It is now September 10th and it is Sunday. While traveling yesterday we texted our friends (Ken and Dianne Wallace) who are serving a mission in the Bristol Mission. Turns out they live about 15 minutes away from the Bath chapel. So they arranged to attend sacrament meeting there with us. We left our flat in Bath early to get out in the fresh air. It was still very warm and there was hope the chapel might be cooler. Well the chapel in Bath is two story with the chapel area on the 2nd floor. And with no A/C and no fans, it was pretty warm. Lots of ladies using their Jane Austen fans to try and keep cool. I just sat there and sweated. However, the meeting was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. The two speakers, one a recent convert to the church and first time speaking, shared beautiful thoughts and testimonies of Jesus Christ and His importance in their lives. Interestingly, the man playing the organ turned out to be the Bishop for the ward. A man of many talents. The congregation filled the building which was nice to see.
After Sacrament meeting, we visited with the Wallace’’s (both couples) for about 45 minutes. I felt a bit bad not being in our 2nd hour meetings…a bad example as a missionary. However, the visit was fun and it was nice to catch up on Ken and Diane’s lives. They now live in Tennessee. We were in the Bass Lake Ward in Cameron Park many moons ago. We made some plans to meet half way between where we live and the edges of their mission. Hopefully that will come to pass.
We left the church and began our journey to Wales. Our BnB is in a town named Llaandybie. However, on our journey there we decided to go see the Caerphilly Castle, a castle that Denise and I have visited before and loved. As a matter of fact, a panoramic picture of it hangs in our master bedroom back home. We were looking forward to seeing it again….until something more exciting occurred. Upon arriving into Caerphilly, the roads were all re-routed and blocked. As we navigated to the castle, we started to notice barriers that formed a passage way along the castle. We decided to park in a Sainsbury parking lot as they give you 3 hours of free parking. And as we walked towards the temple, we noticed that this was set up for a bike race finish. It turned out to be the 8th and final leg of the Tour of Britain bike race! And Pat being a bike rider was THRILLED! The race was to complete in 1.5 hours so we decided to just hang out, keep our seats that we found and wait for the conclusion. It was pretty exciting, even though only Pat knew names of riders and what was going on. They had a big jumbotron tv set up. And there was a guy walking the street with a microphone keeping the welsh crowd excited for the race. However, I don’t believe any of us understood a single word that this man said. His welsh accent was so strong. Anyway, the race was fun to see although it ended after 4 PM and the castle closed at 5 PM so we chose to not pay the price to go in. Another day I suppose.
After the excitement of the race, it took a while to get out of the parking lot and city. While there, we decided that we would go to the Aberfan Memorial. Aberfan was first introduced to Denise and I in the series The Crown. In season 3, episode 4…I believe…they tell the story of the disaster that occurred there. Aberfan is\was a big mining community. In one of the mines, the waste from the mine was placed on top of a spring. After 3 days of very heavy rain, the waste turned into a slurry about 110 feet tall that came down the mountain like a large mud slide and consumed an elementary school in town and some row houses that were nearby. 116 children and 28 adults were killed that afternoon. We found the town and the memorial. It is an amazingly peaceful place, a very nice park like area next to a children’s playground. The memorial is where the school used to sit on that tragic day. While there we met a man who was from Portland that said he connected with Aberfan while watching a documentary in the USA. As a result, he has made the journey here numerous times just to feel the peace and commune with the feelings he feels here. After visiting the memorial, Denise and I headed on a walk to the cemetery where all those children and adults were laid to rest. Most of the children were placed in a mass grave in a cemetery on the hill above the memorial. The markers for their gravesites were pretty amazing and told quite the story about how much family meant to these people. It must have been a horrific day that day when the tragedy occurred. Apparently Queen Elizabeth has said that it was her single greatest regret in how she responded to the tragedy as she was slow to personally respond and come to the site. Prince Phillip came to the funeral and I think went back and asked her why she was not responding well to it. She eventually went to the site a bit later. She said she did not want to bring unnecessary attention away from the search and the following proceedings…which she probably would have done. Nonetheless, it always bothered her that she did not respond better.
After visiting Aberfan, it was getting late so we quickly stopped at a Harvester…a Sizzler like place…that has a salad bar and such. Honestly, the food did not taste that good to any of us although the salad bar did have olives, beets and other fairly good stuff that I don’t get much over here. We arrived to our flat in Lladybie after dark which made it a bit difficult to find. Fortunately, Sarah (the host), turned on the porch light which helped us greatly find it after passing it a few times. The Cowshed, as it is called, is another 5 star place, clean, big and comfortable. And…the weather has cooled down tremendously!
Pictures:
No comments:
Post a Comment