Tywyn escape

As the Covid situation got messier and messier, we decided to take advantage of the Welsh government's decision to end their fire break as planned, despite England entering 4 weeks of lockdown. Seeing that the infection numbers in some parts of Wales were still grim, we booked a cottage in Mid Wales for a week, thinking that it might be our only chance for some new scenery before they are forced to introduce new and more draconian restrictions. So, on the first day of relative freedom, we headed up north, through mid Wales (lovely) to Tywyn:

The "3 hour" route through mid Wales is lovely, the only drawback is having to drive past Merthyr Tydfil which is a truly horrid place at the best of times (one of the most depressed towns in Wales so we heard with many social issues) and it was the Covid capital of the entire UK too with the very worst infection rates. We kept the windows closed and the aircon on recirculate until well clear.....

Mid Wales was as spectacular as ever with nice roads, vistas and little traffic so we enjoyed the drive up and a brief coffee stop in Brecon.

The cottage in Tywyn had good views from the kitchen and a sofa in there too so you could admire them:

and a beach in very close proximity which Izzy enjoyed:

with some interestingly painted stones in one area:

We think that Patrick has already visited Tywyn and quite some time ago looking at how weathered the paint was:

Some short excursions followed to Machynlleth, the claimed ancient capital of Wales, Barmouth and Dolgellau. All had rather wonderful coffee shops for us with excellent cakes and good walks to amuse the dog. Machynlleth has a real "Cornish town" feel about it, very alternative, very Eco friendly, loads of independent shops, beautiful old buildings and on market day a proper little town buzz. Such a contrast to some of the "little towns" we visited in Scotland that are, frankly, scruffy and sad. The housing stock here is way better looked after too.

Barmouth had the delights of a huge sandy beach to amuse Izzy:

and a lovely coffee spot (look up Goodies) with great staff, coffee, ciabatta and cake. Suitably fuelled we walked around the town and discovered that Izzy must have been here before and modelled for a pub sign:

Then we walked to the old footbridge that runs across the estuary with the railway line. A proper piece of Victorian railway engineering that the Railtrack guys have to live with and maintain now. Ouch. Have a look at Wikipedia entry

The views of and from the bridge are lovely especially as the sun came out for us:

The trip back was over the toll bridge at Penmaenpool. Here is a stock picture - kind of hard to get one when driving over it:

A proper wooden bridge and well worth the 80p toll. Actually, we gave them £1 and didn't wait for any change in these Covid times. Extravagant we know but safety first and all that.....

Back at base, the sous chef was ever hopeful that we would drop something:

with a stare that tried to force something tasty to fall on the floor.

The other day trips were to Dolgellau and Aberdovey, Dolgellau had a nice flat (for the crew's dodgy knees) walk along the river using an old railway line and another truly excellent coffee and cake stop with the freshest cakes we have tasted whilst "out" for ages. A quirky place, using an old hardware store and keeping the original shop counters and fittings. Again some borrowed pictures and from the pre Covid times too:

 Aberdovey was a big hit with Izzy, another large beach:

and the chance to do some digging:

which clearly was tiring. 

All in all a very beautiful area and one which we will happily revisit sometime. In fact, if England continues with a post Xmas lockdown and Wales stays a little more "open", the revisit might be sooner than we expect.

As the Welsh "Fire Break" ends, so the English lockdown starts....

Yes, just as we thought that things would get easier after our 17 day "stay at home", so we escape from it and England goes into 4 week of the same. Makes deciding what to do pretty tricky really. Actually that is not fair, you can go places as long as they are in Wales - until the next lockdown that is.

We went big and washed the doglet in our shower which led to the usual mad behaviour as she tried to get her scent back, We kind of liked the conditioner smell that she had acquired but she seems less impressed:

No matter, some nicer weather was about and the bay looked stunning in the evening sun, only the phone camera could not do it justice:

Meanwhile, 11 shipping containers were carelessly lost from a ship in the Bristol Channel. See BBC report and this sad looking old thing was contracted by the government to recover them if they were spotted. It spent all the time tide up outside the marina, bet the berthing fees were not cheap:

We know that news about Patrick the penguin has been light recently - he seems to have been in a bit of a sulk and there has been little activity from him. Most unusual. We think we have discovered why though, it looks as if Anne led him astray whilst she was here and he is now either recovering from a huge hangover or pining for her:

We need to have words with Anne (once the English lockdown is over of course). Meanwhile, the doglet decided that she could take over the recliner chairs as well as the sofa:

Our allowed space on board is shrinking by the day.

As an aside, something for those of you who still believe that size matters. It seems that in one respect you are right. When we upgraded our radars in 2019, we fitted a new technology digital 4 foot scanner and an old technology magnetron 6 foot unit. Here is how the sexy new technology scanner sees the marina from our berth:

and here is the same but using the other scanner:

You can see how the bigger scanner does a better job of trying to show the individual boats. Naturally the new technology one has lots of other benefits but for the ability to discriminate between close together targets,  no matter how far away they are, size mattered.

Maintenance news:

As the weather had finally decided to dry up, a few outside jobs could be completed. Extra insulation on the new heater exhaust, reseal around the teak capping on the transom and drill a new hole for the replacement tap that we have for the aft cockpit sink:

and as you can see, it just keeps raining..... The tape is just to keep the rain out until the tap gets fitted. It was a pesky job as we had to fill in the old 35mm hole then move it away from the side of the cabinet so the new retaining nut would fit underneath (way bigger than the one for the old tap). 

After all this fun, we turned to a more exciting piece of prep - packing for a little break away.