My agenda for today was entirely devoid of any commitments. There were no therapy sessions, no meetings with my boss or the company doctor, no ARFID sessions, nothing. I had the very real option of staying in bed, lounging around the garden or popping into the car to explore some more of what Wales has to offer. Despite the later-than-normal bedtime routine last night—not to mention the whole Spider-gate affair—I opened my eyes a little earlier than I really needed to this morning. Even without a compelling reason to get out of bed, I forced myself to do so. For one thing, I was getting a little frustrated with my right hand twitching. I tried to force it into a fixed position with the pillows and the rest of my body, but it didn’t work. Once it starts to annoy me, which it’s starting to do more frequently, there’s really little I can do to sufficiently distract myself from noticing it.
My thick cut of bacon was now all consumed. However, John evidently predicted my breakfast pattern and had defrosted a couple of the chunky bits from his own stock. After a few minutes in the air fryer, they went down very nicely with some of yesterday’s poppy-seed loaf, thank you very much.
The weather was looking very nice today—not too hot and not too cold. It had rained some during the night, but the clouds were mostly fluffy cumulus, with just a hint of a breeze. All of us have mobile phone apps that forecast the weather. They evidently all draw from different source data, since they almost never agree on any aspect of the weather. If mine predicts a temperature of 18ºC, Lisa’s will predict 20ºC, and John’s might perhaps indicate 16ºC. We all review our own phone’s weather predictions, and then completely ignore them and just check what it’s like outside instead. We’ve long since given up trying to decipher what they actually mean by 55% chance of rain.
Given that the weather was playing ball, I suggested we might take Lisa up on her earlier-in-the-week suggestion to drive over to Lake Vyrnwy. It’s yet another one of the Welsh locations of outstanding natural beauty—even if the lake itself only exists because of the man-made dam. The proposal was swiftly agreed upon, and we were all in John’s car by around 10 am.
Taking a leaf right out of Robert Frost’s 1916 poem “The Road Not Taken”, John and Lisa favour the less-travelled lanes whenever they head out anywhere. It does mean that the journey can sometimes take longer, but that’s also sort of the point. As we commented in the car, if we have no arrival time requirement, or even a fixed destination, we can’t possibly get lost or take too long getting anywhere. Pacing ourselves and spending more time en route to a destination just gives us that much more opportunity to enjoy the stunningly scenic views of the Welsh countryside. We could have driven faster (although it’s ill-advised to drive fast down some of these winding country lanes), but there was no purpose to be served in so doing. Indeed, we stopped numerous times today whenever we spotted a lovely view of a distant hillside or whatever.
We arrived at the dam after about an hour on the road. John let Lisa and me out so we could walk across its top and meet him on the other side. The Lake Vyrnwy dam was Britain’s first large masonry dam. It was constructed between 1881 and 1888, having been designed by George Deacon around 1879. The dam stands some 44 metres tall and is 39 metres wide at its base, resulting in a lake encompassing around 454 hectares when full. It was originally constructed to provide freshwater to the inhabitants of Liverpool, some 110 km away. It’s still doing so today, 134 years on, although now also to the wider catchment area of Cheshire, and it’s doing so mostly via aqueducts—very few pipes involved. The views were spectacular. I instantly concluded it was worth the drive, but the great views were to continue to delight.
After a brief toilet break, we meandered around the lake’s entire perimeter in the car, stopping numerous times to take in jaw-dropping views to the far side, about a kilometre to the opposite shore, with each vista being more stunning than the previous. Mercy the dog was getting her exercise, and even waded in at one of the locations where we wandered down to the lake’s edge.
When we reached the halfway point, at the far end of its 7.6 km length, we could see some localised weather making its way across the water’s surface. The mild rain caught up with us briefly at one point, sending us scurrying for the car.
We completed the full perimeter circuit of just over 18 kilometres, bringing us back to where we started at the dam itself. After a short drive towards a nearby small village, we happened upon a small local convenience store and stocked up on a handful of refreshments. Lisa sent John in to grab her a packet of crisps. John confided a prediction to me. It probably wouldn’t matter what flavour they had; he would still likely catch an earful from Lisa for getting the wrong ones…and he did.
Not far from the dam, Lisa suggested we find a spot they had previously uncovered, with a lovely, picturesque setting and a tranquil waterfall just hidden from view off the main road (well, minor road). We eventually found the Dolanog Falls, but it was indeed very well hidden. It’s actually another man-made structure—a weir with a 6 metre drop into a series of shallow pools on the River Vyrnwy, just upstream of the village’s Vyrnwy Gorge. Getting to it required parking the car just off the road and then walking through some underbrush, but the resulting secluded glade with crystal-clear freshwater was definitely worth the effort.
For the remainder of the drive home, John went out of his way to explore the narrowest and least travelled farm lanes you could imagine, up and down some steep inclines, and some so narrow that both sides of the car were concurrently scraping the hedgerows on either side. You know you’re off the beaten track when the roads don’t have any painted lines, but some of the roads we found didn’t really have any road at all. At times, it felt like some of these tracks had been nearly completely reclaimed by nature. It was a good thing we didn’t encounter any oncoming vehicles, as it would have been nigh on impossible to pass. It’s a wonder any vehicles would voluntarily choose these tracks to begin with. You just about need a tractor to traverse them. John’s car’s suspension took quite the hammering.
We eventually managed to crawl back to home base, coming in the back way over the hill that backs onto John and Lisa’s back garden. We stumbled out of the car and put the kettle on. For my part, I felt I’d earned a nap, but only after first sorting out the afternoon’s photographic takings.
Dinner was very much a fend-for-yourself affair. I cooked my remaining two-inch cut of pork chop along with some potato wedges using John’s recipe and method. It was delicious.
My time in Wales is starting to draw to a close. It’s Wednesday, and I’m looking to catch the ferry back across the English Channel early next week—most likely Monday, unless there are any more last-minute extension plans. I still plan to complete Jacky’s client’s website build (I was going to do that today, but the last-minute day-trip decision scuppered that), visit her and then visit my niece, Jenny-Lee, in Clacton before then. That gives me perhaps another 3 nights here before I say goodbye to Wales.
We’ve fallen into a routine together here in Wales. I’ve felt like I’ve been absorbed into the comforting embrace of John and Lisa’s care since arriving. They have both taken very good care of me, but they have equally given me space to simply be. I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye.