#101. 2022 October 1-7. Nomad Diary. Iron Men on the beach at Liverpool. Week in Conwy, North Wales.

  

View of the Royal Hotel from a park in Waterloo.

Me loving on a big tree in a park near Royal Hotel.

Picture above is the Liverpool Waterloo neighborhood church of Christ building we plan to go to on Sunday.

A bric a brac shop in Waterloo.

Inside the shop

A call with 2 year old Quinn in Portland, Maine and his parents (lol) Jeremy and Andrea. They shopped for this house while living on the West Coast in Vancouver, Washington. They won the bid after weeks of trying and not getting. They left Vancouver in July and spent several weeks in Alabama visiting family on their way to Maine. They now have been in their ‘new’ house for a few weeks!

On the beach just 10 minutes walking from Royal Hotel.

Darrell and an Iron Man!

Saturday 1. Move to Liverpool during a train strike.The trains have announced the dates ahead for reduced or no service. When we arrived to Lancaster three days earlier we found a taxi company and hired a driver to get us to Liverpool this morning. He arrived on time and we introduced and loaded. His name is Steve and he liked talking. This seems to be a part-time retirement job for him. We knew Steve pretty well after talking on the drive for just under 2 hours. We arrived to our nice older Royal Hotel near the Waterloo train station with just a 10 minute walk to the beach. The hotel let us store our luggage until our after 1pm check-in. We go out to walk around and find some lunch too. We mapped where the church building was, where the beach for the Irish Sea is and where we want to eat lunch. It’s hard to see how long or how far a walk is going to be before it’s happened. The whole walk was less than 30 minutes with every place just within 10 minutes or less of the next. We ate at a rotisserie chicken restaurant that served different choices of vegetable sides than we have seen. We really enjoyed the meal. The wind is a bit chilly and we get back to the Royal Hotel and check in. We rest for a bit and have some hot tea. Then we dress a bit warmer and take off to walk on the beach. It’s a beautiful beach with big grassy dunes. There is a windmill farm out in the sea, and in the sand is a public art display of 100 iron men that goes on for 2 miles. We don’t see all of them but we see several. There are dogs on the beach that seem confused by these men. A dog ran up to an iron man and realized that it was not a person and looked around and moved on past! We enjoyed the setting sun and the long unhurried walk together. In the evening we spent some a couple of hours trip planning together. Our movement within Wales is restricted with more train strike days and we are now mapping our way from North to South using buses. Then we are looking at hotels to stay at as we make our way to Bridgend in South Wales for a housesit beginning on October 12th. While we have made reservations for the next couple of weeks in Wales, we have also been working on our stays that are coming up through the end of October and up to the 6th of November when we are to board a cruise ship in Barcelona.

Week’s Happenings.

Inside the Liverpool Church of Christ building on Sunday.

An after-lunch walk in Waterloo. This is a view of a pond and a lake with the dunes in the background. Over the dunes is the Irish Sea.

We arrive to our cottage in Conwy, Wales in the early evening. Just down the hill is High St.

Inside our cottage it is super nice! Upstairs is the bedroom and a beautiful roomy bathroom.

It’s simple walk to Conwy Castle, and we enjoy the clear evening with the castle lit up!

Sunday 2. Church at Liverpool. Our objective to coming for Saturday night here was to get to worship on Sunday. We have breakfast provided at the hotel, pack up our bags, check out and let the hotel hold our bags until after lunch when we go to get our train to Conwy. We walk to the church building and people begin to arrive. This group is mixed with people from several different countries living and working here now from 1 to 20 plus years.

On our scenic bus ride to Snowdonia, I get this view out the window! That cloud is amazing and reminds me of Darth Vader from Star Wars! Lol.

Darrell at the tourist train to go up Snowdonia. We finally made it to the 3pm ride.

We are in the train riding up the mountain backwards! The conductor is over my shoulder.

A view from the train.

Monday 3. Go to Snowdonia. We walk two blocks to the train station and ride to Bangor with one train change. Once in Bangor, we go find our bus stop where we will get a bus to the Snowdonia tourist train going up the mountain. Next we go find a coffee shop. It’s almost 11am and the bus ride will be an hour so we get a breakfast sandwich too. Then we go to a bus stop and wait. We wait passed the time on the schedule for our bus that does not come. We go to a more central bus stop. We wait for the next bus or two that do not come even though promised. A man named Graham comes to the bus stop and we start talking. He’s going where we want to go but he has done this trip many times before. He helps lead us to get onto a bus that will get us part way there, and then we see the direct bus behind our bus. Graham, gets off this bus and we follow to get on the bus right behind us. It is a faster, direct bus! We thank Graham and he gives us some more details about where we are going. We arrive and question the bus driver about the return trip and which bus stop! We walk a block to the tourist train stop. There are restrooms and a cafe. We get a cappuccino and have a cookie and banana while we wait for our train time. We board the train late in the afternoon. The conductor tells us about the weather and high winds that are threatening to turn back this ride. He offers anyone to leave the train for a refund or to go on and see if the winds change as we make the ascent. Everyone stays in the train car.  We make our ascent for at least 30 minutes slowly going up the mountain rail. Before we arrive to our final destination, the winds have gone up to 70 mph. The conductor must stop the ride and descend. He tells us all the situation and that we will all get a full refund with their apologies. We take another 30 minutes to slowly get back down to the train station. Darrell and I are happy with our ride and with our refund too. We walk to the bus stop and wait for our bus back to Bangor and then take the train back to Conwy. We enjoyed our slow touring day even with the small town buses and inconsistent schedules we have seen some beautiful country today. 

Darrell at the end of Conwy walls by the bay.

Me on the wall.

