Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Blogblodwyn rides again

Less than 3 months to my next Wales trip.  I will leave Adelaide on Thursday 26 September, arriving Friday 27 September 2013 exactly 49 years since the day we originally left to migrate to Australia.  It's gone very quickly!  I will arrive at Heathrow in the early morning.  Rosa Norte is arriving from Spain the same day, but in Bristol.  So I will find my way to Bristol and meet her there. I have always been attracted to Bristol.  Richard Morgan, who later established the first farm on Kangaroo Point / Bellerive, was transported from there.  I have a cousin (from the pool of Cousin Davids) who lives there.  Today I discovered there is a Bristol / Bath cycleway which I'd love to do but suspect it won't be this trip.  Rosa and I will hire a car and wend to St Davids possibly via Abergavenny, the Rhondda, Swansea (we have a school chum there) and Wolf's Castle where we intend to celebrate the occasions of our 60th birthdays.
 Janice Morgan and Momery (now Rosa) in Swansea on the occasion of our 40th birthdays year.
Momery sporting her Paris haircut.
 I need to be in St Davids for Friday 4 October because I've promised to go to the Cathedral Harvest Festival.  Rose will probably want to get there before then because she's booked to fly home to Spain from Bristol the next day!
You may recall that last time I went to Wales (July 2010 with Mum) I was in the thrall of the Martha Morgan books.   This time I'm curious about St David himself and the Celtic trade routes.  I have also discovered that Santiago de Compostela was proclaimed a site of pilgrimage at the same time as was St Davids, so maybe one day Rosa and I will walk from Girona across Spain and then somehow make our way along a Celtic sea-routes to St Davids.  The mind boggles.
 Rose in a Spanish restaurant in Melbourne on her first trip to Australia.
This is a wonderfully prophetic photo.  Rosemary then lived in England and loved cats.
She now lives in Spain and loves 3 dogs.
The wonderful thing about Rose is that she likes to eat, particularly seafood, so it is my plan that we spend our time together exploring the villages around the so-called Landsker Line, debating traditional Welsh and Norman chapel architectural style.  She's an artist (there's no escaping them) so she may like to draw as we eat...  Hopefully there'll be some time to do what she wants as well.  Perhaps take in a Woollen Mill or two too...  The castle at Haverfordwest...  The source of the River Alun...  Dowrog Common...
I'm also keen to learn more about the building of St Davids Cathedral, inspired by Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth.  Where did the builders come from?  William the Conqueror visited in 1081 and I'd love to know how much / what parts of the current cathedral were there then.  I've set Rosa the task of reading The Pillars as prep.  I bet she can't wait.