When life has become too hectic we retreat to Wales and specifically Abergavenny. Even though I spent more of my childhood living in West Wales, for some reason Abergavenny is the place that draws me back. I left for the merchant navy at aged 16 but this is the place that really feels like home. This photograph from the castle grounds shows the Blorenge mountain in the background.
We drove on a Sunday and as usual stayed in an amazing cottage close to the Castle. A very short walk to town and a very short walk to the Castle Meadows and the river Usk. This is a quiet market town and I always find it the best place to relax because the pace of life is so much slower. I do find it a bit spooky that it seems as if everybody knows each other and visitors like us stand out and get the occasional stare. The cottage we stay in is owned by the same company (Caradog) as the upmarket Angel hotel and I must admit that we love the food and ambience in the hotel bar. Very well behaved family friendly and the food is excellent although almost London prices.
We drove from Staines upon Thames in dry weather but ominously it started raining as we passed the welcome to Wales sign and indeed it poured down for the first two days. Last summer Master Jones enjoyed skimming stones in the evening sun on the tranquil river Usk whilst people paddled from the pebbled beach, enjoyed a glass of wine and a barbecue. It was heaven for a little boy and he was desperate to visit the same part of the river again. I did warn him that with the river in flood there was little chance of there being any stones in sight but with a break in the rain we headed out of the cottage and down towards Castle Meadow.
I had just got to this point in the walk when I realised I had not changed into my walking shoes and was wearing the only pair of tidy shoes I had brought. I contemplated going back but with Master Jones enjoying himself so much, I decided to continue and face that wrath of Mrs Jones later.
The grass may not look muddy but it was in fact not only saturated, there was standing water. I tried to walk gently so as to avoid splashing, but my blue suede shoes were rapidly becoming caked in reddish brown mud. We continued down to the spot where we had previously paddled in the shallows.
No pebbles and no shallows and instead the broken stump of a tree trying to hold back the fast moving brown water. He was disappointed but having found a stick and large muddy puddles was quite happy making sure that he was just as dirty as my shoes. We continued our walk along the Usk towards the bridge.
The weather started to look ominous but I consoled myself with the thought that a downpour might miraculously clean my shoes and Master Jones. It did not happen and I now had mud up the back of my trousers plus the boy fell over and the back of his jacket was absolutely plastered. There is something wonderful about walking with a seven year old who talks non stop and interested in everything around him. I helped him over a particularly slippery bank and he held my hand as we walked along the river bank whilst I reflected that I must be the luckiest man in the world to have such a wonderful son at this time of my life.
We reached the bridge at the far end of town so I suggested that we walk back to the cottage along the road but he convinced me that we should cross the meadow and head back where it was drier away from the river bank. At the time this seemed vaguely logical so we headed off across the field whilst he splashed along in his wellingtons, still brandishing a stick and I splashed along with my socks now wet and also getting muddy.
As you can see, my decision was rather flawed much to the delight of Master Jones. We walked back enjoying the wonderfully fresh air and he desperately wanted to return to the castle so I gave in whilst hoping that a miracle would restore my shoes and trousers.
Having left a trail of mud through the museum and apologised profusely on the way out, we headed back to the cottage to face the music. Master Jones had to strip off outside and I abandoned my shoes but Mrs Jones was upstairs watching television so I quickly tried to wash as much of the mud of his jacket as I could and when Mrs Jones came down, my scrubbed suede shoes were once again blue and drying in front of the gas fire. It made no difference because when we came in, Master Jones ran straight upstairs and told her that Papa was in big trouble.
Even though I have not lived in Abergavenny for approximately 51 years I still have and expectation that I will bump into one of my old school friends but to date this has not happened. I was sitting in an absolutely packed cafe with Master Jones one morning and scanned the faces looking for any sign of somebody I even vaguely recognised. I then started imagining that the person with the vacant stare and tendency to dribble might have been in my class, or the man with the zimmer accompanied by another obvious candidate with two walking sticks and a blind dog. As it was Tuesday and the busiest day of the week i.e. market day, I decided to go on a tour of the local pubs that evening to try and find at least one person that remembered me. We ate in the cottage that evening and I headed out at around eight o'clock confident that I would meet an old schoolmate that was still able bodied. I walked to the silent town centre in the rather strange milky evening light and there was not a breath of air after the previous storms.
The streets were deserted, I did not see a soul and was just beginning to wonder if this small sleepy town and had wiped out by a zombie apocalypse whilst we had been down by the river when a track suited woman burst out of the Chinese Takeaway loaded with tin foil containers of glutinous highly coloured substances that bear no resemblance to actual Chinese food. We know because we tried it one night. Satisfied that there were still people alive in the town I entered a pub that I knew a friend of mine (Ruth) had owned. There were a few men at the bar so I found a space at the end next to an old lady sitting in her own personal seat with a brass plaque with her name on it. My beer arrived so I asked the barman if Ruth Evans still owned the pub. The men at the bar stopped talking and stared in my direction, the barman looked at them and told me he did not know any Ruth Evans. I sipped my pint, the men loitering at the bar resumed their muted conversation and I felt like an outsider that had landed on a remote Scottish isle full of satanic worship, human sacrifice and incest. As I left, the old lady whispered that she knew Ruth and she had been in the pub just two days ago. Maybe I only imagined that the locals went quiet again but I decided to ask no more questions and departed.
I am not one for giving up so I walked to the bottom of the town and into another pub. It is a lovely old building and I had high hopes until I stepped inside and the smell that I can only describe as a wet dog and chlorine mixture hit my nostrils. Again there were a few men at the bar and they gave me a look that made it clear that strangers did not often set foot in the premises. The young barman was cheerful enough, gave me a pint and asked me where I came from. I said 'near London' and this of course is the worst thing I could have done because it is firmly believed that the riches of Wales are all stolen to line the pockets on Londoners. I hastily added that I was originally from Abergavenny and my father still lived there, but the damage was done.
I walked to the local shop run by a Sikh gentleman with an amazing welsh accent and bought a bottle of wine. Pub crawl an abject failure, I returned to the cottage and it was not even dark.
Commentaires