Mid July this year brought us glorious weather – a veritable heatwave and as the clock ticked down to the final days of term, we eagerly anticipated more of the same as we set off towards West Wales. A last minute dilemma over some leftover plums led to some swift jam-making. A last minute question over whether we should cave into demands from our youngest for an extra blanket led to a happy child. And we were in the car. 24 degrees and sunny. We’d arranged to meet grandparents at the Brecon Beacons reserve centre to travel onwards with them as there was a decent play area there. However the rain meant that our picnic was conducted inside and we couldn’t even see Pen y Fan through the mist. 18 degrees and drizzly.

Picnic consumed, we weren’t even back on the main road when there was a cry of “I’m hungry” from the back of the car. Only 3 hours to go! We queued through Builth Wells due to the Royal Welsh Show, then were flattered by the crowds lining the streets in Rhayader to celebrate our return – we hadn’t realised our previous trip there had made such an impact. Oh… it was the Rhayader carnival they were celebrating. At Llanidloes we chose to take the “mountain route” – a slight risk in an 18 year old car with a clutch on the way out, but at least it was fun driving! Our youngest however wasn’t convinced that the undulating landscape met the threshold to be classed as mountains, leading to a discussion on the relative properties of hills and mountains. Fortunately the mountains became more “mountainy” (i.e pointier!) leading to a declaration from the back that we were travelling “from hills to mountains”.

By the time we arrived in Barmouth, it was 16 degrees and torrential rain, but the posh holiday cottage was weathertight, had a little reading nook up a ladder for the kids and once everyone had some lasagne inside them (accompanied with home-grown-by-grandparents roast beetroot, steamed beetroot leaves and purple mange tout), the weather didn’t matter. The kids settled down for the night whilst some of the grown ups crawled around the floor over maps trying to find Yr Wyddfa. Believe it or not we cracked the wine open after this activity, then settled down to play Nmbr9 until way past bedtime.

Plum jam was the fuel for the following day. Shortly after breakfast the kids’ tablet had a run-in with the slate floor, which the slate floor won unsurprisingly and then we gathered for a quick plan. Given the weather forecast was fairly good, we chose to walk up and over the hill that rises above Barmouth. As we left the town, one of the grown ups remarked “we’ve got a climb on our hands” to which a rather bewildered child repeated “on our hands?”. Fortunately feet sufficed and as we broke out of the ancient woodland onto the moorland at the top, there were stunning views… but probably not quite as stunning as those seen by the paraglider above us. We pressed on, greeting the sheep we met with a “bora baa”, until we hit the wall. Not literally… but that moment in a walk where you just need to press on through. Turns out that Haribo can break through walls, although we chose not to push our luck with little legs and extend the walk to the panoramic viewpoint.

Instead we descended into the town to an icecream shop that provided our little ones with a unicorn flavoured icecream and a chocolate brownie flavoured icecream. Kiri meanwhile fancied chips, so after a wander along the sea front we found a place to park ourselves. The kids tucked into their sandwiches (yes, they’d had pudding first – in our defence it was national icecream day!) whilst I queued for chips.

Suddenly there was an almighty commotion behind me; tears, squawks and cries of injustice. A gull had swooped down and taken a bite out of the sandwich of our youngest, leaving a perfect beak-shaped hole. Whilst the grandparents dealt with the initial attack, our eldest was left defenceless for the second barrage, where another gull (or maybe it was the same one?) swiped the whole sandwich! On my return, I therefore stood guard over the remains of lunch and the newly-purchased chips, poised with a walking pole, ready to take on any further winged marauders.

A short meander took us back to the bungalow where we planned our menu for the rest of the week, then headed out to Co-op to buy said items. Funny how a bara brith just “fell” into the basket! As we prepared a familiar dinner of sausagey tomato pasta, the kids made friends with some horses in the paddock next tdoor who popped their heads over the fence to say hello. Our youngest then made friends with the slate floor, when there was a minor miscalculation of the length of the bench at the end of dinner. Once we’d taken all of the responsible precautions, we decided to test out whether bara brith is suitable medication for a bumped head. Turns out it is! Once the kids were in bed, Canasta was the game of choice as the light faded – a very close game!

