mansion stands the gorgeous 18th century Orangery
Which stands alongside the remains of the old Cistercian monastery - including what is left of a large, 12-sided chapter house, which dates to the 13th century
On the hillside just above the mansion, meanwhile, stand the ruins of an outlying monastery building, Capel Mair ar y Bryn (the chapel of St Mary on the hill)
The mansion stands at the heart of a large country park
The park contains one of the oldest deer herds in the country, a collection of donkeys and ponies, a handful of other animals - and, for some reason, these:
Here's a shot of me alongside the bear, just to give a bit of perspective!
Also in the grounds at Margam are some interesting sculptures
Then on bank holiday Monday, I went with a group to Weston-super-Mare, just across the Bristol Channel. Now, the Bristol Channel has the second greatest tidal range in the world - when the tide goes out at Weston, it goes waaaaaaay out - the low tide mark is about a mile from the seafront! Alas that doesn't mean that the beach is a mile wide at low tide, though - although sandy up top, most of what is exposed when the tide goes out is mud and those mudflats can be dangerous to walk on.
The tide was out while we were there. Typical! So this is the view across the Channel from the pier
The pier was badly damaged by a fire about three years ago - but they've done a brilliant job rebuilding it
Looking back across the Channel toward Flatholm and Cardiff
Chelsea and Shanei walking up the beach with Steepholm in the distance
It was sunny when we arrived. This did not last - in fact it very quickly descended into an ultra traditional August bank holiday: sat huddled up shivering under coats and towels to keep warm!
But the kids had a great time anyway - especially in the steam funfair that sits right on the waterfront
Which apparently wore them out completely!
So that's it: holidays over, and summer is now definitely over, as well - it has gone very autumnal this week!
I had a fab day on Saturday with
welshdreamer, bagpuss1966, salsk and a bunch of other lovely people from nf.com, eight of us in total for a day spent in the park, down the bay and in the Lego shop! I did have to abandon the group for a short time, though - my cousin Stephen was over from Japan and in Cardiff for one day only, so we had a very impromptu family get-together in his honour (I counted 14 adults, one teenager and four under-5s, which is a fairly small gathering by our standards but still a pretty good crowd!). Then after hanging out with the fam for a while, I left them to it and dashed back across town to rejoin the group, who all came back to my place for an evening spent eating chocolate and crisps in front of classic episodes of Neighbours. Cue lots of ohhhhh and awwwww over characters long gone, and as for our exploration of the musical stylings of former cast members...I can't remember when I've laughed so much! Emily#1 left sometime after 11 and the guys headed back to their hotel at about 1am, which left Janet, Gaynor, Sal and Emily#2 for a mass sleepover at my house!In less good news, my Aunty Lel is back in hospital after having a fall on Sunday morning - she's grazed her leg badly and they think she has pneumonia again, just when she was doing so well. She's hoping to be allowed to go home again today, but we'll see. And then this morning I heard that my cousin Gavin (the one who had a kidney transplant a couple of years ago after years of dialysis) had to have an emergency operation yesterday to remove the shunt from his arm - it has needed to be removed for a while, but he's been putting it off, but then yesterday it burst, which kind of forced the issue! If he does have complications with the transplant and ends up back on dialysis, they'll have to use the other arm.
Time for some more holiday piccies - final instalment.
Okay, so the Sunday before last I went with the family to Margam Park, a country park estate which sits on the hillside just above Port Talbot - the site is a real hodge podge, as it was originally the location of a medieval Cistercian monastery, then after the dissolution of the monasteries it was acquired by the Mansel Talbot family to become a Tudor mansion, which was then knocked down a couple of centuries later. The current manor house, Margam Castle, was built in the 1830s by Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot, the landowner and industrialist who built the port and steelworks at Port Talbot - which, of course, was named after him.
This is Margam Castle as it is today:
The mansion was badly damaged by fire back in 1977, and although it has undergone substantial restoration since, only a small portion of the building is open to the public. I would love to see more of the interior, though, because - well, just look!
Close to the mansion stands the gorgeous 18th century Orangery
Which stands alongside the remains of the old Cistercian monastery - including what is left of a large, 12-sided chapter house, which dates to the 13th century
On the hillside just above the mansion, meanwhile, stand the ruins of an outlying monastery building, Capel Mair ar y Bryn (the chapel of St Mary on the hill)
The mansion stands at the heart of a large country park
The park contains one of the oldest deer herds in the country, a collection of donkeys and ponies, a handful of other animals - and, for some reason, these:
Here's a shot of me alongside the bear, just to give a bit of perspective!
Also in the grounds at Margam are some interesting sculptures
Then on bank holiday Monday, I went with a group to Weston-super-Mare, just across the Bristol Channel. Now, the Bristol Channel has the second greatest tidal range in the world - when the tide goes out at Weston, it goes waaaaaaay out - the low tide mark is about a mile from the seafront! Alas that doesn't mean that the beach is a mile wide at low tide, though - although sandy up top, most of what is exposed when the tide goes out is mud and those mudflats can be dangerous to walk on.
The tide was out while we were there. Typical! So this is the view across the Channel from the pier
The pier was badly damaged by a fire about three years ago - but they've done a brilliant job rebuilding it
Looking back across the Channel toward Flatholm and Cardiff
Chelsea and Shanei walking up the beach with Steepholm in the distance
It was sunny when we arrived. This did not last - in fact it very quickly descended into an ultra traditional August bank holiday: sat huddled up shivering under coats and towels to keep warm!
But the kids had a great time anyway - especially in the steam funfair that sits right on the waterfront
Which apparently wore them out completely!
So that's it: holidays over, and summer is now definitely over, as well - it has gone very autumnal this week!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 04:38 pm (UTC)I had the best weekend! Such fun. Thanks again for the sleepover - and apologies to Alfie for evicting him and his scratching post from your lounge! xx
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 06:19 pm (UTC)Hay bale sculptures are something new to me. It's something I'd expect to see in a small mid-western town in the US.
the Bristol Channel has the second greatest tidal range in the world
*adds to Jeopardy knowledge* Wow, it certainly is flat. Do you know approximately how deep the water gets on the tidal flat when the tide comes in?
those mudflats can be dangerous to walk on.
Presumably bec. one could sink a bit and get stuck at the the tide came in?
Great pictures! Thanks for sharing as always!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 08:44 am (UTC)According to wikipedia, the tidal range of the Bristol Channel can be anything from 9 to 15 metres. And yes, the danger of the mudflats is that it is horribly easy to sink and get stuck - the mud is very deep. Cardiff Bay used to have similar mud flats at low tide before the barrage was built, turning the bay area into a giant lake.