Water Water Everywhere and Not a Drop To Drink!

Today is our last day in Singapore and although I said that I had magical weather powers - it seems they were only due to last until yesterday - or perhaps I just boasted one time too many about how fabulous the weather has been on this trip - because today we awoke to black clouds overhead. (I do have some pictures, but photo download is still not happening for me - perhaps a slide show of all missed photos could follow at a later date.) We had planned to sit by the pool all day today and just chillax before the flight tomorrow at the crack! But alas, it was not to be - after breakfast we popped back to our room to put on togs and the sky opened up - that's right, she went monsoonal on our arses!

The second option was to find somewhere to sit and watch the world go by with drink in hand - but at S$20 a pint at the hotel and S$40+ per bottle of wine she was clearly going to be a 'dry' wet day for us.

So - back to the hotel to watch and listen to the rain, read and pack. Tomorrow we'll be sleeping in our own comfy beds, back in sleepy Mandurah where we'll hopefully be able to put a jumper on or at least a long sleeved t-shirt!

I have discovered many things on this trip. My love for Applewood cheese seems to have diminished (which is a huge shame). Sometimes when you laugh, you can wet your pants. It doesn't matter how hungry you are, if you eat your weight in dumplings you will feel sick. The ocean, although sometimes wild and rough, is the most calming and contemplative place to be and finally that I'm quite tolerant (on the outside) of people who make the most obvious, stupid and unnecessary statements in a futile attempt at humour that are not actually funny at all and then laugh raucously at their own joke, loudly and wholeheartedly whilst their whole body wobbles like jelly and they look around for supporters, generally to no avail! It's always good to learn something whilst on a trip.

This may be my last post whilst on this trip, but dear friends fear not, for there are always more stories to tell and more places to experience. Tune in next time when I journey into the unknown of the Amazon with only a pocket knife and my wits....... hang on - that's Bear Grylls. I'll probably be going somewhere a little more civilized and sedate!

Until then, on behalf of myself, my beautiful Mother, Jen and my gorgeous sister, Jodie - thanks for reading, you've been a great audience!

xxx

It aint 'alf 'ot

We have been extraordinarily lucky with the weather throughout this entire trip. Everywhere we went the locals were amazed at how fabulous the weather was and that they hadn't seen such a string of beautiful days in a row before. Without jinxing the last few days of the Tour, I think I can add that Singapore is no different. The first day we were hit like a plank with the humidity, but since then it's been warm and the humidity has lessened a little and it's been quite pleasant! A friendly taxi driver today told us that before we arrived it had been raining quite heavily....... I don't want say that I have magical weather powers or that my Uncle, who has a direct line with the bloke upstairs may have put in a good word, but I'm predicting that we will probably be able to stop the cold, wet and miserable weather Perth has been experiencing of late - if our past destinations are anything to go by.

Requests for magic will be considered - weather related only.

Sleep Champion

Sorry in advance that this post comes with no photo attached - I took one especially for this post, but it doesn't appear to be loading successfully, so I shall describe it to you. The photo is of me standing in the nightshirt that ny lovely nephews bought me for my birthday that says "Sleep Champion" on it and I'm looking pretty pleased with myself. The reason for this photo was to tell you of my achievements in the field of sleep since leaving Europe.

Flight from London to Singapore - 9 hours straight.

First night in Singapore - 10 hours straight

Second night in Singapore - 10 hours straight

It's such a shame that there isn't a paid industry in sleeping because if there were, I would definitely be a world leader in my chosen field. I would be invited to sleep clinics around the world to give talks and demonstrations on the newfound strategies I had found due to many hours of research.

So in hindsight - you might be able to appreciate how the photo of me in a "Sleep Champion" night shirt was so important to this blog.

Mine's Bigger Than Yours!

There is a woman who was on the ship who has stalked us since disembarkation - same tour, same flight to London, same Qantas lounge. She's Australian. From Sydney. And she's extremely ........ what's the word for being patriotic about your own state? "I've been around and we know that Sydney is the best harbour - I mean it's just beautiful." Jen, who only ever 'flies through' Sydney in the RV responds, "Oh Yes, it's is pretty, but we don't stop, we normally drive through, it's a bit busy for us." To which this woman replies.... now, I say 'replies' but what I mean is 'talked over' - "it's the best harbour by far."

