Lampeter

Sunday 5th

We had our first ride in a London cab almost by necessity. First we were laden with bags full of books. Second, despite leaving plenty of time to transfer from the tube to Paddington station, we found that many tube stations/lines were out of action on Sunday morning due to maintenance.

We had a great train trip from Paddington, including a glimpse of the chalk horse for quite some distance. The coastline around Pembrokshire – from Swansea to Carmarthen is very pretty with unusually vast areas of beach, presumably because the tide was out. The train ride was followed by a too-fast bus ride from Carmarthen to Lampeter. The bus ride was scary. The hedge-lined roads are as wide as 2 buses, and the driver was going mostly about as fast as I'd go on a bike; much faster than I'd dare in a car. Wales so far is lovely; green rolling hills, hedge-bounded lanes, white sheep with black faces and lots of flower baskets hanging out the front of the shops and houses. These really brighten up the landscape when the sky is grey.  

Looking forward to the next week when we’ll be based in one place for the whole week. We’ve just got into Lampeter and set up in our room in the Thomas Lloyd Building of UW Lampeter. It is spacious student digs, with twin bed room, small sitting room and bathroom. The college grounds are leafy and green and wet at the moment from 20 minutes of rain that fell as we arrived. Another benefit of being here is that we'll have internet on all the time. We need to check that Federer wins at Wimbledon and follow the Tour de France which has just begun.  

Monday 6th
We were still pretty dopey last night. Heads are now clearing, like the weather. The rain/sun comes and goes quickly today, making a walk or run a chancey venture.

I'll bus back into Carmarthen to pick up a car on Thursday PM. This week I'm at rest, while Bev attends the conference sessions and polishes up her paper and Powerpoint presentation. I'm planning walks and runs. Actually Bev isn’t too well with cold symptoms increasing and a dry cough causing some real problems. A medical visit may be needed.

Lampeter hill run
On Monday afternoon the rain finally cleared for long enough that I could set off on a run. Headed South across Steffan's Bridge carrying camera phone which was also GPS. Found the longest hill I've ever run up, over 6km of continual upslope. 15km altogether for the run, but my left knee has suffered badly. All Tuesday I was going up and down stairs sideways without bending the left leg.

Bev managed to get an appointment at the local medical surgery on Tuesday at 11 and now has a ventolin puffer and some thick black cough suppressant. She’s quite crook and has to have the afternoon off from the conference sessions. (In fact she got to less than 1 day out of the first 4.)

Hill Forts walk

By Wednesday afternoon I was able to join a group on a walk out of Lampeter to find some iron-age hill forts. We missed the first trail marker and spent about an hour climbing barbed-wire fences, but eventually found our way back to the trail. A selection of photos is on my Picasa site at 

http://picasaweb.google.com/russpennell/LampeterWalk#