Lazy Bones – 6 August 2011

Saturday morning I was woken up by a soft knocking on my door and Susan calling, “Tom would like to leave in twenty minutes if you are coming.” Grumpy and with bleary eyes I looked at the clock and realized it was 11:00.  I felt cheated of my sleep because of Tom's robot nature and nettled that I had been woken up but I knew I couldn't stay behind. I haphazardly threw on clothes, shoes and slung my hair up into a lopsided ponytail. Then, whilst stamping down the stairs, I realized how ridiculous I was being. It was stinking 11 o'clock. That meant I had got nine hours of sleep and really I didn't have to go out if I didn't want to. That cheered me up quickly and I headed out with Tom and Susan with a good attitude. Neoma and Hannah had opted to stay in bed.

What started off as a bad day turned into a really good one. We first visited a lesser known castle called Castle  Dryslwyn. It was under a bit of restorative construction so some scaffolding got in the way but most of it was still accessible but covered with sheep dung. It was unavoidable so we just carried on and tromped all over the turd-covered castle. I liked this Dryslwyn because it had a unique history. It was built originally by the Welsh princes instead of by a conquering army. 

We then drove through the Brecon Beacons again to Talley Abbey or Talyllychau in Welsh. This was reminiscent of Tintern but on a much smaller scale. I preferred to wander through the graveyard next to the abbey and read the tombstone names and inscriptions written in Welsh.  

Then we were off to the town of Brecon to see the abbey and castle there. This is a fully working abbey and it was a very pretty building. The castle ended up being nothing more than a few remaining walls that a hotel had been built into. It did have some nice arrow slits for enfilading arrow fire. Enfilading means the arrows move perpendicular to the castles walls. This newly acquired knowledge is thanks to Tom Taylor – the robot spouter of random information that I can't help but soak up.

We also tried to find ruins of an old roman fort called Gair Brecon. We walked all over someones private fields only to turn back and discover that they had been under our noses the entire time. And we were disappointed again to find out that all that was left was a wall. That's it. We searched for over half an hour for a wall. Needless to say we would not be adding that to the list of favorites. But it was a good, funny way to end our day of adventuring.

Overall, there were two things that made Saturday wonderful. The first was that I had the entire back seat to myself. After sitting hip-to-hip for a week and a half you really appreciate personal space. The second was spending time with Tom and Susan. They are both very funny, very smart people and we had some good laughs over beets for breakfast (Tom), jumping off walls and landing onto your bum instead of your feet (me), and great stories about growing up next to a Navajo reservation (Susan).  It was a nice day and not to jam packed with things to do, which was a much needed break. After all the adventures I had been on I was tired.