7 August 2010

With Uma down from London for the weekend, I was keen to show her the delights of the area, so was not best pleased to find the weather very changeable and given to short, sharp showers which swept through the mountains obscuring the ridges periodically. Regardless, I drove her and Emily first to the Cat's Back (aka Black Hill), which is at the north east end of the Black Mountains. We donned waterproofs and set out to climb up the initial hill with the intention of having a snack on the crags at the top, but a heavy shower passed over and that was obviously out. In addition, Emily was being difficult (no prizes for guessing that a poo was overdue) and refused to walk, so I had to put her in the carrier and slog up the steep path with all that weight on my back. It is a short but sharp pull up there; my legs were burning and my breathing very laboured by the time we made it up. We had reasonable views from there to the north and east but did not linger as we were getting rather wet.

I was surprised but grateful that Emily actually wanted to walk down under her own steam.In fact she positively relished the descent down the slippery track to the car.

Back at the bottom, we noticed that a lady was sitting in her small car with one rear wheel a foot off the ground, having tried to park on the verge where it dropped off into a ditch. She was about 60, alone, and with no breakdown cover. I settled Emily in our car then Uma and I did our best to help her. We collected lots of stones to stop the front wheels spinning on the mud, then pushed with all our might while she revved the engine, but to no avail. Three times we tried but had to admit defeat. Just as we were about to leave, a couple drove up and as soon as the man joined us we managed to heave the car backwards with a lot of smoke from the tyres and a few scrapes and groans from the undercarriage.

Continuing on our way, we drove on to Hay. As I suspected, it was very busy and we joined several other cars circling the only car park on the lookout for a space. In the end I had to stalk a couple returning to their car and hover protectively over their space while they backed out. We walked through town to the Granary, our family's usual haunt in Hay. Uma and I deliberated over the extensive menu before plumping for fishcakes apiece. I didn't bother ordering anything separate for Emily as I usually end up feeling that I have wasted money. She was being fussy and only ate salad and one baby potato, though she was happy to assist me with my chocolate brownie.

We returned via the Gospel Pass route, and stopped off for an hour at Hay Common. I had planned to get up onto Hay Bluff, but when we got there I realised that it might be too hard a slog to carry Emily up there, especially after my earlier efforts. We decided to just stroll among the grassy paths and have a snack a few hundred yards from the car. Emily walked all the way with no complaint over the tussocks and moorland, and we got wonderful views north as the weather had cleared up a bit.



By the car we discovered several muddy puddles worthy or Peppa herself, and as I had fortunately packed her boots, Emily got to splash to her heart's content.

Driving on, the pass was busy, perhaps due to Llantony Show (where Mum, Fi and the kids had been, unbeknownst to us) so we had to pull into passing places and reverse a lot.

Emily and Fern watched DVDs while we ate dinner. She cried at Scooby Doo and said it was too scary, though Fern clearly enjoys it. I switched to Chorlton and the Wheelies; Nick would approve of this northern programme from the seventies that reminded me of Magic Roundabout - he gets annoyed that most children's TV now is produced with southern accents!

Uma and I watched Hot Fuzz, which I have always wanted to see and really enjoyed. Around midnight, I remembered that I wanted to show her some shooting stars so we put on wellies and warm clothes and went out to the lawn for a quick look. As luck would have it, within a minute we both saw a really good one, and then I saw another soon after. Cloud moved in, which was probably for the best as I would have ended up staying out there for ages otherwise.