Tuesday 4. Stay in Conwy. It’s rainy today. We do a little walking on the wall before the rain begins. Darrell gets a haircut at about half the price of his haircut in London! We go to get a cappuccino in Issac Simeon Artisan bakery. There are two tables and 4 chairs inside the tiny place with incredible bakery treats! We visit with a couple and have an nice conversation about where they come from and their family and grandchildren and vise-versa. Sheila, the woman older than me says, ‘do you have faith?’ It’s an odd and direct question to me and I’m not sure what she said with her Yorkshire accent, and I ask her to repeat what she says. She repeats a couple of more times clarifying and slowing her words. I understand and answer her in a positive way with details. Then ask about them and her husband speaks to the changes and challenges within their church during covid. They are trying and it was nice to have this conversation. I appreciate this so much! I hope that I told her how grateful I am that she asked and opened the conversation to begin and grow to know each other better.

Sunset by the castle wall.

Picture perfect evening.

Wednesday 5. It’s a rainy day and clears after lunch sometime. We decide to tour the old house across the alley from our cottage. It was built in the 1570’s and was restored in the 1990’s. Much of the original house is intact and there’s even original furniture and fittings inside. It’s quite amazing. The Plas Mawr is considered the best and most complete example of this kind of dwelling. It’s a treat to walk through. There’s even a 1620’s Welsh bible on display in the Madam’s bedroom. The story is that she read it there in her room daily! That’s a powerful memory to pass down to your family and to others. This was a time in history when there was huge conflicts between Catholic and Protestant. I don’t know the details here, but to know she had this Bible and read it for herself is amazing! Once the rain has lifted, we finish walking the wall that we had not yet done and end at the castle around sunset. The view of sunset heading back toward Conwy hills is one of my favorites of this week. It is beautiful! 

Our friends Clive and Pat drove over from their home about 45 minutes away in Wrexham.

The pier looking toward the Great Orme that Clive drove us around.

Looking from the pier toward the town.

Thursday 6. The weather is nice today with no rain expected. I look out and see the sunrise with beautiful clouds. We get ready right after exercises and go to get a view of the sky from the castle walls. We walk through the quiet inner wall streets for 3 blocks and climb the wall stairs. We enjoy the view, taking pictures and a walk going toward the bay along the wall. We walk back through town to our cottage and have breakfast. At 11am our Welsh friends Clive and Pat drive an hour from their home in Wrexam to visit us. We sit and have coffee while catching up with family information and what has been going on with us. We met Pat and Clive on a South American cruise in 2015. Darrell led a Bible class onboard ship and they came with about 40 others. They really enjoyed the study together and invited us to come to see them in Wales anytime. In 2019 we made a special trip to see them while we were in the country briefly during a British Isles cruise. We stayed in their house and enjoyed their hospitality. Now today, we are once again enjoying some time and encouragement together. Pat just turned 80 and Clive is 83. They’ve had a rough year through some physical illness challenges and they are feeling better and have come to take us on a scenic drive and treat us to lunch. We drive a few miles to the Great Orme. It’s a scenic drive around a rocky hill jutting into the sea. We saw some wild goats on the hill. We walked the pier and then came back to Conwy and said our goodbyes for now. Pat began painting watercolor pictures when she was 70. More recently she has been doing oil paintings. On our visit in 2017 she had painted me a special one of the old gate at Chester, England close to where they live. I loved it! On this visit she showed me her photos of her paintings. I love them and think she is so amazing with this later-in-life talent! She showed me a painting of Conwy castle and said she would send it to me in a tube! Wow! A second painting to remind me of her! We rested for the afternoon and went to Alfredo’s Italian restaurant for dinner. 

View upclose of Conwy Castle.

A nice finished chapel in the castle. Enclosed is much warmer without the wind, the drafts and the rain! Lol.

My favorite picture of the coordinated bridge built in the 1800’s.

A walk through the woods in Conwy after dinner.

Friday 7. Rain on and off today. Our last day in Conwy and we have yet to tour the castle! It’s so nice to sleep in without an alarm. We wake up around 7am and get up and do our exercise routine. I sit here at the kitchen bar typing this. Darrell is catching up on facebook and chatting while rewarming coffee to drink. We have the second load of laundry in the washing machine. And we are positioning the longest drying time jeans in front of the little fireplace as a way to speed up the drying time! 

Nomad Notes. There have been hours spent looking online for bus schedules, train schedules, hotels and apartments, and places of interest. Also with our needs of travel and stays Darrell manages our profile on trustedhousesitters.com and communicates with the hosts we have booked. We have been used to having longer timelines in the states for booking our stays, but I am getting more used to the closer time line and variety of stays and travel arrangements while in the UK. Darrell is so much better at searching the travel apps than I am. We have been learning what each of our strengths are. Often he’s looking down at his phone for mapping us while we are walking, and I’m looking at posted direction signs. We will coordinate our information and get where we want to go. We are getting pretty good at shopping for the foods we want to fix and eat and the amounts to buy. We are also getting good at using up our food or packing up certain items that I carry in my backpack. The last few moves, I have carried salt, pepper, Italian spice mix, cinnamon, tea, coffee, olive oil, vinegar, fresh garlic bulb, beet drink mix, green drink mix, cheese and crackers. Sometimes we have some cookies and olives, or other items like paper towels, toilet paper rolls, and ziploc bags. Early on we purchased wash cloths for ourselves because they are not provided by most places. We were told before arriving at one place that we would need to bring our own towels. We went to a thrift store and purchased two nice bath sheets for six pounds total. When we arrived, the place had towels. We are going to donate our towels back to another thrift store sometime because they are heavy and increase our suitcase weight. Lightening the suitcases and carrying less makes for more comfortable traveling.