Now, I don't want anyone to get me wrong. Having lived in Sydney for a few years and thoroughly enjoyed all it had to offer (I even met 2 of my favourite friends there - you know who you are) I know how pretty it is, however I get a little bit uncomfortable with the "my state is better than your state" conversations. I like Sydney, but my leg isn't going to fall off if I don't care about the harbour's popularity ratings and if I do get on board I feel unnecessarily guilty for being disloyal to WA and then what about the newly adopted state of Victoria? Where do I draw the line? Where do my allegiances lie?

So whilst avoiding this woman in the Qantas lounge a very tall, blonde, quite attractive young man about 20 years old sauntered across the room. It was his height that first caught my eye, 2nd was his cute face, 3rd - his buff arms in the chesty bonds he was wearing. My eyes dart up again and note the very cool over sized headphones laying loosely around his neck. Eyes down again and this is where Jen and I fumbled for a camera of something whilst both simultaneously laughing in horror and looking away but being drawn back o the wrongness - the boy's chesty Bonds singlet was tucked into his boxer shorts (blue check) and the reason we know this is because his jeans were a good 10-15 cms below the waistband of the boxers. You all know the look people. Sure, it's out there, but it doesn't make it right in fact it's, as Jo from Super Nanny says "unasseptable".

Honestly, where has the Qantas lounge prestige gone?

schtarry schtarry night........

This chap was a piano player on the Star Princess and when he sat down to play in the bar where we were sipping our Long Island Iced Teas he appeared bored, despondent and completely uninterested in being there. He told us about how bored he was and then embarked on a number of NOT FUNNY jokes - you know one of those people that chat instead of playing....... just shut up and play! Jen and I discussed moving to another area, and then he started telling a story about lithps and he immediately had our attention. He was a fabulous piano player and when he started playing Vincent (Starry Starry Night) with a lithsp - Long Island Iced Tea nearly came out of my nose whilst I was wetting my pants. It was one of the funniest things that I'd heard in a long time. It's terrible to say, but speech impediments will always be funny!

Lemon Squash? Where's the beer?????

Today was our disembarkation from the Star Princess. It was a little bit sad that we were leaving the only real home we'd known since the end of June and on the other hand we were very happy to be getting on the plane to start the 6th leg of our "Brown Girls Take World By Storm" Tour - Singapore.

We had one last tour with Princess - Highlights of Copenhagen and The Dragor Fishing Village. Now I know I've spoken none too highly of Copes in the past, but today, she did herself proud. We had a fabulous Scottish/Danish tour guide who was interesting and humourous (this is a skill that has lacked in tour guildes throughout our cruise) and she told us some lovely tales for the city and it's people. Then she took us to the Dragor Fishing Village. OMG on the cuteness of this place.

From here - it was to the airport where we would wait our last 5 hours in Copenhagen in what seemed like the hottest airport in the world.

With only a few Danish Kroners in our pocket, and an hour or so before we could check our bags in and get to the lounge - we sampled the local lager - one Carlsberg each, and then we couldn't afford another one, so we had to have a soft drink - Jen was not impressed!

New Year's Eve - in July!

So...... second last night on the ship and they have a big New Year's Even type celebration where they have a count down and then they drop balloons and then there's a dance party and the works.......

Yes - she likes Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain. No, she's not into yoga and she has half a brain...........................

And the countdown begins.......

3....2.....1..... - WOOHOO!

Let's dance!

All I Want For Christmas is a Knitted Jumper From Tallinn

Tallinn is a gorgeous little place on the coast of Estonia in the Baltic and today's tour takes us to the Tallinn "Old Town" which is just lovely. It feels like you are wandering around in the fairytale city of Far Far Away from Shrek.

They have the obligatory tourist trap shops, and they have a lovely market in the town square where you can buy hand made jewellery and linen etc...
and a lot of ye ole worlde charm


A lovely flower market where you can just wander past and take the time to smell what ever takes your fancy.

They also have a "sweater Market" where you can buy all sorts of very fashionable knitwear apparel. I wanted to buy these jumpers for my family for Christmas ala Bridget Jones' Diary - but they were just going to be too big and itchy to put into my suitcase. Alas, my family loses out this time.


