Sunday, July 31, 2011

We ate breakfast at 8:00 a.m. and boarded Rob’s van at 9:00 for the trip to Heathrow airport. The trip to the airport and the flight home were without incident. Our flight left on time at 2:25 p.m. and arrived early at the gate in St. Paul at about 4:45 after an 8-hour flight. We said good-bye to Susan, just before she transferred to her flight to Indianapolis. We arrived home at about 5:45 p.m. Bill, Lois, Keith, Shauna, Kylie and Teryn were on the road toward Iowa in about 15 minutes.

The trip was a smashing success. Even the adventure of finding what was left of Cwm-y-Glo was fun. Rob, our guide, was knowledgeable, pleasant, and had a good sense of humor. Irene’s itinerary was just what we wanted. Best of all, it was a great opportunity for members of the extended family to get re-acquainted and get in touch with our roots. We had an opportunity to meet the Griffiths family – until now removed from us by several generations - but no longer. Everyone was pleasant to be with even – or especially – Kylie and Teryn, whose behavior was always cheerful and uncomplaining. We went in search of Cym-y-Glo, and we found our family. What a great vacation in Wales!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

We met Rob at 9:30 after the full Welsh breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, beans and toast, and then drove to Tintern Abbey. The woods on the opposite bank of the Wye River provided a lush green backdrop for the ruined abbey. Unbeknownst to me, this was a place that Abby and long wanted to visit. Dad had been reading Wordsworth’s poetry recently, and was interested in learning more about his connection to the abbey. The floor of Tintern Abbey is covered by grass and small daisies, since the roof, floor and some of the walls had been destroyed by Henry VIII’s Inspectorate. In the Abbott’s quarters, we found an old stone bathtub, where Teryn pretended to wash Kylie. A single white pigeon monitored our progress throughout the grounds.

Our next stop: Chepstow castle, whose construction was begun in 1067 by one of William the Conqueror’s lieutenants, making it the oldest stone-built castle in Britain. It also contains the oldest oak door in Britain, which had hung in the castle gate until the 1960’s, when it was brought indoors for preservation. Chepstow has various layers of construction, started by William, continued by his Norman successors, and finally completed by the Tudors. We noted how castle-building styles progressed over the years.

We ate a bar lunch in the garden of the Chepstow Castle Inn, which is famous for its pies. I had a lamb pie, Abby had a chicken pie, and Reta and Dick each had a gluten-free fish pie, baked in a ceramic dish with mashed potatoes on top. The Chepstow Castle Inn will be famous among us for its badminton, which the Shields family played while they waited for lunch to arrive. Susan, Shauna and Reta all went to a small art gallery next door to buy local water colors.

Rob drove us to the Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths. The second Augustan legion of 5,000 to 6,000 men occupied the area beginning in 65 A.D., and managed to take up quite a bit of space. We went first to their baths. They had the usual cold, medium and hot baths. A surprising number of precious and semi-precious stones has been found in the bath’s drain. This was a place for soldiers to relax and unwind after spending the day pacifying Wales. In terra cotta tiles around the edge of the baths, a roman soldier’s footprint and a dog’s paw print had been preserved forever in the tile. You could clearly see the marks from the studs on the soldier’s sandal.

Rob put a replica Centurion’s helmet on Kylie’s head. It was a good fit. Abby found a Roman mess kit that was strikingly similar to the Boy Scout mess kit still used today – a small knife and spoon were on a ring, and a skillet with a folding handle was in a mesh bag. Some things never change.

A group of young men was playing shirts-and-skins soccer in the 2000-year-old Roman amphitheater. Abby rooted for the skins side. Rob said that King Arthur likely would have addressed Celtic soldiers on this spot, urging them to unite in battle against the invading Saxons. It would have been a perfect spot for people from the surrounding area to listen to inspirational speeches from the greatest leader of the day.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Rob picked us up at 8:30, loaded our luggage, and headed for the Snowdon Mountain Railway in Llanberis, where we had tickets for the 9:00 a.m. departure. Some of the engines were coal-fired steam locomotives, but ours was a 12-cylinder diesel named George. All of them have a rack-and-pinion traction drive that allows them to travel up the steep grade to 1085 meters above sea level on steel rails. We passed a beautiful waterfall and through a forest of gnarled oak trees before emerging above the tree line. A hiking trail paralleled the rail line. At the halfway point, a small restaurant, recently under new ownership, sells homemade lemonade to thirsty hikers. No lemonade for us, though, just a brief stop.

