A weekend in Aber

Saturday:

I woke up at about twenty to six, twenty minutes earlier than I’d wanted to, and decided that I might as well get up and on the road rather than sitting in bed. This, and the fact that I’d done pretty well all the packing and preparation the night before meant that I managed to get out of the door by half six.

The roads on the way to Aber were mostly clear, with the exception of a cattle lorry or horse box between Leominster and Rhayader and a slow car just on the approaches to Leominster. This meant that I was doing the speed limit most of the time and arrived at 10:15am, taking three and three quarters hours. Not too bad for the full length of the A44.

Upon arrival I tried to get into the Savannah guest house car park, but it was full, so I drove down to the Bath Street car park instead, went to the loo and trundled off back to the Savannah with my stuff. Luckily, just as I was exitting the guest house, one of the cars in the car park left, so i moved my car into the little car park.

I still had loads of time before the meeting up with people at midday, so i aimlessly wandered around Aber, drank a nice latte at MG’s Cafe (which is next door to the legendary Charlie’s) before walking the length of the prom and admiring the scructural geology at the base of Constitution Hill. It was then time to meet up at the bandstand, where Alec and Shona were already sitting. It wasn’t long, however, before Helen (with little Alex), Howard and Tina, Rachel, Graham and Chris, Nick, Caz and finally Jim and Catrin turned up.

The afternoon’s a bit of a blur. Mostly having lunch, drinking tea, bumbling about and chatting, I think. This was followed by dinner in a Thai place… though they had problems fitting everyone in at the same time, so we became two groups.

The day was rounded off by a trip to The Fountain pub on the other side of the bridge.

Saturday’s pictures can be found here.

Sunday:

I had to be out of the B&B by 10am, so after the nice cooked breakfast talking with Howard and Tina, I packed up my stuff into my small weekend bag and stashed it away in the boot of my car. it was 9:50am by this point and I knew that Rachel, Graham, Chris and Helen were going off to church and that Howard and Tina were off to buy lots of cheap reconstituted wood pulp in Hay-on-Wye, so I was at a little bit of a loose end, as it were.

I decided that I might as well just walk around and see if there were any places worth looking at and photographing with my little Canon IXUS II before others might be ready to get together and/or those at church had finished with thier duties. So, I wandered along the prom in a southernly direction, beyond castle and down to the entrance to the harbour, back along little roads to the bridge and then walked down to see what I could of the re-formulated station and the Vale of Rhiedol railway.

It was now half eleven, was feeling a bit thirsty and a little bored so walked back to the prom, sat outside PD’s Diner, drank a large latte and texted the only two people in Aber for whom I had their mobile numbers and who I knew weren’t in church, Alec and Shona, informing them of my location. It wasn’t long until Shona turned up and a little while later, Alec.

The rest of the day (before I drove home) was spent in that little area, with Alec looking at all the motor bikes sat on the prom and talking to the bikers, various talking, eating etc. going on and little Chris managing to get himself soaking wet in the sea just in time for Rachel, Graham and Chris to go off on the little train to Devil’s Bridge.. not the best of times then.

Well, by this time it was about 3pm, everyone else was going their separate ways so I did the same. I noted the time I left the car park, it was 3:15pm precisely and wondered how long it would take to get home.

Well, the traffic was horrid. On all the bits where I could pass traffic, the traffic flowed or was non-existant. However, on all the fun windy bits and anywhere where you can’t overtake, I was down to about 30-40mph, if I was lucky. And I had to endure this sort of traffic problem right down to the Oxford side of Woodstock! However, I *STILL* managed to get home in only 4 hours!!! I have no idea how as I’m sure I was averaging about half the speed I had on the way up to Aber. I got home at 7:15pm, unpacked, watched Top Gear and Coast before uploading my pictures and going to bed.

Sunday’s pictures can be found here.