We went to Tallinn with a group from the ship and there were quite a few special people in the group. This one (below) insisted on walking in the front of the group and would push his way past everyone to get there. I felt like I was back at school - "we're all going to the same place mate and really you're arms won't fall off if you're not first!" He did have an ingenious idea of where to keep his brolly though. Full marks for that.

And........ I bought a hat from the market! Look out for me on the streets of Melbourne this winter.

A Little More Conversation.......

"I mean, when do I touch my face with my elbow?"

Where's the caviar?

We're first on the bus and we got the good seat just behind the rear door. There's more leg room, you have more of an uninterrupted view and you're close to the exit to get off quickly. We're waiting, waiting, waiting as the old, the infirm and the nearly dead slowly moved through the passport check and to the bus area. Then, when we were all finally on, we were 1 seat short. Our tour guide asked a single passenger to move to another tour group, so that party to get on our bus, a group of 4 could sit together, so we all waited while he got off and the others sat down..... then the tour guide realised that there was no other group and we were all to move to a bigger bus... (oh yeah, it gets better) Here we go again. Jen and were off and on the other bus before anyone else had got off so we got our same seat again and waited waited waited. The average age of the passengers on today's tour was about 65 and that was only brought down by 2 young ladies from upstate New York who were in their 20's.

Our tour guide was Julia, a nice enough girl of Russian origin who couldn't make eye contact with anyone and seemed to be unable to pause between her heavily accented sentences making listening to her speak like having a jackhammer pound into your temples. She was taking us tot he Hermitage Museum, something we, especially Jen, were very excited about. It was a Monday and the HM was closed to the public but they let big tour groups in . Once we'd got in Julia told everyone that if they would like to go off and look by ourselves that it would be fine to do so and to meet her back in the foyer a couple of hours later. We chose to get as far as we could away from her voice and took off in the direction the only sign we could read - "exhibitions". We walked the length of a corridor where all the shops were closed and the doors were locked. On our return we found a man who worked there and we asked him for directions. I love a good charade and he gave it his all in describing through the medium of what seemed to be free movement mime and we headed in that direction. We were met along the way with builders and maintenance men doing renovations, this coupled with everything being closed took a little bit of the lustre away from the experience, but it gets better..... At the end of that corridor we came across an angry Russian speaking woman. She was short in stature, but made her authority known by shouting at us in Russian. The only word I could make out that sounded anything like English was "group" leading me to think that she was wanting us to return to our group - the shooing movements she was doing with her arms also helped me to come to this conclusion. We found our group easily but there were others who had ventured on their own and we then had to stand in the foyer and wait for them to return to the group. We stood and listened to the short, angry Russian lady berate the tour guide for letting people wander around by themselves. So then a very embarrassed Julia needed to count everyone before we could start our tour - again. there we were in the Hermitage Museum, in St Petersburg, standing in the foyer amidst scaffolding with our hands in the air waiting to be counted. Not how we imagined it.

Julia raced us through the exhibits we were allowed to see and talked 100 miles an hour without any use of punctuation about.... what? we don't know. I took my earphones out and just looked around. She had her microphone so close to her mouth that in between single breath monologues, so was a heavy breather - it was too much to bare! We walked through one room where there was to be no photography, but some people didn't see the sign (I'm not the girl in this story by the way), so when the young New Yorkers took a photo another rude Russian speaking lady flew at them in the style of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld shouting what I guess to be "no photo" in Russian.... it was so unbelievable it was starting to be funny - we looked for candid camera cameras.

There were also quite a few would be painters working on some 'originals', so this is all we got to see of some of the works:

The building is amazing. It has the most beautiful wall and ceiling decorations. It's by far the prettiest museum I've been in.

Back to the bus where Julia talked about things she already talked about on the way there, I think, her habit of saying "um" in between EVERY SINGLE WORD made you switch off for your own sanity.

We booked ourselves (very cleverly, or so we thought) on 3 tours in the one day in St Petersburg, wanting to make the most of the time we had there. so we raced back onto the boat and when I say 'raced', I mean lined up in an orderly fashion to have our passports checked and had a quick sandwich and a cake before heading back to the passport control and once more to the bus for Tour No. - A canal and river cruise ....... and guess who was the tour guide? Power up your jackhammers! I decided not to have a headset this time but that didn't stop Jules from grabbing any other microphone she could get her hands on ... on the bus..... on the boat. She wasn't going to let a lovely, sunny, relaxing boat ride get in the way of her monotone, no full stop droning. No sirreee! Remember to breath........ and back to the bus.

