London to Ireland

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Okay, so now we’re on the ferry to Ireland - just pulling out of Fishguard, a small village perching on the side of West Wales. Wales is gorgeous - we stayed last night in Abergavenny, population 14,500 at the base of the Brecon national park. We watched the final match in the Rugby European cup - between Wales and France in a tiny pub. Wales won - the pub (the Hen and Chickens) resounded with cheers and singing - a fantastic atmosphere. Kev and Dave befriended a local - Paul the postal worker, who was a fount of information about Welsh language and other local issues. But back to the countryside - it’s green, paddocks bordered by hedges, roadsides lined with daffodils, small villages with very very narrow roads and rows of joined houses and some very large and very old mansions. We’ve seen many castle ruins - including at Abergavenny this morning in the mist and rain (yes - it’s been raining, but as I write this the sun is streaming through the ferry window so hopefully the weather’s improving.
We’re now driving a hire car - a Vauxhall - very comfortable with a boot large enough for four suitcases, luckily. We collected it at Hatton Cross, near Heathrow, yesterday morning. Getting on the road was something of a saga, but after three visits to Heathrow by mistake we made it out on the M4. Our navigation is assisted by Karen - the female voice on Dave’s GPS who provides regular instructions about which exit to take at roundabouts (Wales transport clearly loves roundabouts). Don’t know if it’s imagination, but the voice appears to get a bit tetchy when we don’t take her advice and she’s required to recalculate.

(Still no photos....)

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