Margate to Angelsey

Pat's cousin, June, will celebrate her 80th birthday this weekend and Pat was keen to see her at some point in the year.  As it happened, we have managed a visit on the day before her birthday.  June lives on Bodafon, the highest point on Anglesey and so it is not the easiest place to get to.  Fortunately, both her sons will be with her this weekend, and so we will be able to see all the family.

We left Margate at lunchtime after spending a couple of hours with Ernie. With a lot of rail track maintenance taking place over the bank holiday weekend and threats of rail strikes, we had been worrying about the journey, but in terms of time keeping, all has gone well. The journey takes us from Margate to London, London to Crewe and then from Crewe to Bangor.  A taxi was booked to collect us at Bangor Station and take us to our B&B. 

The train journey from London to Crewe was chaotic. We had seats booked, but there was no way of identifying which carriage was which.  Eventually, the system was rebooted and, having seen that there was no one booked into the seats that we were in and that we were getting off at the first stop, we stayed put!  According to announcements, the credit card reader was playing up and the wifi and various other things, were not working, but fortunately, we had a train manager with a sense of humour who just apologised for all the problems and wished those staying on luck with the rest of the journey before handing over!

Looking out of the window, the hawthorne trees have been absolutely magnificent; they are loaded with blossom from Margate to Crewe. 

All went well for the rest of the journey and we sailed along the north coast of Wales through seaside resorts whose names we remembered from our early childhood. 

Our taxi was waiting to take us to our accommodation, Llwydiarth Fawr, which was very comfortable and busy. 

The breakfast room and enormous Welsh dresser

View from the terrace

Fortunately, we were within walking distance of a village which had a pub. Our taxi driver couldn't recommend it, but it was all we had available. There was a disco going and a rather disgruntled group leaving as we arrived.  The beer was just about OK and they didn't mind us eating the sandwiches that we had brought from Euston as emergency supplies.

June's immediate family were all staying with her: son Mike and daughter in law, Lisa and son Nick and daughter in law Eleanor.  Lisa and Nick came to get us from the B&B and take us to June's house on Bodafon. 

This is June's house

And June's dog, Tomas

Lisa and Mike now have their own dog, Dylan, who is the son of Tomas but more like his mother a Labrador 

John was in charge of recording the moment: Mike, Lisa, June, Nick, Eleanor, Pat, John. 

Views from the cottage

We went with Mike to take the dogs for a walk up to the top of the mountain. 

When we got back to the cottage, more nieces and nephews had arrived and so there was a photo call for the Davies side. 

Lisa returned us to the B&B and we took the opportunity to take a short rest before walking to the village to find a sandwich and bottle of wine. 

We are now on the train to Manchester for a visit to another cousin. 

A few days in Margate

We are now in Margate, staying in the flat we used on our last visit to see Helen, Nick and Ernie. 

On our first day, we set off with Ernie for a wander around. We needed to call in at the train station to pick up tickets that we had ordered.  Naturally, we had to look at the trains, run around d the lifts and stop for a cup of tea and an ice cream for Ernie. Whenever a train passed through the station, we had to race out to see it, often with Ernie on his scooter. The weather was forecast to be changeable and so our plans were volatile.  The next stop was the Turner Contemporary gallery where Ernie headed straight for the crisps, so we sat down for another cup of tea.

Then we moved on to a 'soft play' for lunch and then returned to the flat via the park when the clouds threatened. 

Ernie is now proficient on his scooter and takes some keeping up with. I can't remember the last time I  ran anywhere, but in the last few days, I have done quite a bit of running. 

Our next day included a ride on the Loop - a circular bus route round Thanet. When we came into Ramsgate, we could see something was a foot in the harbour. We discovered that we had fallen across the 75th anniversary of the rescue of soldiers from Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo). Some of the boats that made the trip 75 years ago were about to repeat the trip. It would have been interesting to see what was going on, but with Ernie on his way to the Hornby visitor centre, we couldn't change our plans. Hornby was quiet, so Ernie had the 'Thomas' trains to himself and enjoyed the Scalectrix - he can now operate them quite well with the hand control. He must have enjoyed previous visits because he demanded 'lunch' in a rather regal manner and marched off to the restaurant.

