Vacations in England, Scotland and Wales

In common with millions I enjoy a good TV period costume drama. I don’t know how many versions of “Pride and Prejudice” I’ve seen ( I’ve watched the 2005 film version at least three times – perhaps Keira Knightley in the role of Elizabeth had something to do with that!). ” Do you Dance Mr. Darcy?”….. “Not if I can help it!” My answer to Keira would have been rather different. But then of course I’m no Mr. Darcy

Wales Week USA is an annual event that takes place around March 1 – St. David’s Day. Wales Week is co-ordinated by the Welsh Assembly Government in New York in partnership with a wide variety of organisations, artists, writers and performers in both Wales and the USA. Click on the link to find out what’s on the program of events this year. www.walesweekusa.com

It was a foul day here in Wales when Juliana and I set off to mid Wales to visit one of the hotels that we use on our itineraries – The Lake Vyrnwy hotel in Powys, Mid Wales that has a great location overlooking the lake.

On the way we stopped off for morning coffee at Llangoed Hall, a country House hotel owned by Sir Bernard Ashley, widower of Laura Ashley. It was either that or The Little Chef in Builth Wells. No competition. Sorry Little Chef. There’s no reception desk at Llangoed Hall, so you really do feel that you’re walking into your very (very) rich uncle’s house. We wandered into the drawing room that looked out over the croquet lawn towards the farmland beyond, introduced ourselves to one of the staff, and ordered a coffee. I could have easily spent the rest of the day being waited on hand and foot reading the latest Grisham novel, but Lake Vyrnwy beckoned so off we set.

Norfolk’s unusual landscape is one of the most remarkable in Britain. No mountains and valleys here – it’s wide and open as a result of the ice age Glaciers that covered Britain (as well as over a third of the world) for over 80,000 years until the great meltdown about 10,000years ago. I wonder what caused global warming at that time. Hairy Mammoth flatulence maybe?

As both my daughters now live in London I find myself visiting frequently, generally using the underground to get around. On my last visit however, my eldest who has only just moved there, persuaded me to buy tickets for one of the hop on hop off CitySightseeing buses (that we actually sell here at myguideBritain).

Yesterday was a historic day for Cunard as The QE2, Queen Mary2 and the new Queen Victoria sailed up the Hudson into New York to a firework welcome (see video). Now we’re not a cruise website by any stretch of the imagination, and I’ve never sailed on any of these ships, but it strikes me that this is a mighty fine way of starting one’s vacation in Britain (or perhaps finishing off).

This is by way of a warning when driving on British Roads. We have speed cameras everywhere. I think we’ve got as many speed cameras as rabbits – they seem to be proliferating at the same rate anyway. A debatable number of these yellow boxes are there in the name of road safety. The vast majority however are cash generators for our esteemed government. You have been warned. Even Britain’s top traffic cop, Meredith Hughes fell foul of the cameras recently and was fined and disqualified from driving for 6 weeks for driving at 90mph in a 60 mph area. I shouldn’t gloat as I’m nearly in the same position as Mr. Hughes, being only a couple of minor speeding offences away from a statutory driving ban. I’m not alone however as it’s calculated that there are over 1 million motorists in the same predicament. If you think that the fact that you’re not British and that you’re driving a rental car will protect you …think again.

Christmas has just been and gone, and I had a great time.

Christmas is a very important time of year in the UK, as it is when families all come together, have a roast turkey dinner and exchanges presents.

My family and I have had an adventure this year getting all the Christmas lights, decorations and most importantly the Christmas Tree from out of the attic and putting them on display. There are a wide variety of trees that you can choose from in Britain, white trees, black trees etc. This year we decided to go with the traditional pine green tree, themed with golden tinsel and beads, glittering baubles and reindeer and taking centre piece is the shining star at the top. It looks beautiful, and my 9-month old son cannot take his eyes off it.

As a lot of you know, we recently arrived back from one of our Trips around the UK. We got to see many different places, attractions and were shown around a lot of the hotels that we recommend to you! On our last night our hotel was kept a secret. (I have got to admit I was getting a little worried on the Wednesday as we were told nothing was yet booked for the following evening!) However, by Thursday Morning Darryl could no longer keep the secret quiet. We were given a very nice surprise; our last night stay was to be in the Historic Ruthin Castle in North Wales.

I heard an interesting thing on the radio this morning. It was the Prince of Wales speaking Welsh. Now my first language is Welsh and it’s the language spoken by about half a million of us in Wales, but it was still a surprise to hear Charles speaking it. He was obviously reading it from a script but nonetheless his pronunciation was passable. Apparently, he’s purchased the Llwynywermwd estate located in Myddfai in Camarthenshire and in the short clip I heard, he talked of his love of the area and how much he’s looking forward to coming there to stay. As it happens Myddfai has a prominent place in Welsh folk lore, being associated with the tales of the “Physicians of Myddfai” (“Meddygon Myddfai” in Welsh) and “The Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach” ( Morwyn Llyn y Fan Fach) dating back to the 13^th century that are worth recounting.