After leaving Ireland, we spent a few weeks in a lovely small town in Wales. Don’t ask we where exactly, but possibly somewhere near the Brecon Becons, and it probably had a nigh-unpronounceable name. That’s all I got, folks.
It sure was pretty, though.
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There was this cool bench made from old pieces of wood. It was pretty awesome, and I probably would have sat on it if not for the risk of bugs (seriously. I can’t even sit on grass anymore.), and the fact that it had just rained. And no matter how cool the bench is, no one wants to be walking around with damp pants. (I was going to clarify “pants = trousers” for you non-American folks, but then I realized the statement really works either way.)
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Unlike the US, Wales has life preservers prominently placed near every large body of water. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw them throughout the UK. This one had a bird nesting in the warm, protected hollow created by the life preserver’s stand.
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Near the lake was an amphitheater made of earthen bleachers and a large “stage” in the shape of a pig.
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I couldn’t resist taking this picture. A town nearby is apparently called Ysgwyddgwyn. And if anyone who isn’t Welsh can tell me how to pronounce that without looking it up, you get a prize. (Except giving out prizes after discriminating on the basis of Wlesh-ness would be kind of unfair. So you get a cute picture of something Welsh, probably. Posted publicly. Because everyone deserves cute things.)
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I couldn’t let you go without seeing a picture of normal Welsh weather — I mean, you didn’t think all those sunny pictures were normal, did you? They were taken during one of the half-day breaks in the rain! We even had one day with hail, shown here.
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This last set of pictures has a bit of a back story. Well, first off, they’re pictures of pretty clouds. I like clouds. I appreciate them so much more after a year of blank white skies from air pollution in China. But I didn’t realize how much of an effect those blank skies were having on the people around me, who didn’t get to leave them at the end of the year.
I was hosting another team English competition in one of my 10th grade classes last Spring; all of the students were frantically trying to name blue things: blue notebooks, blue pens, blue jackets, and so on. It took a few minutes to get all their answers up on the blackboard and correct grammar. When I was done tallying the points I took a look at all the answers and told the students they’d forgotten one — the sky! It was so obvious to me, I couldn’t imagine why they hadn’t said it. Surely a student at my old high school would have gotten it immediately. Finally, one girl raised her hand and said hesitantly, “but teacher, the sky is white.”
From Melting Pot to Hot Pot 