OVerdict, we were woken by a 4.2 magnitude earthquake which was just off Ramsgate. Pat thought that it was a badly balanced washing machine starting to spin!

On Thursday, Ernie was at his childcare but would leave early to meet us at another exciting but distant playground.  We walked from our flat around the coast discovering new parts of Margate and a new restaurant.

Helen dropped Ernie off by the playground with his scooter. 

On the way back, we stopped on the beach to build cand castles for half an hour - this mostly takes the form of Nana building a castle or sand pie and Ernie jumping on them!

We had promised Ernie a trip on the 'Blue Train', the high speed train from Margate to London which runs on the HS1 line from Ashford to London. He chose to go to the Transport Museum in Covent Garden, which he has been to a number of times. He obviously enjoys it because as soon as we got in, he was away running around over several levels with Pat trying to find him!  Fortunately, there is lookout on the main door watching for unaccompanied children leaving the building!  John and Pat took it in turns to slip out for a little shopping in Covent Garden!

This trip has been a first in that Ernie has let John put him to bed, so that Mummy and Daddy could go out  without having to wait for him to be asleep. It's going to be especially useful when his sibling arrives in September. 

Back to home and on to the UK

There was an option to go down to the nearby beach and port area on Sunday morning. Having been there 3 times, we weren't too bothered about a fourth trip, so we stayed on the terrace by the bar and John had a swim while Pat caught up with the blogs.
At 1130, the bus returned and it was apéro time!  After lunch, we set off in the bus for home making good time and arriving  in the village at 1815. We had a little time to empty cases, put the washing on and start packing before we went round to our friends Jill and Terry to eat.
In the morning, we finished off the packing and were dropped off at the station by Jill and Terry in time for our train to Lyon, from where we would catch a non stop train to Ashford.
We had about 90 minutes to kill, so wandered towards the river


Les Halles de Lyon. We were here a few years ago when we came to the Fête des Lumiéres (festival of lights).  Les Halles is named after the chef Paul Bocuse who has a number of restaurants in Lyon.
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We had checked for news of our train when we arrived in Lyon, but it was too early. When we returned, we found that the train was cancelled.  We were directed to a ticket office where they were shoeing us away to a train which was about to depart. We got on it, not knowing where it was going, but hoped that it was in the right direction.  We had departed before we knew that we were on our way to Lille, where we can connect with the usual sort of EuroStar.
So now we are speeding through the French countryside hoping that we will get to Margate tonight!  The ticket inspector assures us that Lille know that there are people on the train who will be wanting to get on a EuroStar that they are one booked on. 
Postscript:
All was well!  We arrived at Lille and rushed onto the platform to connect with a EuroStar from Brussels to London. We had just sat down when the announcement 'if you want to get off at Ashford, get off this train' was made. We then returned to the terminal and waited for about an hour for the next EuroStar which stopped a Ashford at the time we should have been there anyway (it was I fact a special which they had brought from Paris to get us home). We made our connection to Margate and arrived at the time we should have done, had we got onto the EuroStar at Lyon. 
We leared that the EuroStar service that we should have boarded had a technical fault and ran from Marseille to Lille with out stopping at either Avignon or Lyon. They feared that if they stopped, they wouldn't be able to start again! As we have found before, when something goes wrong, the French system has a good recovery procedure.

Hyéres and Port Grimaud

Hyéres is a small town between St Tropez and Toulon which has a history back to the 4th century BC.  It has English connections from the 18th century and Queen Victoria visited in the late 19th century. It was one of the first tourist destinations in the region.
Our timetable included a visit to the market, but we chose to see the old town and the castle on the hill: the Castle of St Bernard.
The 'gate' to the old town.


