First of all I must apologise for spelling Iechyd da completely wrong. Apparently it means ‘cheers’ in Welsh, so I might have used it as a goodbye...but cheers is also a good way to sign off a blog post.
As you can see we are still in England. We started our journey at 6.30am to avoid Bank Holiday traffic and we succeeded. The biggest part of the journey was on the A14 to get to the M6, it’s a bloody long road from the east coast even though it has been improved over recent years. We did dip our toes into Wales in Monmouth....we actually called into the Lidl there before we crossed the border again to find our small ‘certified location’ (CL) for the Caravan Club. I’ve explained before that these are small sites of up to 5 caravans or motorhomes. They can be very different and we prefer them because of the variety and they are often off the beaten track. This one certainly is. Actually we had booked a Caravan Club proper site for this weekend on the Gower Peninsular but we were called last weekend to say that they were flooded and were cancelling our booking. I had to phone around many CL’s before I found this one that could fit us in. This one is not full because it doesn’t have electric hook ups and most people won’t go anywhere without electricity nowadays. We can manage quite nicely without power so we aren’t too bothered and it is half the price to stay overnight. We have actually booked for three nights and as it happens we are the only van staying. The field looked rather wet but we are parked on a large gravel area so there is no risk of getting bogged down. The weather has been pretty bad in Wales through August apparently, according to the owner, so my theory is that September will be good.
We haven’t done much since our arrival. An obligatory afternoon snooze after the early start was in order and a little walk into the village. We were impressed by the church which was open to visitors. Many churches have been closed except for fixed times and services. The church is titled the Cathedral of the Forest.
Due to the family connection to the area we were scouring the grave stones for the names of any Vernons. Nothing so far but most of the gravestones were too worn to read anyway. It seems a bit of a sad old person thing to be doing but that’s where we seem to be at now. A further update from the family genealogist, brother David, indicates that my Grandfather’s Welshness was either due to his parents getting lost on a particularly dark night or going to Wales to do Missionary work amongst the heathens! Following the revelation that Thomas Vernon was a Yeoman I looked up what that meant. It was an assistant to nobility, hence Yeoman of the Guard or of the Chamber but later it became a name given to a person who owned a piece of land worth over 40 shillings (£2 in decimal money). I suspect that Thomas was an owner of a small piece of land that he farmed and Janice has been laughing at the image of a man in a smock, chewing a piece of grass saying “ooh arrrgh’. I think she is being disrespectful to the Vernon family name. Disgraceful, she obviously thinks that the Vernon boys all behave the same!
The forecast is dry for the next couple of days so we hope to get some walking done, into Coleford and the Forest beyond. We are enjoying the countryside from what we have seen so far. Lots of woodland with a few open fields and proper hills and valleys. We have managed our obligatory Friday gin and tonic x2 and made a lovely pasta, pesto and prawn meal, accompanied by plenty of pepper, paprika and Parmesan. We could have a theme of eating alliterative meals on the trip. We do like to have a food theme but I think that could be rather limiting. We have bought a crumbly Caerphilly cheese, which made us ponder whether the Welsh only had mild cheese and also whether the strength of cheese of a country could affect their history. The analogy is that the French have strong cheeses (Roquefort etc) and they managed to conquer England and the English have some strong cheeses (eg Stilton) and we conquered the Welsh, who only had a mild crumbly Caerphilly to respond with? Anyway, we will keep our eyes open for decent Welsh cheeses and will certainly try a Welsh Rarebit if I can get my hands on one (I thought it was a word for a Welsh floozy).
That’s enough for now.
Iechyd da!
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