Morning all this one is technically only a day late, but after the pretty hard journey home yesterday I couldn't face writing the post.
So what was Rocking my World yesterday?
Well last Friday despite the fact I really didn't want another break away we'd booked a cottage in Wales and hubby insisted given the dreadful week that I'd had that I really needed to take some time away from home. We hacked our way across the country and arrived a little after 4pm, the reduced speed limits down to 20 mph proved an interesting experiment in Wales, to be honest, not sure when we will return Google maps that we rely on for satnav seemed to have every speed limit programmed except the correct one, it has made for an entertaining week.
We also learnt later in the week that the Welsh government are changing the 70 days of letting period for people who own holiday homes to 6 months of letting, this means that the property has to be let for a 6 month period in any 12 months otherwise they will have to (currently) pay double the council tax, they have the ability to increase this to 4 times the council tax amount which for many holiday let owners will make this an untenable business option. I appreciate that this is to free up some much needed housing to allow people to get on the property ladder, but this carte blanche approach does appear a little short-sighted. Furthermore we also learnt whilst away that Wales is considering charging a per night fee for staying in Wales (similar to some of the countries on the continent), I'll be honest I genuinely don't feel that this bodes well for the travel industry to Wales. But I digress away from the positives for the week.
The cottage was on a working farm on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park in a little village called Rowen. The cottage itself was small and quaint, very clean and fit the bill for the week. The only real issue was the split levels there were two steps down to the kitchen and out of the only bedroom 2 steps down to the bathroom which wasn't great in the night when you needed to visit the bathroom. However, we managed which is good.
The week's forecast was definitely changeable but we carried on regardless if I'm honest. We had a list of places to visit if we fancied and set too ticking these off. We headed to the National Trust held castle at Pendryn, this is a stunning Victorian Gothic castle but the locals fell out with them 120 years ago and haven't let their grudge go if I'm honest due to the 3 year slate mine strike, but more importantly the money it is built on links back to the slave trade and despite having been here before I hadn't appreciated by how much. The owner having the largest number of plantations. Nevertheless it is good to see the history around and to acknowledge what some landowners did.
The second day was dry and sunny so we headed to Bodnant Gardens which were a riot of colour and the walk was very much needed. We enjoyed wandering the grounds and finding the different areas from the formal garden down to the huge redwoods growing in the ravine.
Monday and the weather seemed to be changing so we headed to Portmeirion one of our favourite places to visit, we had a wonderful day wandering the beautifully coloured houses, enjoying the fresh air and just spending time together. An utter joy if I'm honest.
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Tuesday we headed to Conwy which was only a 10 minute drive, we wandered around the castle and then the walled town, it really is a sight to behold. We found a wonderful bakery and bought the softest tastiest Welsh griddle cakes, freshly baked that day and enjoyed a cuppa in a 17th century building.
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Wednesday and we had a day trip to Llandudno, as we arrived an air ambulance helicopter landed on the beach which isn't something you see very often, we headed around the incident which seemed to relate to the RNLI, we wandered the pier and realised just how blustery it was as we got to the end of the pier. We had a wander around the town, hubby found a new book (he'd not taken enough variety) and we had tea and cakes at the Mostyn Gallery, unfortunately they were between exhibitions which was a shame.
Thursday our final full day and somewhat inclement weather we headed to the copper mine on the Great Orme near Llandudno, only rediscovered back in the 1990's they initially thought it a Victorian mine, but discovered tools dating back thousands of years back to the Bronze age and over years have identified that there are over 5 miles of mined tunnels below where they extracted the malachite crystal to grind down to extract the copper. The walls are still full with the crystal malachite, which for those of you who know me is incredibly close to my heart.
We then headed back to Conwy to a little Turkish tea shop where hubby tried Turkish coffee probably for the first and only time and I had a cuppa. Then we did the wall walk around Conwy. 
We had a little jaunt to Conwy Water gardens which aren't at their best but enjoyed a Dutch apple cake and Lemon Dream cake at the Pancake house there so not a complete waste.
Friday was our return day and with Storm Babet battering the UK, it made for a stressful journey home. We passed 3 or 4 sections of road that were flooding but managed to pass thankfully, the roads were full of water and spray and so it made for a very very long journey home.
We landed back I got on with some washing and then we put things away before collapsing on the sofa.
I hope you've had a wonderful week too, I'm behind on reading so will be catching up.
Hugs
