It was a full on week, with the promise of an escape at the end of it. Escape to one of my favourite places that is, Hay on Wye, Town of Books. Tricia was busy with orders, and I was full on with work. Tricia did escape on Wednesday evening to go to a pub quiz with the girlies. I was out on Wednesday morning for a school appeal in Kidlington… which we lost for some reason. Thursday evening I was late at work, doing an interview. Then came Friday morning… I was cruising to 2pm, when I told Tricia we could set off. I was all packed and ready to go. And then got told about an issue at work. It took some time to wriggle free of it and pass over to my boss, so it was 3:30pm by the time we left.

Bank Holiday traffic built up, and so we didn’t arrive at the B&B (Elmsleigh) till 7pm. A cup of tea and a piece of cake from the host Sharon, and we head for Hay and the Blue Boar for an evening meal, and a bottle of wine.

Saturday morning after a lovely breakfast we headed for Pan y fan, which is the highest peak in South Wales… eek. The idea was to walk up. When we got near the top, Tricia decided she wanted to walk out along the ridge to the right – windy pass – we spoke to a couple who told us we could do a loop of about 10 miles. Once Tricia heard this we weren’t going to be doing anything else! The walk took close to 5 hours, and the climbs at the end up Pen y Fan (and Corn Du) were hard work, but the views were breathtaking, and the weather was good to us. Back at the bottom we had hot drinks and welsh cakes. After showers back at the B&B we went into town and struggled to find anywhere we could eat, so it ended up being fish and chips and a park bench – not that this was an issue as it was a pleasant evening. We thyen sat and watched an odd film called Hi Rise, at the cinema – a lovely little place that sat about 50 in lovely leather chairs.

Sunday morning, again a good breakfast, and then a walk – and for me a stretch of aching legs, which were stiff from the climbs the previous day – around the edge of Hay. It then started to rain, and so we went for a tea / coffee, before spending a small fortune in Rohan. I then took off for the book shops whilst Tricia mooched around. We had lunch at Booth’s, and then I went back to the books, whilst Tricia went for a walk. I met her back at the B&B, and it was a quick change before heading back to Hay, the Blue Boar, a meal and a bottle of wine :-). I didn’t get as much book shop time as I normally would, but it was productive and I was pleased with my haul.

On Monday… again a lovely breakfast… then packing and leaving, and heading back to the Brecons for a walk to see 4 waterfalls. It was wet. Very. But we parked up. and put our waterproof gear on and set off. Good practice for the Pennines ? We walked for about 4 hours and it was quite strenuous walk, up and down, and across some uneven paths, but we did it. And when we finished… the sun shone!! The waterfalls were certainly worth viewing – one in particular where you could get behind the wall of water, see the pic below. Oh well. I drove home, and for a Bank Holiday Monday we had a good drive, didn’t get held up anywhere and had Steve Wright in the afternoon giving us rock oldies all the way back. We stopped for tea / coffee in Witney, and a stretch of my stiff legs. Then it was home just after 6:30…. and unpacking. A lovely weekend. Ellie had made us a cake, and kept the house in good order.