This time we only had time to get through the passport control, get changed and get on another bus. Jen had I devised a plan as to what we were going to do if Julia was our tour guide again for this one. We were psyching each other up, "we'll just have to say 'No, I'm not going, there must be another bus." but luckily we didn't need to say anything, we had the lovely Marina, who had a lovely velvety voice, quietly spoken, so even on the microphone you weren't forced to listen to her by fear of your ears bleeding. Tour No. 3 and Marina were taking us to Catherine the Great's Palace to look at her carriages and have dinner. We were meant to get caviar which was the main reason for choosing this tour - all I have to say about the dinner is that the thumb nail of caviar we got was lovely. I will cry if I have to talk about the rest of the food and I'll break down in uncontrollable sobs if I have to describe the wine!

First we were taken to the Royal Carriage Museum where all of the original carriages used by Catherine the Great are kept.

Then to the palace which was beautiful and obviously decorated by a lady. It was a very 'girlie' palace. We were made to wear these special booties whilst walking through the palace which made everybody's "casual elegent" dress look ridiculous.

They went all out with the entertainment. We were marched into the palace by a brass band....

We had a string quartet in the ballroom with champers.....

then some people dressed as Catherine the Great and her hubby came out and pretended we were all loyal subjects.....

then there was some ye olde worlde dancers.....

then out to the courtyard and a horse drawn carriage flew around the grounds.......

then the band let us down to dinner. We came out of the dinner which also included a folkloric band of singers and dancers and got back on the bus at which time Jen turned and said to me, "I've got one thing to say. If I ever say to you that I'd like to go to a themed dinner with folkloric entertainment with a huge group of people I want you to remind me of this night."

Summary:

Hermitage Museum: pretty - but terrible tour and people there were RUDE!

Boat tour: would have been fabulous to just sit in the sun and watch the world go by if Julia had just shut up.

Passport Control: scary ladies with absolutely no humour...... I tried.

Palace: pretty

Entertainment: kitchy

Dinner: Shyte

Wine: undrinkable

Caviar: measly

I think that says it all!

Come Dine With Me.......

We are "Anytime Diners" which means that we can go to any restaurant at any time rather than being allotted a time/table/companions that you have to stick to every night. The Maitre' D always asks you if you are happy to share a table with other people, but this night I didn't want to. We were tired and didn't want to make small talk - so we said we'd prefer a table for 2. There were people behind us and it didn't occur to us until later that us saying 'no' to sharing meant that we didn't want to share with them. There were no tables ready so we had to wait 10 minutes. We went for a walk and came back to find that our table was ready - they had moved a table for 4 apart by about 4 cms effectively making it a longer table for 4 with a hole in the middle and guess who was sitting at the other end? Well, it was all a little awkward. They made jokes about us not wanting to sit with them and now we had to and we made our excuses and there was nervous laughter. Then all four of us were determined to stay with our own conversations even though I could see the lady looking over at us and I know I was looking over at them. I was thinking "just ask them about their salad" or "ask them where they're from" - but finally it was Jen who broke the silence - she obviously couldn't stand the tension in the air either and really it was ridiculous sitting at the same table and not talking! In the end, we were on of the last tables there. They were a lovely couple, let's call them Peter and Diane ('cause that's their names), and we had a lovely evening. maybe we will share next time - could we be so lucky twice?

Travel All Over The Countryside - Ask the Leyland Brotheeeerrrsssss

The day trip today was to Helsinki and then a little steam train ride would take us out to Porvoo - which is oldest town in Finland.

This is the steam train that we caught.

from this station.....

and we got off at Porvoo Station which is the red brick building that you can see behind Jen in this photo. This is where we all piled back on the bus and then the bus drove to where Jen is standing, then we all piled out again and walked over bridge into the old town of Porvoo. It took us longer to walk back to the bus and pile on that it would have to walk to the town from the train station!

Our tour guide spoke English very well, but paused inbetween every couple of words, so it was very frustrating to listen to..... we were sitting directly behind her in the bus and we had to hold each other's hands down to stop us from smacking the back of her head to get those words out. It made it very hard to stay interested in what she was saying..... but really - she was mainly telling us which faculty of the university was based in each building as we passed through Helsinki, so who cares? Then every now and then you would hear a ".......were very often guests of the King." or "...... had to get out of Russia." That's when Jen and I would look at each other and say "Who?" and then have to shrug. Who knows? It was however lovely to get out of the city and see some of the country side.
We were then taken back into Helsinki to the have look at a few of the sites.

