I seem to have forgotten to blog! 🙂
Wednesday was a chilling out doing very little day for the adults. Julie, Lorna and I drove into Llangollen to do some supermarket shopping and pick up various odd things we wanted from the town – Julie’s list included dishcloth, veg peeler and socks for Jack, mine included trug to use for washing up and rock pegs.
The kids hung out at the campsite having a great time. I know 6 months isn’t really a long time but in the life of a child it can seem such and it has been fabulous watching the cousins all fall back into their easy, relaxed and close relationships and get so much joy out of each others company :).
We fell into a pattern of Julie putting Jack and Lorna to bed while we had dinner, then Maisie coming over to Willow to watch a film with Davies and Scarlett while Ady and I took our dinner over to Julie’s trailer tent to sit and chat. Maisie needs far less sleep than her siblings so that worked out well all round :).
Thursday was our last full day and we’d decided we would do the Horseshoe Falls walk. This was something we knew no more about that it being marked in the opposite direction along the footpath to the town. We had a relaxed morning of doing very little, ate lunch and then headed off.
The Horseshoe Falls turned out to be a rather disappointing horseshoe shaped large waterfall with a teeny tiny actual fall of about a foot! It was a nice walk along the towpath though and we enjoyed a clamber down some steep and rusty iron steps to the rocky banks of the River Dee where we scrambled about and slipped and slid. We thought we could reach the chain bridge so with Davies and Scarlett intrepidly leading the way, Jack and Maisie rather more nervously following in their wake and me clumsily bringing up the rear the five of us scrambled over slippery rocks while Ady, Lorna and Julie more sensibly stayed on the larger rocks and looked at the minnows and sticklebacks. Scarlett fell in to waist depth so was utterly soaked and we got within spitting distance (we didn’t check, but trust me it was that close ;)) of the bridge before realising not only was the bridge not operational any more but we couldn’t actually reach it after all and had to go all the way back. Scarlett waded on the basis she was sodden anyway. Davies marched on ahead, Jack and Maisie are not on the same spectrum of adventuring as my two but made valiant efforts to follow in their footsteps with a little assistance in retrieving lost flip flops and not being sure where to put their feet.
We eventually reached the Horseshoe Falls just as the gathering clouds decided to burst. Scarlett was starting to shiver and rejected my suggestion of taking her wet trousers off and walking in her pants with a sneering ‘I’ll look like a mentalist!’ I pointed out that actually she *was* a mentalist to which she replied ‘yeah I know that, but I don’t need to look like one too!’ I suspect there are elements of spending so much time in adult company this year that are both amusing and not entirely appropriate 😉
At this point I deduced that we must be about level with the campsite as the walk took us east and then double backed west, so declared that I would seek out a shortcut return to the campsite with now turning blue Scarlett. The others decided they would come too but were not walking nearly fast enough for my liking. I was chivvying Scarlett who had Maisie walking alongside her and was therefore chivvied too, Jack and Davies were behind me, followed at some leisurely pace by Ady, Julie and Lorna. I spied a footpath stating Vale Crusis Abbey which was where we were staying so guided the girls infront and the boys behind that way leaving the others to sort themselves out and ended up with the four older children. We marched onwards and upwards and found ourselves climbing up, on a rather narrow footpath through lots of bracken and ferns in the rain. Scarlett was chattering of teeth, Maisie and Jack are not used to such adventures but Davies and I worked together to get everyone moving along and suddenly realised we were high enough and in the right spot to be looking down on a rainbow. It was the most magical and amazing sight :). We all five stood in awe of it’s beauty, spread below us on the the opposite mountain and agreed it was worth all the climbing and getting wet :). We pressed on and finally caught the awaited glimpse of the Abbey. Slid down the hill and crossed the road and were back at the campsite.
I made hot chocolate for everyone and about half an hour later the other 3 finally arrived. Some of us showered to warm up and we parted to sort out dinners before reconvening for movies / chatting and so on.
Today deserves a blog post all of it’s own but it is 1am and I need to go to sleep so that will have to wait!