Pug’s Place

I write this over the remnants of my morning pot of tea in southern Wales. I’ve just stumbled upon breakfast here at our next place of residence. We got here last night after midnight, driving from Manchester. We were delayed an hour by showers at Heathrow from taking off. Then I found that even with an hour of extra time my luggage was lost. BMI (our airline, sort of like Britain’s AirTran) wasn’t even sure where it was since the barcode was never scanned. They will try to get it to me by Tuesday morning - how bad is that? Tuesday morning we’ll be driving back to Heathrow for a flight to Paris. So hopefully I’ll have everything in Paris. I’ve a mostly clean-shaven face this morning since BMI gave me a nice overnight bag with all the toiletries I need, but they packed some cheap razor and I’m doubly spoiled - I normally use my electric, but when I do use a standard razor I use a Mach 3 Turbo - swiveling head and all that.

The directions to this place absolutely sucked. We had to find a gas station (a feat in itself here!) that was still open (another feat!) to get even a clue where the roads we needed were. Here in wales it must not be en Vogue to put up street signs!

Wales seems a lot like the rest of Southern England but with a lower population density. Like Scotland it is very green, but not as green. There are also more trees here, and at 11:30 pm last night I got to see for the first time in my life the other side of the Atlantic. The wind is chill and salty, the gulls smaller than those in Inverness. Yesterday morning our host at the lodge in the highlands said in his exceedingly thick Scottish accent, “Wales! Yeh won’t be able to understand them there, lad!” Very scary, coming from him. But people here so far have had fairly nice British accents so all is well.

Also yesterday, before driving to the airport we visited the Clava Cairns. Three Cairns made 4,000 (or 3,000 in one case) years ago. We took a small bundle of pictures and I walked on springy mossy ground - that was really springy! - for the first time in my life. Was very cool.