The following morning as we watched a rabbit from the breakfast table (or was it watching us…?) we sought to formulate a plan for activities for the rest of the week, so everyone documented their top 5 desires and we tried to shoehorn them into the remaining time (based mainly on the weather forecast). Kiri started a sentence with “Can we say that on Wednesday we’ll prenim… prelinary… prelinimary…?”. Turns out no, we couldn’t say “preliminarily”, so whilst the grandparents took their car off to the nearest charging point, the rest of us togged up for the panoramic walk we’d chosen not to pursue the previous day. There was a specific request from our youngest that we “bring the pogo stick” on the walk… but given we only had a walking pole, there was no bounding up the path. There wasn’t much of a panorama, but there was plenty of mist. A shame we missed the view.

We had originally planned to climb Yr Wyddfa on this holiday, but decided it would be a bit too much for the kids to do both ways, and the logistics of the train wouldn’t work, so our compromise was that we’d at least go and have a look at it. On the way, we stopped in Beddgelert for a wander. The car park would only accept coins or an app payment… we had neither (and no phone signal to download the app), but kindly were lent £3.30. Turns out the car park wouldn’t even accept coins, so we left a note in the car window and treasured the extra icrecream money. Turns out the award-winning icecream was declared as “better than unicorn flavoured”, even if it was accompanied by the grisly tale of the hound of Llewellyn. Full of icecream once more, we spent some time in an incredible woodcraft shop before a short onward drive to see Yr Wyddfa… which was once again foiled by mist!

Our journey back to the cottage took us via Porthmadog where we stocked up on the essentials (petrol, pizza, bucket and spade) before a kids tea of pizza and later a grown up tea of risotto. The evening’s game of canasta was once again close – a forced negative hand immediately forced back by another negative hand!

And then we reached the beach day of the holiday… it’s a shame that it was cloudy as we headed onto the sandy expanse though. We set up camp next to the dunes… and the sun came out… and stayed out! Four of the six of us ventured fully into the sea, whereas paddling was sufficiently cold enough for me…but in my defence three of them had wetsuits! Once we’d had enough of the water, the wetsuits were hung across the dune grasses to dry and work began on sand castles. Kiri focused on building a masterpiece of a city. I focused on digging a hole.

Prior to the holiday I’d had a conversation with one of my colleagues who talked about a tradition in their family of taking garden spades with them whenever they visited a beach. They would then dig a huge hole, creating a large mound of sand next to it. Garden spade I had not. But with a small spade I nevertheless got stuck into digging. I was asked why… and my immediate answer was “because I’m here and I have a spade”, but as I dug, my mind was alight with ponderings. Why indeed? Was it that there is a deep desire to construct? Was it that there is always a need to know what lies beneath? A need to escape? Do I have a need to be productive and “do” rather than just “be”? The hole was getting almost as deep as the ponderings and I was still in decent sand. Folk wandering past started complementing me, to which the only response I could think of was “thank you – I dug it myself”. But I couldn’t dig forever – Kiri’s sandcastle was complete (and even beginning to erode as the sand dried) and the children were restless, so I climbed out of my hole and rejoined reality.

The kids headed off for donkey rides and trampolines as Kiri and I struck camp, before we were drawn once again by the lure of icecreams. All armed with icecreams, my father-in-law asked “can we talk butchers?”, which was misheard by me as “can we talk cwtches?” and by our eldest as “can we talk witches?”. One of my desires was for some Welsh venison (I’ve been spoilt recently by Kiri coming home from her work in the woods with the tasty products of pest control) but in that moment I had to lay aside that desire as we wouldn’t be able to meat it. It was a wise choice of timing to broach the subject whilst in a icrecream related sugary-stupor!