A modern railway station with toilets, a snack bar and a gift shop rests at the top of Mount Snowdon. You can buy a t-shirt that says, “I climbed Mt. Snowdon,” even if you rode the train. There is a “two-minute walk” up several flights of stone stairs to get to the absolute summit, where there is a brass marker on a plinth pointing to what you can see in all directions. What you could see, that is, if the summit were not shrouded in clouds and mist. Upon our return, we spoke with Irene, who was there with her group of English and Italian ladies. Irene assured us that mist is normal at the top of the mountain. We were lucky to have good views on the lower half of the mountain.

On our way to lunch we took a brief stop for photographs at a beautiful rest stop overlooking a glen with a lake in Snowdonia National Park. Then on to a bar lunch at the Tanronnen Inn in Beddgelert, reputed to be the most picturesque village in all of Wales, which is saying something. Gelert was Prince Llewellyn’s pet wolfhound in the 13th century. Llewellyn came home one day to find his young son missing and a bloody mess near his son’s bed. He blamed the dog and killed him with his sword. He then found a dead wolf nearby, as well as his son, who was just fine. Llewellyn realized the dog had killed a wolf, saving his son from harm. He buried his dog in a grave and never smiled again. “Beddgelert” means “Gelert’s grave” in Welsh. The grave and its stone marker have been preserved to this day. A modern bronze statue of the dog is in an enclosure nearby.

Beddgelert is a picturesque village, not just because of the quaint houses adorned with overflowing flower pots, but also because of its setting in a glen surrounded by steep hills. The hills look too steep to climb without technical gear, and rise suddenly out of a small plain surrounding a crystal-clear river flowing in a rocky bed through the town and under a stone bridge.

We drove to Port Meirion, the conceit of Mr. Clough Williams-Ellis, who built the village to show how a beautiful site could be developed without spoiling it. He started work in 1925 and finished it 55 years later. Port Meirion was the setting for “The Prisoner,” a 1960’s TV show starring Patrick McGoohan, which was one of my favorites, even though I didn’t understand it. The whimsical village is now owned by a non-profit organization, the Clough Williams-Ellis Foundation.

Port Meirion is one of a kind. It is an odd assortment of decorative items salvaged from buildings throughout Britain, inserted into a setting of new Italianate buildings. There were many mermaids, rescued from the balcony of a building in London that was demolished. We saw a one-armed Buddha from China that had been bombed during the war, and a statue of the apostle Peter preaching to the city. It was low tide, so we walked down to the hotel, where a wedding was in progress, and out onto the enormous sand bar in the estuary. Signs warned us to make our way back before the tide came in, or we could be trapped on the other side of the estuary, a few hundred yards from the hotel, but 15 miles away when travelling on dry land at high tide. We did not tarry.

We drove to the Park Hotel in Pandy near Abergavenny, arriving shortly after 8:00 p.m. A pair of horses and a colt, belonging to the owner, grazed in a field next door. Outside the front door, a stone dragon’s head coming out of a wall was placed so as to water one of their plants with water coming from the dragon’s mouth. We piled our luggage in the breakfast room, and moved to the dining room to order supper. The food was good, and the company even better. People were tired after a long day and went right to bed after supper.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Our first stop was the Dinorwic Quarries, now known as the National Slate Museum at Llanberis. We watched Carwyn Price demonstrate how to split and dress slate, along with Hywl Lewis, Welsh Minister of Heritage and Member of the Welsh National Assembly. Hywl had his picture taken splitting slate, which his great-grandfather had done. We visited the 50-foot water wheel, still in operation, that had provided mechanical power to the slate works. The chief engineer's residence gave us a good idea of what life would be like in Wales for a middle-class person in the early part of the 20th century. Bill and I visited the lake created by the Vivian Pit, where we saw bubbles rising from divers in the 60-foot-deep lake.

We boarded the van and drove to Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel, where we had a very nice bar lunch. Edmund Hillary and his team had stayed there in 1953 while training on Mt. Snowdon for their later ascent of Everest. Some of them, including Tony Bennett, had signed the ceiling. The walls of the interior were rough-hewn logs, stained and varnished.

We drove to Swallow Falls. The road passes down river on a bank well above the river, requiring a hike of many steps to get below the falls. Abby, Reta and Lois decided to stay in the van. The falls are a long series of rapids and falls that go on for miles through a dense hardwood forest.

