Woolly says – With our new lockdown rules in place it appears that we can now have our own official bubble, given that I enjoy blowing bubbles quite a lot I thought that this would entail endless hours of racing up and down the decking catching bubbles, not so. Bubbles apparently involve other humans and in our case the human has to be daughter Zoe, I sighed at this news, back to having two women to control! With her arrival heralding bags, boxes and cake it wasn’t all bad and having taken her on our daily walk to admire the sheep, cows and fishing lakes that we have got to know so well we settled in for an evening of films and chat, I had forgotten how much these two can actually talk!
Although we have video called every day throughout the lockdown Zoe and I never run out of conversation and as my small friend slunk off for the night leaving us to it hoped that a day out for the three of us would improve his health and temper.
Woolly says – With the sky grey and cloudy it was lovely to get into the car and set off to one of my favourite places, the Victorian seaside town of Aberystwyth and one of my previous homes. You might remember dear reader that years ago in February we had bought a place for holiday rentals and although I’m not a fan of returning to places already investigated by yours truly, we did need to head there to make it Covid friendly prior to our first lot of guests arriving. As we sped through the leafy lanes towards the coast it was interesting to observe how much mother nature had grown in the last few months, the rolling hills of Wales were fertile and abundant with sheep and I happily spent the journey informing my companions of every sheep I noticed.
We spent the journey attempting to ignore the cries of ‘Sheep’ from the back of the car until a huge squeak erupted from the small furry one of ‘SEA’ which at least meant our ears would be given a rest.
Woolly says – The large three bedroomed static was still sitting where we had left it and having removed the books, DVD’s and games the women checked that everything else was working before locking the doors and heading to the beach. Clarach Bay is a small bay on the coast of Ceredigion in Wales, to the north of Aberystwyth, where the Afon Clarach flows into the sea. It is home to the two caravan parks and provides a coastal path that runs from Aberystwyth to Borth via Clarach itself. A short walk took us past the onsite bar and entertainment rooms and the indoor pool which will remain closed for the foreseeable future and onto the prom where the heavenly smell of fish and chips drifted out of the onsite shop, the pizzeria was just waking up for the day but sadly for me the children’s amusements were closed so bumper cars were off the agenda currently. Although dull the bay was stunning and I spent a happy few minute playing chase the waves before droplets of water arrived out of the sky and we beat a hasty retreat to the car for the 5 minute drive into Aberystwyth town. If you would like to see more about our holiday rental the link is below.
We found ourselves in a one way system throughout the town with plenty of pedestrian areas to keep everyone safe, having finally navigated up and down the small streets we found a parking space at the rear of the building that we had once inhabited.
Woolly says – Feeling extremely glad that we know longer had to climb the five flights of stairs to our accommodation we wandered along the prom taking in deep lungsful of sea air and listening to the gulls circling above. Having arrived at the bottom of Constitution Hill we turned and headed towards the pier and former workplace for both Jo and Zoe, a strange apparition seemed to have appeared on the outside seating area of the pier itself, as I strained my eyes to see more fully I realised that four large trees had appeared, as we drew closer and closer it just seemed stranger and stranger to have such decoration in a seaside town, where was the giant deck chair that I had once sat upon, scratching my head I did have to wonder at how humans made some decisions.
Another new addition to the resources on the pier was a fish and chip shop and as the smell hit my trunk, I could feel saliva trickling down onto my paws as my tummy let out a huge gurgle. It seemed that the ladies were having exactly the same response and within minutes we were sat in front of huge bags of delicious battered fish and deep brown chips and silence took over our small group as we all tucked in.
Having had to go through the usual cleaning requirements that Jo insists on for me after food I set off into the town itself to see if anything had changed. The town clock stood tall and proud in its usual place at the top of Great Darkgate Street, a clock has stood here since 1858 when the keeper of the clock, Mr Jones, was paid the princely sum of £5 (GBP) a year to wind it. In 1956 the top of the clock tower was declared to be unsafe and the clock tower was taken down, forty years later and the current masterpiece was erected to celebrate the millennium.
The main street had barely changed except for the number of sales advertised in the shop frontages, knowing that Zoe and sales go together like fish and chips I settled myself onto a bench to watch the world go past as the women headed in and out of every shop that they could. Several weeks went past before they seemed to have run out of steam and as a thick drizzle started to arrive from the sky, I led the way back to the car and the safety of shelter from the nasty wet stuff. Good to go back and necessary to ensure that things were right at the holiday village, but I was hopeful that our next trip out might be to somewhere never before discovered by a mammoth!
Check out the link for our holiday letting: https://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/aberystwyth/12679154