Gales in Wales

It had been a rushed morning as the two families aimed to be ready and leave before the day moved on too far. For today was the day that they were all going to visit Portmeirion, the small man-made village conceived and designed by the idealist William Clough Ellis. Situated in the north-west of Wales passed the slate mines and Snowdonia, the bay is very secluded.

Your faithful protagonist had mentioned the day previously, "the only thing we must make sure is that we don't go to Portmeirion when it is raining, because there is very little that we can do inside." At the time we were all leaving, the sun wasn't exactly forth coming but at least it was starting to put its clothes on and was looking for its hat.

The beginning of the voyage, from the shared cottage near Conwy, was struck by disaster. The golden winged chariot that is used to transport myself and my loved ones had a tyre that was losing air. We pulled into the only garage within 100 square miles and to our dismay the Air machine was out of order. No air, who would have thought? On closer inspection we found another machine for HGVs that had air attached so we pulled up next to it. After repeatedly attempting to inflate the tyres there was no way that it was producing any air.

Woody, however, the clear thinking, visionary in the accompanying vehicle came to our rescue, when after a quick look noticed that the start button needed to be pushed to begin. Hmmm, whatever...

Another twenty minutes driving time brought the worst possible outcome, and the main purpose of this blog. The heavens opened, and instead of releasing angels to ease the worlds problems, there came such a volume of water descending from the sky that Noah could be seen in a neighbouring field putting a few pieces of wood together.
It wasn't just rain. It was the heaviest, fattest, wettest rain that I had seen for a long time. Just perfect considering where we were going. A village with a lot of private houses, and really the attraction is walking around outside appreciating the beauty of the individual architecture and aesthetic works of art. When we pulled up in the car park neither family left their car. Both were plucking up the courage to venture forward.

Finally we did make it though and thought that it would be best to try and get in somewhere to eat lunch first. This we achieved after walking through the torrent of rain as it battered against ourselves. Not only were my shoes wet, my clothes wet, and my face wet, but the water was even beginning to seep into my soul.

We had lunch, which was simple yet effective, and afterwards it was as if we had passed a trial set to us by the gods. The determination that was required to not turn back and to blindly continue to the goal pleased the ethereal deities and we were rewarded with dryness and even clearness.

The weather improved so much that by the time we had reached the beach, which is nicely sat in the bay with acres and acres of sand moving out to an estuary, the sun was even warm enough to see Dylan running around in his pants running in to the puddles that were probably caused by the rain rather than the sea.

We even had an ice cream and I bought some filter coffee which brought on its own disaster. Later that evening after one cup I went on to break the cottage cafetiere and had to buy a new one for thirteen quid.

The day turned out to be lovely and we learnt that if you strive through adversity then you will be rewarded eventually.