Our next stop was the Trefriw Woolen Mills. It seemed to take only one or two men to operate the mill, though at a rather desultory pace. The mill takes in raw wool and dyes, cards, spins and weaves it into fabric. They even have their own pelton-wheel hydropower plant, one of several power plants that we saw on the trip. A hard freeze last winter burst the hydropower pipes, causing the mill to be without power for an extended period. They are still replenishing their stock of sales goods from the period of lost production. Lois was the last one out of the shop and into the van, with a large bag clutched in her hand. She told Bill that she had bought a hundred pounds of yarn, which caused Bill to exclaim, “You’re going to have to arrange to have that shipped!” Lois patiently explained that the local currency is the pound, and that 100 pounds of yarn actually didn’t weigh that much.

Rob took us to the medieval walled town of Conwy and its castle, a place visited by our friend Lynn several years ago and highly recommended by her. Downtown Conwy is graced with Lancaster Square, which is a nice feature for any town. Conwy castle is famous for its towers, three of which were extended in height in the early years to allow archers to shoot down on would-be invaders. Welshmen pretending to be carpenters had tricked their way into the outer defences of the castle and had been difficult to dislodge by the English soldiers in the interior of the castle because of the lack of archers’ towers. Hence the addition of archers’ towers. Conwy castle has a huge well, 91 feet deep, fed by springs coming down out of the hills above the town. In the same castle are archers’ towers of great height, and a well of great depth, still with water at the bottom. Kylie and Teryn acquired a book with clues in it. If you found all of the clues, you got a prize, which is a sticker. The girls found all the clues, but there was no time to claim the prize. They were remarkably philosophical about it.

At about 5:30 we piled into the van to drive to Llandudno, where we had 6:00 dinner reservations at the Osborne Hotel. We were escorted into a back room, which we had all to ourselves. They had a number of gluten-free items marked on the menu, which pleased Reta. She and I both had the monkfish in curry sauce. We did not have time for the three-course meal, but we did have time for a main course and dessert. The gooseberry and elderflower trifle was outstanding.

Rob had arranged reserved seats for us at a nearby Methodist church in Llandudno to hear the Maelgwn Male Voice Choir in concert. The choir had 80 voices and a 30-year-old conductor with a superb baritone voice. There was also a soloist, two pianists, and an organist. They sang a variety of works in English and Welsh by an assortment of composers, including Beethoven, Elgar, and Mozart. The soloist sang mostly show tunes. The last piece by the choir was an American medley that included “Dixie” as well as “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It was sort of an American reconciliation piece. The sound of the choir was outstanding, especially when considering the advanced age of the singers. At the very end, the audience sang “Love Divine“ with the choir, but not to the tune to which we are accustomed. We arrived back at the Menai Bank Hotel in Caernarvon after 10:30, tired but satisfied.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

We were just a 15-minute walk from Caernarvon Castle, but we piled into the van for a short drive there. Rob led us around the inside of the castle, pointing out the slate dais where Charles had been invested as Prince of Wales in 1969 at the age of 21. Construction of the castle was started in 1283 by Edward I as part of an iron ring of castles meant to subdue the Welsh. Unlike Edward’s other castles, this one was not covered with lime, but instead was built with different colored bands of stone. Edward’s son, Edward II, was supposedly born there, and Edward reported that no word of English was spoken. This was meant to placate the Welsh, but even today they know that the English monarchs at that time spoke French, not English. According to Rob, many believe that Edward II was born on the way to Caernarvon, not at the castle itself.

We drove across one of the Menai bridges to the island of Anglesey. I took a photograph of one of the bridges, built in 1826, for Abby to share with her former colleagues at the Minnesota Department of Transportation. In Beaumaris, we walked through the Bulkeley Hotel to Ye Olde Bull’s Head Inn for lunch, then it was off to Penmon to see the ancient priory. Inside the church are a couple of very old Celtic crosses, the newer of which had one of its arms cut off when it was used temporarily for a window sill. Even the baptismal font in the church is an ancient stone artifact. Outside, Rob led us to St. Seiriol’s Well. The lower part of the well is believed to date to St. Seriol’s time in the 6th century, but the brick building above it is from the 18th century. We found the well to be a peaceful, contemplative place.