Inside the gates, the streets are lined with shops spilling out onto the streets.

Knights' Templer tower from the 12th century.  The tower included the church of St Blaise, but is now a museum.

The square around the tower is now filled with restaurants. We climbed up to the top of the tower from where we had great views. The staircase is both steep and narrow.

We continued up the hill to the Church of Saint Paul

 Views from here

Then we continued up to the castle through more narrow and picturesque streets.


The  Chateau d'Hyéres is certainly worth the climb


By now it was time to go down the hill for our journey back to base and lunch.
After lunch, John had us all lined up for the group photo taken on Pat's camera using wifi remote control.

Then we set off for our last visit of the holiday, Port Grimaud.  We travelled along the coast past St Tropez and the homes of the very rich.

Apparently this is the latest craze: Fly board riding, based on jet ski technology.

Port Grimaud is a purpose built resort along the lines of Venice. Each house has it's own parking space, not for a car, but for a boat.  Naturally, this means that it exclusivly for the very rich. As far as we could see, cars take second place, no matter what make they are - anything from a mini to an Aston Martin will be parked round the back.
We took a 20 minute boat tour in 30 seater electric boats.




Then we walked the short distance to the beach

Our driver took the short route back to our hotel where we enjoyed our last evening with the group.

Visit to a wine domain and Îles d'Or

The day was forecast to be windy and the forecast was correct. This area is subject to the Mistral, the wind that blows down the Rhone. It has a reputation for lasting for one day or three days. When we were looking for an area to buy a house in France, any area affected by the Mistral was ruled out, as was any in the path of the Tramontana, which blows across the coast near the Pyrenees but generally stops around Narbonne.
The first event of the day was a visit to a wine domaine which has diversified into fruit and vegetables in addition to the grapes. This area of France produces a large volume of excellent fruit and vegetables. The Domaine des Myrtles grows aubergines, tomatoes, lemons, kumquats, cucumbers, strawberries, amongst others in an enormous greenhouse.
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We had a tour of the greenhouse, the amazing machines that are used to gather and process grapes on an industrial scale, followed by a tasting. We were not impressed by the wine although the fruit and vegetable side of the business is obviously very popular and successful.
After lunch back at the holiday village, we set out for our trip to one of the Îles d'Or, Porquerolles. 
By now, the wind was getting worse and many people were becoming anxious about the crossing. We were reassured that the crossing only took 20 minutes and all went well.

The port was busy when we arrived.

The current town of Porquerolles was built about 1820 and the church, which was our first stop, was built in 1850.

The wind was something of an inconvenience, but it was sunny and we were able to climb up to the highest point which is the castle.
This house, on the way up, has banana trees growing outside

The island has had the usual selection of invaders, Greek, Romans etc. became a part of France in the 15th century. The castle, which is on the highest point has been rebuilt several times.
It wasn't a difficult climb, but the path was rough and one needed to be careful. 
Fort St Agathe, the current  building was built In the 16th century on the site of older castles. It is now a museum. 


There is also an 18th century windmill, Le Moulin de Bonheur. Apparently the windmill stayed in use for longer than most because no tax was not charged on flour milled on the Island.


A house on the outskirts of the town cover d with Bouganvillea.

Our guide pointed out the dying palm trees which have been attacked by an Argentinian moth.  They no longer produce leaves and need to be cut down.

After some delicious (and large!) ice creams, we rejoined our group for the trip home. This was rather more exciting than expected:  the boat was full and so we had to go up to the top deck. Fortunately, we managed to find a spot as far to the front as was possible; even then we were only just enclosed.
When the boar started off, all was well, but, as we gathered speed, we started to hit waves and were riding a roller coaster all the way back. Those outside and in the more exposed parts of the inside upper deck were drenched!
A wave hits the boat from the side

The roof of the upper deck, showing how far the waves came in

That was quite enough excitement for one day, so after dinner, we settled down in the bar for the Karaoki session with the choir providing the entertainment