Castle visit

We got up surprisingly late this morning and it was midday before we got out of the house and drove to Caerphilly by way of Castell Coch to show Andrea a couple of our local treasures. It's about thirty years, when the kids were young, since we last took a proper walk around the interior of Caerphilly Castle. 

Ten years ago, a modern tourist shop was constructed to replace the elderly ticket booth just inside the outer eastern gate house, several buildings and towers have been restored for opening to the public. Clare and I had not long moved to Penyrheol during my first curacy in Caerphilly Parish in 1970 when the re-roofed Great Hall was opened to the public and started being used for mediaeval banquets. So much has been achieved by CADW since then. The Castle is now a great asset to regional tourism. It was cloudy all day, but occasionally the sun shone through, and created some interesting photographic moments for me with my Sony Alpha 55. The results can be viewed here

After our visit we had a bowl of delicious cawl in the Glanmor tea room just across the road from the castle, and then drove up the Rhymney valley to Ystrad Mynach, Nelson and Treharris to show Andrea a little of our beautiful valleys environment before turning for home. Waiting on the doormat there was a 'failed delivery' note from the postman who arrived an hour after we left, and presumably couldn't find a neighbour in to leave our replacement modem, delivered punctually as promised by Talk Talk Care. I'll have to collect it from the depot tomorrow, yet another un-necessary car trip because the arrival of the postman is so much later and less predictable than it used to be.


We had a further culinary treat for supper, as Clare cooked us some venison she'd been keeping for a special occasion with an unusual kind of cabbage resembling a large dense leaf of spinach. This went down well with a bottle of Stellenbosch Shiraz.