As we left the well, we passed a pond that had a family of moorhens swimming in it. Across the driveway from the pond is the Penmon Dovecot, the second-largest stone dovecote in the world. On the way back to Caernarfon, we had our passports stamped at the place with longest train station name in Britain, known as LlanfairPG for short. After Rob dropped us at the Menai Bank, we walked to Le Bistro, a French restaurant on Hole in the Wall Street in Caernarfon. The proprietress had just recently met her 70-year-old half brother in Estonia. They had been separated by World War II and by the remarriage of their father to an English woman after the war. After a delicious Franco-Welsh meal, it was a short walk back to the hotel. The weather was so perfect – sunny and 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day – that I went for a short walk after Abby went to bed.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

After a Welsh breakfast, which in my case included smoked haddock, we headed for North Wales. Our first stop was at Nevern, known for its 10th-century Celtic cross, made of sandstone, and bleeding yew tree. The Celtic cross, 13 feet high and two feet wide, is one of the three best Celtic crosses in Wales, this one dating to the 10th or 11th centuries. Inside the church, a 5th-century stone with Ogham writing on it had been built into a window sill. Ogham writing uses slashes above or below a line to indicate letters, and is read from right to left. The same words in Latin were also carved into the stone, causing Abby to name it the Ogham Rosetta stone. A mounting block was built outside for 18th-century churchgoers to mount their British-saddled horses after services.

From the church we went toward Pentre Ifan, where there are the remains of a megalithic tomb, consisting of a 16-ton slab of rock set on three other vertical slabs. Originally, a cairn of rocks would have been piled around the three big rocks. (A fourth vertical rock is not actually touching the 16-ton slab.) Rob dismissed a theory that the tomb is actually a sculpture of an alien space craft, looking a lot like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. He told the story of a witch and her “long-suffering boyfriend” both of whom he had brought there at night for a ceremony. Rob said that he and the boyfriend stood around like a couple of "nit wits" while she sprinkled oil around the ancient tomb. When the witch asked if he could feel the spirit, Rob reported that he had replied, “No, but I can feel the electric charge draining from my flashlight.” Back in the van, we continued a beautiful drive through the mountains of North Wales to Caernarvon, seat of the Prince of Wales and unofficial capital of North Wales.

During the drive to North Wales, Bill and Lois sat in front, where Rob regaled them with stories about Thomas Cooper, the Welsh comedian. Cooper was reported to have said, in connection with a conversation he once had with Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister, "He took me aside, and left me there." Their conversation also touched on the subject of Rupert Murdoch, who was then in the news, unfavorably, because one of his newspapers had hacked into people's voice mail messages. Rob's comment about Murdoch, "He ought to be turned out into the wild."

We stopped for lunch at the Cardiff Arms pub in Cilgerran. I had a “jacket potato” with chili, which was quite good; however, Abby’s lamb burger was even better. The owner of the pub was not behind the bar, but in front of it, drinking a beer. We chatted briefly with him about soccer. Across the street was an old Methodist Church. Some of its leaded glass windows had been replaced with sheets of tin. Like many churches in Wales, it had seen better days. We drove to Caernarfon, where we would spend the next three nights in the Menai Bank Hotel, “One of the Hidden Places of Wales,” according to a plaque next to their front door.

Monday, July 25, 2011

We said goodbye to the Big Sleep, loaded our luggage into Rob’s van, and set off in search of Cwm-y-Glo, ancestral home of the Samuel family. On the way we stopped at a rest stop, where I looked at a road atlas that clearly showed Cwm-y-Glo on it near Cefneithin and Cross Hands. As we got closer, Rob began asking for directions at the post office and from passersby. He was told authoritatively that a row of older homes was Cwm-y-Glo. We stood in someone’s driveway and had our pictures taken, then moved down the road and had Rob take our pictures in front of a wall to make sure we had found the right spot. We then moved on to a nice park with hiking paths and a valley with a creek flowing through it lined with a coal outcropping. Now this truly must be Cwm-y-Glo!

We had a pub lunch at the Cross Hands pub. Its sign showed a pair of hands in handcuffs. Abby had tuna and pita bread; I had delicious cockles, bacon and leeks. Four Welshmen were having a beer in the bar; one of them asked me to sit down and visit with them for a bit, which I did, followed by Bill and Dick. We explained our Welsh heritage and our search for Cwm-y-Glo. They had not heard of Cwm-y-Glo.

The man who had asked me to join them asked for our family name. "Rhys Samuel was my great-great grandfather," I replied. "Ah, Samuel, now that's a good name," he said. "It's the Joneses you have to watch out for - the Joneses and the Evanses." With that word of warning, we thanked him and bade farewell to Cwm-y-Glo and the Cross Hands pub.

