I opened my eyes this morning around 6 am. I have repeatedly found that when I’m ‘on holiday’, or otherwise unhindered by any morning commitment, my body clock tends to wake me earlier, and often more refreshed, than it otherwise would. If I have to get up for work, or some other obligation, I tend to remain asleep till the last minute, leaving me rushed and stressed getting into gear. With no compelling reason to actually get out of bed, I allowed myself to doze off again while listening to random Facebook reels through my earbuds. That gave me another couple of hours, although I wasn’t completely asleep for all of that time. By the time I finally crawled out of bed, it was gone 9 am.
This pattern of waking, then dozing straight off again to squeeze a few more hours in, has been the prevailing sleep pattern for the past several months—near enough since I’ve been on sick leave. You’d think that alone would be giving me plenty of rest, but I’ve also been taking afternoon naps more often than not. One of the by-products of having so much sleep is that I get the occasional bout of insomnia. I sometimes find myself still scrolling on my phone well into 3 or 4 am. I suspect that my sleep patterns will shift again when I’m back to work. We’ll see.
Even though one of my sisters is away, I still harboured hope of getting around to seeing everyone else during this trip. It turns out that pipe dream is unlikely to come to fruition. I received a message from one of my other sisters this morning that effectively put a visit to her out of the question for reasons I don’t need to go into here. I was deeply saddened by this. Of all my siblings, it often seems that I’m the one with the most desire for connection. Everyone else could take it or leave it. That’s of course perfectly fine, but I admit this affects me probably more than it should. Out of respect for everyone’s privacy and personal circumstances, I won’t dwell on this further. Suffice it to say, this has dampened my mood somewhat. Oh well. Nothing I can really do about it.
To brighten my mood, the weather this morning was once again about as good as it gets. A scattering of light, fluffy cumulus clouds punctuated an otherwise clear blue sky—the kind of weather you’d hope to experience on an expensive holiday. Not only am I benefiting from such good weather here in Wales, but I have the added bonus that it’s not an expensive trip as well. It can get a little breezy in the back garden. That’s due to how this hamlet is nestled into the surrounding hills and valley, and how the wind is channelled through—hardly worth complaining about.
The only plan for today, the first day of August, was the nearby Trefeglwys Show, a typical British country farmer’s fair. Lisa elected to stay home with the ailing dog, leaving John and me free to spend a couple of hours exploring what there was to explore at the fair.
After a short 10-minute drive, we were ushered into a farmer’s field, having first been relieved of £12 for our entry fee. We were further guided to join the next row of cars slowly filling up the field. As they confirmed yesterday, I had no issue using my iPhone to make payment to their iPhone, which they were using as a card terminal.
The whole fair covered about a hectare of ground (about two and a half acres), excluding the car parking space, which was probably another hectare. In the central area was what appeared to be an assault course, with an acrobat act performing some trampoline jump tricks. Adjacent to that was a dog show. By the time we arrived, we had missed some of the dog show, but the final for one of the categories was being judged. Next to the dog show pen was a falconry display. A handler stood by, one of the majestic birds perched on his glove.
John and I walked around the entire circuit a couple of times, occasionally stopping here and there to chat with some of the commercial stalls, listening to the falconry show, and grabbing a bite to eat.
One rather unique entrant of the show was the Longest thistle competition, which just happened to be won by someone from Llanwnog, this small cluster of houses struggling to sustain the status of village. I jested to John and Lisa that they now have the dubious honour of living in the village that can lay claim to the winner of the longest weed competition. After completing our second circuit, we felt we’d seen pretty much all there was to see, and made our way back to the car.
Back home, we brushed ourselves down of all the loose twigs, little prickly balls, and other burrs the countryside had seen fit to deposit onto every square centimetre of clothing. Blackberrying is fast becoming a daily ritual here. We took the dog and a couple of empty punnets out for a brief walk around the village, hunting for ripe blackberry brambles. As luck would have it, we found several spots within a hundred meters of the house that were bearing plenty of ripe fruit. We ended up scoring a huge haul of 1 to 2 kg of the delicious treats—many of which were gobbled down without making it into the punnet.
After another round of LIJONG, John cooked up some dinner for him and me. Lisa took care of her own dinner. We rounded off the evening with a round of Cribbage and a round of Hearts, or Chase the Lady as it’s sometimes called.