About Me

South Wales, United Kingdom
Im forty something! Married, mum to two wonderful daughters, both very different, both very special. Im originally from Edinburgh but have spent almost 2/3rds of my life in South Wales now and so am probably as much Welsh (if not more) than Scottish. Until the age of 16 (when I left Edinburgh) I spent a lot of time with Great uncles and aunts in East and West Lothian,but also with family and friends in the centre of the city. So had an equal country and city upbringing. I would spend hours walking in the Pentland hills (with family, friends, alone), hours in the countryside, hours in the dress shops in town with my friends, trying on endless outfits I couldnt afford, hours dreaming that I would marry Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky!!) and definitely hours planning that once I had made it as an actress (which is why Paul would fall madly in love with me) I would learn to fly a plane, hopefully it would help with my developing fear of heights, star in a west end show, have a hit single and buy a ranch somewhere that Paul and I could hear the wolves howling in the distance. Then I had dreams! Read the rest of my story starting at Broken Dreams

Sunday 10 April 2011

Motors, Mistletoe and Malverns

Well what fantastic couple of days! 

My rally experience day finally dawned yesterday!   It was just brilliant! There cant be anything better than being allowed to let a car slide all over the place, at speed, dust and gravel flying up behind you and not a policeman in site LOL!  10 handbreak turns!!And above us there was a small plane, looping the loop and doing various turns, entertaining those of us waiting for our turn as much as watching the other drivers.

Flickr Rallying Pictures

So once again ... Joy ... thank you so much for my 'scream' moment.  Actually it was more of a 'scream if you want to go faster' moment LOL. However, it was very disappointing to get to the hotel restaurant only to find they didnt have any champers ... we had to make do with red wine ...  sigh.

Today was slightly more sedate.  When we opened the curtains of our room the first sight was of a hot air ballon in the distance .. it was early so it obviously held the promise of a good day.  Mid morning we headed for the Malvern Hills.  On the way we drove through Upton upon Severn.  We were delighted to see many of the tall trees covered in Mistletoe! What an amazing sight.  Sadly its quite rare in the UK just now with most of it being bought in from France (like the Sweet Chestnuts).  Probably as a direct result of the removal of many orchards (it likes to grow on apple trees).  I wasnt sure what the trees were that they were growing on in Upton though.  Ash possibly. It was great to see a couple of gliders above us as well.  Nice to see everyone out enjoying the sunshine.

We carried on to Great Malvern (coffee, information centre ... emmmm Fat Face) and then up to the Hills.  We went to Earnslaw Lake (which is actually an old quarry), which was a lovely, relaxed stroll through the trees.  Above us two paragliders twisted and turned, this was definitely the weekend to be up high or in the sky.




We then moved on to the British Camp car park and started our climb to the top.  Its a fairly easy climb but some of the steeper parts, gravel path and steps are a bit heavy on the feet! The view at the top was wonderful and it was definitely worth the climb up.







The drive home was still in brilliant sunshine and so we detoured off the Heads of the Valley road to get a viewpoint to try to get the sun setting.  We didnt quite catch it but got it as it was starting to wind down.

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1 comment:

  1. Bovey Belle11 April 2011 at 08:29

    What a great weekend! Not sure if I'm up for the break-neck rally driving, but sounds like you had fun : )

    I've passed the British camp on the way to Malvern before. We're heading over that way today (friend near Ross-on-Wye then over to Much Marcle/Dymock for churches). Just hoping the sun will break through this morning . . .

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