We headed for the Cawdor Hotel in the main center of Llandeilo. A sprinkle of rain fell as we disembarked in the Llandeilo car park, so we took our umbrellas and rain jackets. Abby had noticed a small art gallery across the street from the hotel, so she went in to have a look. I went with Mom and Dad to check in at the hotel for our afternoon tea, then I went back to the gallery in search of Abby. She had found a couple of acrylic paintings of Welsh scenes, one of a chapel with headstones in the foreground, and another cryptically entitled “Sir Gar.” We liked the colors and the subject of Sir Gar, so we asked the saleswoman what it meant in English. She ran to the shop next door, where a Welsh speaker informed her that Sir Gar is Welsh for Carmenthenshire, the home county of the Samuel family. That settled it; we purchased the painting. We then headed across the street with Susan, who had joined us in the gallery, to meet the Griffiths family.

The hotel had set aside one end of the restaurant for the 22 of us. I introduced myself to Johnny Griffiths, his wife Anne and children Gareth and David. Gareth, 13, was the more talkative of the two and was about to enter ninth grade. David had just graduated high school and will go to college in the fall to study furniture making. Johnny’s mother, Gladys, and four sisters, Rosemary (and her husband, John James), Janet (Brian James), Sheila Carroll and Joyce Thomas, were also at the table with the 11 of us. The hotel set out a cream tea: Welsh cakes, scones, whipped cream and strawberry jam. There was also plate of other cakes – chocolate, carrot cake, and the like. Our guests, however, had not had lunch, so Dad ordered a plate of sandwiches. Gareth, next to me, ate with great gusto. He told Dad that they were all excited to be there, in part because the Cawdor Hotel is posh, but also because they wanted to meet their American relatives.

Mom stood to present the two documents she had prepared containing a genealogy of the Samuel family and a list of how those present were related, as well as some family history. We discovered that the Griffiths’ native language is Welsh, rather than English, when they asked for some time to compose their remarks. They sang for us in Welsh, and then we sang the Doxology for them in English, our preferred language. Sheila read some comments that had been dictated by Gladys and translated into English by her daughters, welcoming us to Wales and thanking us for taking the time out of our itinerary to meet with them. We ended with hugs and handshakes, and they walked us out to our van, waving good-bye.

Rob drove us to the Mill at Glynhir near Llandybie. We had a delicious meal, which Irene had helped us order over the internet. Abby and I both had lamb chops, mine preceded by potato-leek soup and followed by an apple tart. Afterwards I led Bill and the Shields family down the hill to the stream, across and footbridge and over a stile. (I had scouted the trail before supper.) Once over the stile, the trail quickly became too muddy, and we had to turn back. We fell into bed, exhausted after a long day.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Jake Russell had requested a photograph from the colonnade on the waterfront. Rob took us there first thing Sunday morning, when it was easy to find a place to park. We stood in front of the columns while Rob took our picture. The columns hide the fictional entrance to an underground office and research facility for UFO hunters in the Torchwood television series, a spin-off of Doctor Who. We did not have time to visit the UFO hunters, so we climbed back into Rob’s bus for the trip to Caerphilly Castle.

Caerphilly is the largest castle in Wales, built by the marcher lord, Gilbert de Clare, in the 13th century. Several layers of fortifications protect the inner ward, many of them in ruins. The keep had been restored by the Marquess of Bute in the early 20th century. The Marquess had made a pile of money shipping coal out of the Cardiff docks, near the present-day inter-universe portal. After making his money, he spent quite a bit of time restoring old castles, including Cardiff Castle, Castel Coch, and Caerphilly, all in the Cardiff area. The castle was preparing to host a wedding – cars and vans were driving across the moat carrying flowers, white linens and cake. A group of singers and drummers had brought a 12-foot-tall witch puppet to parade around the castle. It seemed like an odd pre-Christian ritual. Outside the castle, the town of Caerphilly was decked out in flowers, which grow so well in this climate.

After lunch, we drove to the Big Pit, the largest and last of the nationalized coal mines to be closed by Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1980’s. Rhys Davies, the former miner who was our guide, referred to her only as “she who shall not be named.” Rhys had started working in the mine in 1968 at age 15. To get into the Pit, you are required to wear a hard hat, with a light and battery, and a rescue breathing device, which chemically removes CO2 from the air in the mine as you breathe. They also collect in a bag any smoking materials (cigarettes, tobacco, lighters, etc.) and anything containing a battery, such as cameras, watches or cell phones, that could create a spark which might ignite methane.

