Things That Make Me Happy #1: Memories of Wales

[rj_anderson]

Okay, so this isn't something that made me happy TODAY, exactly, but I still treImage by rj-anderson via Flickrasure my many fond memories of that late August research/anniversary trip to the south of England and Wales. Waaaaaaaales. Oh, Susan Cooper, how I blame you for writing The Grey King and kicking off my passionate love affair with all things Welsh.

Anyway, I will just shut up and let you enjoy the pretty pictures now. First off, me looking understandably happy in front of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. WhichImage by rj-anderson via Flickr was, not surprisingly, a thoroughly brilliant place.

Then, since I am rambling around in no particular order, we have the gardens at Powys Castle, Welshpool, which are utterly stunning and have probably been used for the setting of any number of Regency-type movies. Tier upon tier of gorgeous blooms and immaculately trimmed hedges, and magnificent architecture all around.

Oh, and did I mention the view? Yeah.
Image by rj-anderson via Flickr
Also, the back roads in Wales are made for midgets driving incredibly tiny cars, which we were not (and were not driving) so we had to get used to the glorious fun of driving very cautiously around all the blind corners just in case we happened to meet somImage by rj-anderson via Flickreone coming head-on the other way. Fortunately, as we were travelling deep in the Welsh countryside, this hardly ever happened.

I have many more pictures from the UK trip to share, but I'll save them for some posts in the New Year...

Anyway, that's it for me. If you'd like to do the "Five Things That Made Me Happy Today" meme, consider yourself tagged; otherwise, never mind. :)

Comments

[alison23.livejournal.com]

You are truly a woman after my own heart. I'm also a Christian, a children's/YA writer, and a mother of three boys, and my favorite day ever was a day I spent alone in Wales! It was only one day, or part of a day, and I only got to Cardiff--just took a day trip from Oxford by train, but I thought it was absolutely beautiful (fortunately the weather was perfect that day, which I know is odd for Wales!) and I felt utterly at peace there. I was happy to find out later that I have Welsh ancestry. That was 20 years ago and I've wanted to go back to Wales ever since. Bruce Cockburn has a song lyric, "Just want to stand on some hillside in Wales with you...," and that's always been my wish for my husband, that I could take him to Wales & stand on a hillside with him! I've been watching a lot of BBC America lately, and it seems that Wales gets a bad rap from the English...but I adored it. Somewhere I have a panoramic postcard of a ruined castle in Wales that I have pulled out to stare at when I wanted to just calm myself and breathe. (Though I will say my mother once gave me a board book written in Welsh, and I didn't even show it to my kids as toddlers because I thought it would just confuse them about what letters could go together! The language is really unusual.)