To England Where My Heart Lies: Part 2-The Adventures of Spoonbill and Beluga

As anyone can see by the quickest of glances at my Facebook page, I have just spent 5 days in Wales with Corrie (cousin) and Karl (cousin-in-law). Vacation with Corrie and Karl is the best kind of vacation, because you spend 90% of your time climbing around on rocks. Also, not once has anyone in the house woken up before nine. For someone who comes from a family with a "pack it all in, see all that we can see, we'll sleep when we're dead," mentality toward vacations, this always makes a nice change.

So, let's see...day one. First of all, it's a miracle we made it to Wales at all, because poor Karl had to drive on the wrong side of the road all the way from London on about 30 minutes of sleep, and reflecting on it later he told us that he actually thought he was going to die. And, unlike Corrie and me, he's not one to over-state things.

Fortunately, Karl did not die, and we made it to our little Welsh cottage by evening. It was an adorable white-washed stone affair, nestled in the valley of Snowdon Ridge.

LOOK AT IT. JUST LOOK AT IT.

Not much else happened that night, except that we found some slugs out in the yard and amused ourselves by poking them with twigs. Typically my reaction when I see a slug is to scream and run away/pour an entire container or iodized salt over top of it, but you know, the cool kids were poking slugs, so I wasn't gonna be the noob of the group. Turns out, poking slugs (with an implement, of course) is quite fun. But enough about that. We have to get on.

The first place we visited the next day was the Fairy Glen. We didn't see any fairies (no doubt they were hiding because they saw how we had mistreated the slugs and they thought they would be next) but we did climb on a lot of rocks.

Here's Corrie scaling the face of the rock. We could have taken the man-made stairs, but we are not noobs.

Here's a picture of the Fairy Glen that I got from the top of a very large rock. I have no idea who those two people are, but he had obviously just proposed to her, and we spent a good hour sneaking around the rocks and spying on them.

You may notice that the Fairy Glen contains a stream. Within that stream were rocks that we occasionally had to jump around on to make it through the gorge. Well, about three-fourths of the way through the gorge, I was feeling pretty confident in my agility, and when I came to a stepping stone that lay only slightly under the surface of the water, I thought, "I'll just step lightly onto this stone, then onto the bank of the river." Then I paused, and thought, "I'll fall in." Then I stopped thinking, and made a poor life-decision.

To be honest, the water that poured into to my boots as I stumbled into the surprisingly deep water could have been icier. Even so, in that moment I wished that God had not ever given me the gift of free will. The boots are fleece-lined too, so they sucked up about a litre of water, and I spent the rest of the romp squelching about, and puddling up anew with each step.

On the bright side, during the squelchy part of the journey, I saw this tree that looks like a butt:

Ah, the glories of nature. (I guarantee that my mom is reading this and exclaiming, "Oh, Emily!" in a mortified tone.)

After we finished our hike through the Fairy Glen (and I changed my shoes) we had tea at Ty Hyll (Ugly House in Welsh) which is an ancient building that has been converted into a tearoom. The English have as many ancient buildings as we have McDonaldses. There are several theories as to why it is called ugly house, my favorite of which is that it was said to be the hideout of robbers and highway men, and the name came from the ugly things that happened there. It could also be called that because it is so lumpus-glumpus, but I like nothing so much as a bit of criminal activity.

NOW SETTLE DOWN FOLKS BECAUSE WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE TEA THEY SERVED ME AT THIS FINE ESTABLISHMENT.

LAST TIME I ORDERED A POT OF TEA IN AMERICA THEY GAVE ME 1 TEA BAG IN IT. 1 TEA BAG! YOU SEE THAT GORGEOUS SLUDGE OF LOOSE TEA LEAVES STEWING IN THAT TEA POT? THAT'S THE EQUIVALENT OF ABOUT 4 TEA BAGS, BUT IF YOU DRINK THAT WEAK AMERICAN TEA IT'S THE EQUIVALENT OF ABOUT 8. AND THAT STUFF JUST KEPT STEWING AND STEWING THE LONGER IT SAT THERE.

MY FIRST CUP WAS DIVINELY STRONG.

MY SECOND CUP WAS DIVINELY STRONG.

MY THIRD CUP WAS AS STRONG AS A GOLD MEDALIST IN OLYMPIC WEIGHT LIFTING.

MY FOURTH CUP WAS SO STRONG, EVEN I COULDN'T HANDLE IT, BUT I CHUGGED IT ANYWAY -CAUSE I HAVE BELIEFS- AND RELISHED THE PAINFULLY BITTER TASTE IT LEFT IN MY MOUTH.

Sigh. That's how I want every day to be.

AND ANOTHER THING. THOSE GOOD HARDY FOLK OF THE WELSH MOUNTAINS DON'T HAVE TO BE ASKED TO BRING YOU MILK FOR YOUR TEA, THEY JUST BRING IT BECAUSE THEY KNOW WHAT LIFE'S ABOUT. TO GOD BE THE GLORY, A RESTAURANT HAS SERVED ME REAL TEA FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 5 YEARS.

Well. Glad I got that off my chest.

OH, AND ONE MORE THING. AIN'T NO-ONE BRINGING ME FLIMSY LITTLE SUGAR PACKETS FOR MY TEA AT THIS PLACE. THEY BRING ME THE WHOLE SUGAR BOWL, AND IF I WANT TO DUMP THE WHOLE THING IN, I AM FREE TO DO SO, BECAUSE THIS COUNTRY HAS ONE THING RIGHT, DANG IT, AND THAT'S TEA.

Anyway...

Swallow Falls was our next stop. In an attempt to use the glories of nature to add to their coffers, someone has constructed a turnstile gate to prevent anyone who doesn't pay their tribute of £1.50 from getting in. Well, Corrie and I showed them.

Two for the price of one. I'm smiling because I just beat the system.

Here is what our skullduggery earned us:

Majestic, right?

Our last adventure on Monday was something nice and easy, a low-key activity after a long day.

We climbed the mountain behind our house.

And it was awesome. We waded through fern forests (Corrie hated that part), crossed narrow bridges, watching as the sunset poured gold splotches over the crest of the ridge, and, while eating our picnic dinner, encountered a sassy mountain goat, who happened to be strolling by.

See the sun splotches? Of course, in real life they looked 3745% more magical.

After dinner, Karl and I tried to sprint to the top of the mountain. (Those who have read my post about working out will say, "the heck were you thinking, trying to run? And uphill?!?")

Yeah, the heck was I thinking? Corrie -unlike me- knows and accepts her limits, and said she would watch.

Of course, the thing that looks like the top of the mountain is never the top of the mountain, and at a certain point we realized that our choice was to either turn back or die, so we turned back. Then of course, we had the fun experience of walking down a mountain, where your joints rattle about in their meat case every time you take a step. We arrived home tired, but victorious, and ready for the adventures that would come tomorrow.

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