About 20 of us boarded the elevator to descend 300 feet into the Pit. At the bottom, we were confronted by, in addition to the elevator operator, two drams full of coal. Each dram was a small rail car that looked like it held about 5 tons of coal each. The drams were pulled back and forth on cables attached to a motor mounted next to the elevator. Each miner, assisted by a lad of 15 or so, filled five drams per day.

Rhys stopped periodically to ask if there were questions. I asked, how thick was the seam. He replied that it varied in thickness, between 10 and 16 feet. I then asked, how many Btu per pound in the coal. Rhys did not care for that question, saying, “I am just a poor miner – I do not know the answers to such questions. Those scientific boys are up on the hill. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask them.” He acted angry, so I offered to buy him a pint afterwards, which seemed to settle him down a bit. He then said that he was just having fun with me, but I was not convinced.

We walked down slope to the underground stables where horses were kept. Horses were used as late as 1999 to pull the drams of coal back and forth to where they could be attached to the motorized cables. (Some mines remained in private hands after 1985 and were not closed – until later.) The mine goes as deep as 500 feet, and was a bit damp and uneven under foot. We – even Abby – had to duck our heads in many places as we walked along the corridor. Teryn later reported that she was the only one who did not have to duck her head while in the mine. I’ve spent a lot of time ducking under pipes in power plants, yet I still banged my hard hat several times on low spots in the ceiling. I could see why my great-grandfather did not want his descendants to become miners.

After ascending the elevator and retrieving our battery-containing belongings, we walked up the hill to see the showers and museum. Rob took us back to the Big Sleep hotel, the Euro-techno youth hostel that he and Irene had booked for two nights in Cardiff. He recommended the Owain Glendwr pub, a short walk away in old downtown Cardiff. Abby and I went ahead to scout out the menu and determine whether it was truly walking distance for the rest of the group. It was. It’s in the same block as the Burger King across from Cardiff castle. Once the rest of the party was close to the pub, Susan and I used our cell phones to close the gap between us. We had a nice pub supper of fish and chips, steak pie and the like.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Rob, our driver and guide from Welsh Dragon Tours, met us at Heathrow airport, just as arranged. He was driving a large van or small bus whose back row of seats had been removed, so there were enough seats for the eleven of us, plus the driver, and plenty of room for luggage. We headed west toward Cardiff and our first destination, the Museum of Welsh Life at St. Fagan’s.

Abby and I had been here in 1994 when it was still called the Welsh Folk Museum, and had fond memories of it. We saw actual houses from the 17th and 18th century that had been relocated to St. Fagan’s. Abby and I visited briefly with a saddler, who described the side saddle, and how women’s legs would be locked together into the saddle, making it difficult for them to dismount quickly should the horse take a fall. We saw the same small houses, and very small beds, that we had seen before.

We went into a small Unitarian church, or “chapel” as they say in Wales, that had been relocated to the site in the 1950’s, because of declining attendance. The congregation still meets there occasionally. The layout of the building was like that of a small congregational church, with the pulpit on a raised platform, surrounded by low rails, with the congregation in pews on both the first floor and the balcony. The ceilings were low, so that the first-floor congregation would be just below eye level, and the balcony-level congregation, when seated, would be just above eye level.

For supper, Rob took us to the Cardiff waterfront, where we discovered the Café Rouge, a French restaurant with a very pleasant waiter. We shared a delicious artichoke pate and a bowl of mussels as our appetizers. I had a delightful lemon sole, which was a pleasure to eat, once I figured out that it had not yet been boned. Abby ate a babette steak, which seemed like a hanger steak. We sat at three tables, which Bill later observed were segregated by age – Keith, the youngest adult, sat with the two girls, while Shauna sat next door with Susan, Abby and me. Lois, Bill, Dick and Reta were at the third table. Rob met us at 9:00 and returned us to our hotel, the Big Sleep, in downtown Cardiff.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Our flight across the “pond” was flawless, although Abby and I were the only ones who claimed afterwards to get some sleep. It had been exciting to run into Susan on her way to the gate at the Twin Cities airport, making our group of 11 complete – Reta and Dick; Bill and Lois; Keith, Shauna, Kylie and Teryn; Susan; Abby and me.