We headed back to base for showers, whilst Kiri applied for a government grant to cover a woodland management course. Mermaid Fish and Chips had come highly recommended, so my Father in law went off to forage, sending news from afar of very long queues. I’ll admit the chips were really good… but apparently the fish was just “OK”. After a sunny day, the sunset was stunning, especially with the friendly horses posing for the picture. We compared the photos taken on our 13 year old DSLR with those taken on an iPhone; it’s just incredible what computing power can do to enhance an image these days!

In the early part of the evening Kiri finished the spoken word part of the song she started at the beginning of the holiday (inspired by the phrase “from hills to mountains”) whilst I finished the first of my novels. Reading that is… not writing! A foolish canasta play then took us further behind on the previous days’ endeavours, but we managed to recoup some of our loss before bedtime called.

It’s a good thing that we hadn’t preliminarificated the Wednesday, as it originally was going to be the sunny day of the holiday and we woke up to rain. We dug out the previously documented desires and realised that many of them had been satisfied, so we turned to the remainder to work out which might work with rain. As the fairground didn’t open until 1030, we started with a trip to a cafe where despite it only being a short time since breakfast, our youngest devoured a huge chocolate brownie and our oldest chose a 4 finger KitKat. I can hardly bring myself to admit this, but the KitKat was nearly consumed by just biting into, rather than splitting into individual fingers.

Anyhow, parenting failures put to one side, we were some of the first on the fairground when it opened; the kids went on the bungee trampolines, then we joined them on the clatterpillar coaster (it was a caterpillar that clattered as it climbed the first uphill) and dodgems. There was a big sign next to the dodgems saying “Not suitable for those with bad backs or expectant Mothers”… and I have to provide another admission – it wasn’t until after I’d been on the dodgems that I dropped a message to my Mum to check if she was expectant. Turns out she wasn’t, so I was safe. On our dodgem car there was a little red light on the steering wheel which flashed and went out when pressed. I couldn’t work out what it was… turbo? Drift? My Father in law later suggested it was probably the oil light. It’s always the oil.

We’d had enough of the rain by now, so we headed off to Corris Caverns where we met Kiri’s brother. The strapline of the caverns is “Dragons, Caverns, Crafts & Gin”, so I was half expecting a shot of gin before each of the other activities, but settled instead for a very tasty rarebit lunch (although had food envy of the lamb cawl that looked incredible). We killed a little time in a wood shop getting inspiration for future woodland craft, before it was time to descend into the underworld. We all donned hard hats as we entered the 8 degree (temperature that is, not incline) tunnels for tales of Arthur in an old mine. An underground boat ride through a waterfall took us to a world of narrow and low tunnels that suddenly opened out into caverns with tableaus and light and sound shows. Between each cavern there was a soundtrack of *thwock* *giggle* constantly repeated as folk bumped their hard hats on the tunnel ceiling. Not so much of a problem for me!

We all enjoyed it although it was pleasant to come back out into the warm air outside, even if it was still raining. We all headed back to the bungalow where we got the kids some tea whilst we mused on the correct way to order a curry – to share or not to share? Who knew it would be so controversial?! Once the curry had been collected and we were eating (mainly sharing!), the next controversial topic of conversation was about reheating rice. Lengthy discussions were had. I’m not sure that minds were changed. I’ll just say that we are all still here and no-one got unwell!

The next morning was equally wet, so called for a lazy morning. I finished my second novel and ended up falling asleep midway through my third. I think I missed the planning for the activity, but I could see the logic in it. As it was already raining, why not go to the wettest place in Wales – Blaenau Ffestiniog?! A picnic lunch had been made to take with us, but most were hungry before we even got in the cars, so much of it was consumed before leaving the bungalow.

Our destination was Zipworld… not to go down a huge zipline (we’ll save that for when the kids can properly appreciate it) but instead to have a game of underground golf. At the end of the safety briefing, we were asked if there were any questions and it was only right to ask whether we were about to play crazy golf or adventure golf? However our safety guide should have been a politician as I was fobbed off with some line about it being a crazy adventure. Maybe. It certainly was fun – we descended in a funicular mine train then came out into a vast cavern with golf holes across several levels, littered with mine-related obstacles (so clearly adventure golf rather than crazy golf). I’ve never worn a helmet when playing golf before (although there have been times with Kiri that I wish I had been!) and I’ve definitely never gone down a large slide to get from one hole to the next! I hope the kids don’t think that all golf courses are like this one. The game ended with a very respectable tie between Kiri and I, just pipped to the win by Kiri’s Dad with one shot less than us. The only way to celebrate…? Icecream! By now you might have guessed what one of the original listed desires was!

