5 August 2010

On a dry but cool and cloudy day, we all drove over to Merthyr Tydfil and took a trip on Pontsticill mountain railway. Emily and Fern were naturally very excited about riding on a steam train. It was busy but the little engine pulls quite a few carriages and we had no trouble getting seats on the foremost carriage.

The little train wended its way slowly along the side of the pretty valley, gradually descending to the head of a reservoir, where there is a station, cafe and playground. It passed through and carried on another few minutes, and I persuaded the girls to come with me out on the small balustrade outside at the end of the carriage, so we were right next to the engine and could watch the driver in action. The train came to a halt and the driver's mate hopped down, decoupled the engine and changed the points, so that the little puffer could move round to the other end of the train for the return leg. That meant that we were now looking down onto the tracks as we rode along, to Emily and Fern's delight.


We got off at the reservoir station and joined the queues at the cafe for a picnic. As we disembarked, a man ushered me forward saying 'after yourself'! Surely a physical impossibility? The inappropriate use of myself/yourself is one of my absolute pet hates, grammatically speaking.


The view up to the back of the Brecon Beacons was gorgeous and would have made for a very satifying lunch if not for Emily's behaviour. She seemed rather unenthused by yet another sandwich and made do with Marmite ricecakes - a wonderful invention, I must say. Eventually she just wandered off, to my annoyance. She and Fern wanted to explore the little playground, and stayed there happily enough for a while, playing 'shop' under the slide, with the bark chippings acting as both goods and money.


After the enjoyable ride back to the start station, they demanded the icecreams we had been promising all day and got into a right mess with their Cornettos.


Once in the car Emily was soon asleep but Fern somehow remained awake for well over an hour, as we took the scenic route back home, going down the valley past Talybont reservoir and then via back roads across from Crickhowell. At Talybont we found that the small bridge over the canal was raised and waited there awhile as a holiday barge came through. In fact, as we drove along the road that follows the canal we could see much activity on the waterway and it was good to see it being well used.

After 11pm, Mum and I went out onto the lawn to look for shooting stars, as we are now well into the annual Perseids shower. I saw about four in half an hour or so, but it was really cold out there, even in several warm layers.