I heart Helsinki..... noice one Jen!

A Little Less Conversation...........

* Little Girl to her Grandmother: "We both know its his fault grandma" (spoken in American
drawl accent)

* Agro woman to her boyfriend: "you don't know, you were asleep!"

* Man storming out of the lift with his wife following behind: "It's this way. Just follow me and
don't argue!"

* Her: "So is that what gives you diahrea?"
Him: "yeah"

* Man on the train: "She smells like glue!" (refering out our tour guide)

To be continued.........

Have You Heard About The Vasa?

So far we have heard the story of the Vasa about 5 times. Don't get me wrong, it's a very interesting story - but there has to be something else in Stockholm other than the Vasa!

Let me share the story with you.......

You see - There was this ship - the Vasa that was built by King Gustav II and he was insistent on having an extra floor on the top - to which the builder said "whoa Gus, that will make the ship tip over!". But the King was having none of it and the ship was built to his specifications - they sailed it out amidst huge fanfare and after 28 minutes there was a gust of wind and the boat rolled one way. It righted itself and then rolled the other way. Because of all the whooha going on the cannon portholes were open as they were giving it some canon action on the way out and water started gushing in the portholes, causing the ship to sink right there and then. The Stockholm bay, where it sunk was only 30 metres deep, so when it hit the bottom the top of the masts were sticking out of the water. The King was more than a little embarrassed about this and just cut the masts off and said, "um..... show's over. Nothing to see here" and that was that. 300 years later, they rose her from her 30 metre, watery grave and built a museum around her. They were very lucky because of the water in which the Vasa sank was a special type of briney water that doesn't have wood eating worms - so the wood on the ship was preserved rather than eaten by worms! Hence, she's a museum now that has the masts sticking out of the roof so you can see how tall she was......and apparently that's all that Stockholm has to talk about! Great story hey?

This chap was in the next tour bus to ours - when in Sweden........

The Star Princess

The Star Princess is fabulous! I feel like I'm on the Love Boat! There's a Lido Deck and a Promenade Deck and an Aloha Deck - just like on the Love Boat! And we've even had a personal invitation from the Maitre' D at one of the restaurants with a complimentary bottle of wine from the Captain (Thanks Julia and David x).

We sat on our balcony as we sailed in to the sunset

A fabulous view from the balcony

The people we've met so far on the boat (and when I say 'met', I mean stared at as they walked past or sat next too us) haven't been people that we have really wanted to stay in contact with. We have had the "one armed diners" who we guess were mature honeymooners as they sat on top of each other and only used one arm each to eat.... he had one arm around her shoulder and used his fork with his right hand; she was uncomfortably snugged into his armpit and used her fork with her left hand. We have spotted them around the ship and they have been joined at the hip each time. We have also come across another couple - we're not sure what their story is, but she has, as Jen describes, an ugly mouth. She is quite aggressive and doesn't appear to be happy with anything. He looks desperately like he's trying to appease her bad mood - then we realised that they were in the cabin below us.... we look forward to those fireworks!

Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen

Whoever wrote the lyrics to that song obviously didn't stay at the Centrum Hotel! Let me explain..........

It was too easy. The car ride to Heathrow from Wales. Dropping Jodie off at Terminal 3, then dropping the hire car back and getting the shuttle to terminal 5. Arriving with 2 mintues to wait until our flight was open to check in. There were no lines at the check in. A great flight. A taxi right outside the airport. A lovely cab driver. It was all going too smoothly - then we arrived at the hotel. The taxi driver asked if we were happy. "As Larry" I replied. He said, "Ok, if you're happy, then I'm happy". It wasn't until we entered the hotel that I realised what he was probably talking about.

We had arrived at 7.30pm, we booked in and went up to our room on the 3rd floor. I say "room", but it was more like a wardrobe with a long single bed down one side and a bedhead slotted in the middle to break it up into two beds.

I looked out the window and across the road was a non stop sex show and topless bar. Jen looked and added...... and I think those girls are prostitutes!

