Now you know that on these jaunts there are always excursions.....days out, places to visit.
These excursions are a bit like the Curates Egg.......some bits are good and other bits are not so good....well, no...some bits are horrid.
We have been with some coach companies and they have had on the itinerary....Trip to......when in actual fact they mean a loo stop.
We went to North Devon and stopped at Barnstaple on one of these excursions......for, wait for it...... 20 minutes.
To me, with Ma in the chair, it is a waste of time.
Ma, out of courtesy, always gets off last.
For two reasons....one, so that we don't hold up the other travellers, and two, so that the driver has time to unload the chariot.
It takes us roughly ten minutes to get off the coach and get Ma installed safely in her chair, and roughly the same amount of time to get back on....so twenty minutes for us was just a joke.
On this last trip I wasn't sure if we would do the excursions.
We have been to Llandudno many times on coach trips, and they mainly visit the same places.
On this tour the trips were a full day to Anglesey, and a full day to Snowdonia.
Both of those places are lovely if the weather is kind, but miserable if it isn't.
Snowdonia is particularly miserable if the mist comes down......the beautiful scenery is obscured by mist and dampness and all the colours of the country side are muted.
In the end we did go on both trips.
Tuesday, it was Anglesey......LlanfairPG...and the Pringle weavers......one of those retail outlets that are supposed to be full of bargains...none of which I have yet managed to discover.
yes there were some beautiful things, but with beautiful price tags to match.
Ma didn't even get off the coach for this bit of the day.
She was having a bad day and was very slow and in pain (the advice to take some pain-killers fell on deaf and obstinate ears)......so she stayed in her seat while I skipped off to take pictures.
Then we went to Beaumaris. I have been there before, but it was 50 years ago on a school outing, so I couldn't really remember much about it, well, other than I felt sure there was a castle there.
My memory of the castle was correct......except it was bigger than I remembered it to be. Isn't that unusual?
Normally things that we viewed as large as a child look much smaller when we re-visit them.
I asked Ma if she wanted to go and look around the castle.....but to be honest I was relieved when she said she didn't....and when I got inside the castle, I was even more relieved....it wasn't what you could call 'wheel chair' friendly.
I walked the battlements, ambled through what centuries ago would have been courtyards, and sauntered under the many arches.......this castle was a 'boys' castle........a pile of stones, all covered with moss....not at all like Leeds Castle(which was a wonder).
I took lots of pictures, so that Ma could have them on a disk and perhaps feel like she had visited without all the effort of actually doing it....and from the comfort of her warm living room and the armchair.
We dined on Fish and Chips....Ma's nostrils flared when she smelled the vinegar on someone's chips as they walked by, and instantly she fancied some...so that is what we had.
Then I pushed her onto the old wooden pier and we gazed out over the Menai Straits.
It was a strange kind of day.......warm and with some sunshine, but also with glowering gun-metal grey clouds over the mountains.
It made for some very dramatic pictures.......the dark brooding clouds, and the sunshine on the water....and over the town of Beaumaris a pastel coloured sky.
To say that we were going to give the trip a miss, we had a very enjoyable day....and I was glad that we had gone along.
I'll tell you about Snowdonia tomorrow......if you want?
These excursions are a bit like the Curates Egg.......some bits are good and other bits are not so good....well, no...some bits are horrid.
We have been with some coach companies and they have had on the itinerary....Trip to......when in actual fact they mean a loo stop.
We went to North Devon and stopped at Barnstaple on one of these excursions......for, wait for it...... 20 minutes.
To me, with Ma in the chair, it is a waste of time.
Ma, out of courtesy, always gets off last.
For two reasons....one, so that we don't hold up the other travellers, and two, so that the driver has time to unload the chariot.
It takes us roughly ten minutes to get off the coach and get Ma installed safely in her chair, and roughly the same amount of time to get back on....so twenty minutes for us was just a joke.
On this last trip I wasn't sure if we would do the excursions.
We have been to Llandudno many times on coach trips, and they mainly visit the same places.
On this tour the trips were a full day to Anglesey, and a full day to Snowdonia.
Both of those places are lovely if the weather is kind, but miserable if it isn't.
Snowdonia is particularly miserable if the mist comes down......the beautiful scenery is obscured by mist and dampness and all the colours of the country side are muted.
In the end we did go on both trips.
Tuesday, it was Anglesey......LlanfairPG...and the Pringle weavers......one of those retail outlets that are supposed to be full of bargains...none of which I have yet managed to discover.
yes there were some beautiful things, but with beautiful price tags to match.
Ma didn't even get off the coach for this bit of the day.
She was having a bad day and was very slow and in pain (the advice to take some pain-killers fell on deaf and obstinate ears)......so she stayed in her seat while I skipped off to take pictures.
Then we went to Beaumaris. I have been there before, but it was 50 years ago on a school outing, so I couldn't really remember much about it, well, other than I felt sure there was a castle there.
My memory of the castle was correct......except it was bigger than I remembered it to be. Isn't that unusual?
Normally things that we viewed as large as a child look much smaller when we re-visit them.
I asked Ma if she wanted to go and look around the castle.....but to be honest I was relieved when she said she didn't....and when I got inside the castle, I was even more relieved....it wasn't what you could call 'wheel chair' friendly.
I walked the battlements, ambled through what centuries ago would have been courtyards, and sauntered under the many arches.......this castle was a 'boys' castle........a pile of stones, all covered with moss....not at all like Leeds Castle(which was a wonder).
I took lots of pictures, so that Ma could have them on a disk and perhaps feel like she had visited without all the effort of actually doing it....and from the comfort of her warm living room and the armchair.
We dined on Fish and Chips....Ma's nostrils flared when she smelled the vinegar on someone's chips as they walked by, and instantly she fancied some...so that is what we had.
Then I pushed her onto the old wooden pier and we gazed out over the Menai Straits.
It was a strange kind of day.......warm and with some sunshine, but also with glowering gun-metal grey clouds over the mountains.
It made for some very dramatic pictures.......the dark brooding clouds, and the sunshine on the water....and over the town of Beaumaris a pastel coloured sky.
To say that we were going to give the trip a miss, we had a very enjoyable day....and I was glad that we had gone along.
I'll tell you about Snowdonia tomorrow......if you want?
