It is Sunday and what better to do than have a lie in. We plan to take the short drive to Kingswood just below the Cotswold escarpment to check out some of the places one side of my mother’s family, came from. Mum’s father was born in New Zealand to immigrants who arrived in Wellington; NZ in the latter part of the 1800’s.Why they came to New Zealand is not clear but as far as I can find out my Great Grandfather was the only one of a large family to emigrate. Through various websites we have been able to follow their movements at 10 year intervals of English census’ in the village of Kingswood which back in the 1800’s had a sizeable mill like many of the villages surrounding Wotton-under-Edge, the principal town in the ... read more

As forecast the rain and wind did arrive overnight and this morning it is still raining so a good excuse to stay in bed a little longer as we are going to be later hitting the road to the far west of Wales. By the time we thought we had better be stirring, the sky was starting to look a little more like clearing. We haven’t had much rained off on us on the BBA V3 with the wettest days being when we have been travelling between accommodations. The west coast of Wales comes with some wild beauty and it may be that the wind that got up overnight might have made the seas on the coast the weather was coming from a little rougher and provide some photo opportunities. Our plan is to head northwest ... read more

Another reasonable day of weather ahead before it all turns to custard overnight. There are prospects for the weather then clearing tomorrow from around midday. So we will head off to the Brecon Beacons today in the hope that we can find a trail and do some hiking. While we are out and about we plan to get as far as Talgarth a town we heard about on a TV programme a year or so ago. The town was in need of some rejuvenation and the community applied to the Lottery Grant Commission and received enough money to repair a rather dilapidated building that had been a flour mill with a water mill and also built a cafe which serves bread, scones etc using flour from the mill. So we thought we would go and see ... read more

We survived the night on what must be the hardest bed in the world.We are sure even prisoners in jail get a softer bed than what we have! Being tired certainly helps and if we are going to have repeat this tonight then we had better take a long hike today to make ourselves tired tonight. The weather today is perfect, mid 20’s by mid morning and it looks like the English summer has arrived for us. We will make the most of it as long as it lasts. We plan to wander the Blackpool promenade and take in how the English spend their day at the beach. And then as we need some more grocery supplies we will walk to a supermarket to get what we need. First though its breakfast and a dose of ... read more

We could have done with another couple of days in the Highlands but the place we have been staying at is so popular that we were even lucky to get the two days we did. We want to get to Arncroach as soon as we can so there was no lie in this morning and once breakfast was over it was time to pack up the car. Our hosts were heading out themselves as we were about to leave and after another half hour chat we were on our way. Our drive south would take us along the A939 to the A93 through Braemar and over the Glenshee pass before reaching the farmland at the foot of the Grampian Mountains and onto Dundee. We have a fine day ahead of us and even the temperature is ... read more