(A) I’m beginning to see one of the benefits of blogging (or journaling) — it forces you to reflect. And if you reflect on your experiences, there’s a chance you’ll learn something from them. And, if I’m not too far wrong, learning from your experiences is how you become wise. Anyway, I feel like I’m learning something every day… something about the places we go, something about the wider world, and, certainly, something about myself.
There you have it.
This morning we had breakfast at the cafe we tried to go to a couple of days ago: the Secret Garden. Like most of the places around here, it’s small, quirky, and yummy. We dined on scrambles eggs Florentine, french toast bagels, and pancakes. Here’s one of those:
After that, we drove to Duffryn and visited the Tredegar House. If you like expansive gardens, huge houses, and delicious sandwiches, this is the place for you!
We wandered throughout the house, and in most of the rooms there were volunteers who were eager to tell us about the history of the place. There were tons of amazing carvings and paintings and rugs and other things that fancy houses have. The whole time I was there, I was thinking, “It would be fun to live here, but oh, the upkeep!” Still, pretty cool.
You see the big fireplace just above? It’s in the kitchen. Above it are some gears and rods and hooks. Inside the flue is a fan, and when the fire is going, the heat makes the fan turn, which makes the gears turn, which makes whatever is hanging from the hooks move back and forth in front of the fire. It’s a heat-powered rotisserie.
Outside were some amazing things too, like a 280-year-old chestnut tree and a whole bunch of ducks and swans.
The plan was to next go Tredegar Park, where a summer fair was supposed to be going on. But plans change, especially when traffic is thick and patience is thin. To save our sanity, we decided to head toward Cardiff and catch a glimpse of the Bristol Channel (the other side of which is England). We found a place to pull off the road and access the water, and as we were walking toward it, three people were walking away from it. They turned out to be longtime locals of Cardiff. The fellow (I think he said he was 80 years old) told us that he’d lived in Cardiff all his life, and had never known about this place. We chatted with them (the fellow, his wife, and their daughter (?)) for several minutes, and then headed through some trees for the beach.
It was called Splott Beach, and it was about as elegant as the name suggests. But it was low tide, and I think it’s unfair to judge anything at low tide. The point is that we saw a stretch of water we’d never seen before, and we were glad.
Also, on the way we saw some roadside horses and a big recycling center.
We got home and made some pasta, and now we’re going to discuss tomorrow’s plans. Lots to see!