After much deliberating and looking at each other, both wanting to go somewhere else, but both knowing that it would be too hard, we decided to just go out, get some food and get back before it got dark, which luckily wasn't until quite late. I knew where the Hard Rock Cafe was and it seemed like a safe enought place to go as far as knowing where it was and having an idea of what we would get to eat there. Jen suggested we get hammered!

The bar was noisy, we couldn't hear each other and the place seemed full of grosse English blokes pawing over the waitress. Eat up Jen - let's get the hell out of here! 10.10pm - still light.

We got home, pursing our lips at the groseness. Jen checked things out on the street and said,"oh, I can see someone watching TV over there..." then after watching for a few more seconds added...."um, I think it's porn". Luckily it had double glazed windows. Pity the room had no air. You can't have both I guess. We tucked up and popped the telly on - scrunched on one bed - the only place you could see the TV and then we realised that we were watching he same show as the people across the road! Not porn as it turns out, although taht seemed very plausible at the time!

The bathroom: You opened the door and stepped into the shower. The toilet was an after thought as was the massive, circular shower curtain that went around the entire room.... except for the toilet. The shower hose was twinned with the sink taps where you turned it on. After the shower you pulled back the curtain and stepped back into the living/bedroom area.

During the night, we both felt hot and had to open the window, but it turns out, we found out in the morning, that the radiator had been on the whole time. Funnily enough it was the best night's sleep I'd had since leaving home!

Now what do to in Copenhagen when you've only got a few hours, don't know where you are going and aren't fussed on walking too far? Hop on - Hop off Bus! Now the city isn't very pretty, but we did see where Mary lives in the winter and there was one street where Hans Christian Anderson used to live which has lovely, old, pastel coloured buildings along a canal where we hopped off for a pint and a stare at people.........

....... until a scatting jazz band set up right next to us and a woman lit up her cigar at the next table - honestly!!!!!

Next job - back to the hotel to pick up the bags (one things I must say is that the hotel staff [all 3 I spoke to] were perhaps the friendliest, most helpful people I've ever dealt with!) adn then to the ship.

There are 2,600 people on board the Star Princess and so Jen and I have decided that we get a point when we see the same person twice - so far the score is Jen: 3 Shell: 2. We're wondering if we can go the whole 10 days without making small talk to a single person. Will let you know how we go.

Goodbye Doesn't Mean This Has To Be The End......

Today we say goodbye to the loveliest sister anybody has ever known. She's better than Jan, Marcia and Cindy Brady put altogether. Way more supportive than Kylie is to Dannii. She will let me know when I look ridiculous - unlike those Olsen twins who seem to encourage each other to look stupid and she's also musical like the nolan sisters - but there's only of her. The Nolans needed 4 people to get their 'sound'.

So here is a little montage of pics from our tour of my lovely sister - Jodie

Sipping the necessary double espresso

Pant wetting laughter with our gorgeous Jen

It's a girls' night out, and honey there ain't no doubt, we're gonna dance every dance until the band goes home. We'll it's our night to rock, no watching that o'clock. Oh, ain't not doubt, Lordy it's a girls' night out! - "Girls' Night Out" by The Judds

My pretty sister


My comical sister, about to eat her breakfast with the baby cutlery she'd been given

See you in 3 more weeks Girlie Robbins.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Have you ever wondered why the crime rate in Sandford is so low, yet the accident rate is so high?" Sargeant Angel, Hot Fuzz

We arrived at Hay on Wye late in the afternoon. People were going about their everyday business as usual. Nothing seemed out of sorts. Our B&B was cozy and very central, positioned just across the road from the town square where the clock tower chimed on the hour and then again every 15 minutes..... all through the day and night! Our hosts were very accommodating, which led us into a somewhat false sense of normality in the town.

The following day we ventured into the village to peruse the 30 bookshops. Each shop we entered made us more aware that the locals here in the village were a little....... different.

Do we detect a little bit of snobbery in some of the high fallutin bookshops?


Is there a secret society here amongst the literary villagers that the mere visitor is not privy to?


At least at the end of each long day of wandering and wondering we were able to return to our lovely B&B which included one of the most fabulous gardens we've ever seen. This is where 5sies were spent sipping a glass of wine before dinner at the local pub.

This is the last stop in Wales.......... tomorrow is goodbye to Jodie and Hello to Copenhagen and the Baltic Sea.