Kiri’s brother is a magician with food; I remember very little about that evening apart from incredible flavours of Greece that he conjured up from nowhere – lamb, tabbouleh, tzatziki, wraps… it seemed a shame to let him go home the following day! But that following day our sole focus was the mountain we wished to climb.

By this stage in the holiday, the definition of a mountain had gained clarity in the mind of our youngest and technically as there was no cloud cover, Cadair Idris was not a mountain. We chose not to argue and instead save our energy for the climb; contactless payment wasn’t working in the car park at the bottom and we only had enough change for 4 hours of parking… so we’d better get moving! After a steep climb through the woods, we came out onto the moorland for a gentler incline. We pondered on whether there’s a Welsh equivalent of Kendal mint cake to give energy when climbing the mountains of Wales. Maybe the thin air gave us clarity of thought (clouded our perceptions?), but we decided then and there to patent the concept of hazel-smoked Welsh sheep jerky. Folks, you heard it here first!

Our musings were interrupted by a young child who needed the loo… we’ll leave the details to the reader’s imagination, but maybe the rocks that we placed to cover the evidence (don’t worry, we burned off the loo roll) will be misinterpreted as a cairn, and future generations will wonder why there’s a pile of rocks so far off the track. Anyway, we made it to the “Clean Cow” glacial lake (yes, we know it’s actually called Llyn Cau… but it sounds like clean cow!) which we had decided would be the highest we’d climb with kids of this age (the route we took was listed as hard / strenuous… but I reckon that’s probably the upper parts that we didn’t get to! https://snowdonia.gov.wales/walk/minffordd-path/). It had only taken one Haribo of encouragement to get there, so we settled down for a picnic lunch, rounded off with buttered bara brith and the rest of my family going for a paddle in a very cold lake!

As we started our descent, we spotted wild blueberries which made for a tasty bonus dessert once we were sure we weren’t going to be eating something poisonous. Purely by chance (ahem) a Haribo was required at exactly the same spot on the way down as on the way up… but we made it down only 15 minutes late to the car park.

Dongellau called us, firstly for Kiri’s parents’ car to be charged, but more importantly so that the final icecream of the holiday could be consumed. As we wandered around this pretty little village we were drawn to the windows of estate agents – a 4 bed cottage with 2 acres of woodland for £260k? Oooh, that’s a bit tempting… but probably a bit too far away. Instead we spent our money on ingredients for a carbonara dinner before tucking the kids into bed and watching a very rainy Olympics opening ceremony on the Seine. See, it’s not just Wales that’s wet!

We tried to carry the spirit of the Olympics with us as we drove home the following morning… we were certainly urging our car to go faster as we went higher and the clutch smelled worse and worse. And we were hoping that the stomach of our oldest would be stronger when there was an announcement of “I feel sick” within a few minutes of getting in the car. However “The Dragon Game” was a good distraction – the left side of the car battling against the right side to see which would pass the most dragons. Early on we had to clarify the rules with regards to Welsh flag bunting… which we agreed would count as one dragon. We were neck and neck as we crossed the border back into England; would it be a draw? As we stopped in Craven Arms for the loo and a bite to eat (a scone with jam and… BUTTER? Where’s the cream? Shocking!), the right side of the car went one ahead. And all the way from there back to Gloucestershire, from mountains, to hills, to flood plains, we didn’t see another single dragon… until we spotted one on the left side of the car on our very road.

Our kids obviously had caught the competitive bug, as it was announced on our arrival home that we all had to sign up for the “family Olympics”:

Following a quick scan of the events, I chose eating and stretching. Ah, that’s my kind of competition!