What is your idea of a perfect holiday? Everyone seems to have different views about what the key requirements are, but there seems to be some common themes. I think the main things are probably to do with the company you are with and whether or not the holiday destination and accommodation actually lives up to what the brochure led you to expect. Other key things might include value for money, the weather and the beauty of scenery or variety of things to do.
I’ve been discussing this with friends since returning from a fantastic weekend away in Wales. Lizi and I traveled to Abergavenny for my family’s annual gathering. My aunts and uncles on mum’s side were all there, as well as most of my cousins and our grandmother. The ‘adults’, as we still refer to them despite a third of their combined offspring now qualifying as adults themselves, had booked a 16-bed bunkhouse for us all to stay in.
We arrived in high spirits and glorious sunshine, the countryside was beautiful, the air was warm and the beer cool. I knew straight away that we had the makings of a great couple of days. As you can see from the pictures, we took a trip on the canal in Brecon, and on the Sunday we went horse riding up in the hills.
The boat was great fun. I’ve always wanted to take a trip on a canal as its an area of boating I’d not yet had a chance to experience. As well as the peace of it, and the beautiful scenery, the trip was made even better as I was able to stand outside on the stern and chat to Dave the skipper who had a fantastic thick Welsh accent. I have always loved listening to how people speak and spend a fair amount of time trying to perfect my repertoire of accents and impressions. I’m pleased to say that my Welsh accent now sounds a lot more convincing.
The other main excursion we had booked for the weekend was a two-hour trek on horseback over the Brecon Mountains and through some more wonderful countryside. I must admit I was very apprehensive about this activity. Despite having been brought up on a sheep farm I must confess I’m not the worlds biggest fan of animals. Horses are particularity frightening to me because of their size and power. Lizi has been riding horses almost all her life so while I was worrying about whether I’d end up in hospital after falling off, I was also trying to be cool about it so as not to get the mickey taken too much.
Once I’d successfully mounted ‘Harry’ I felt slightly better about the situation, in fact as our long procession began to trot out of the stable yard I began to relax a bit. As we went through the first field I even felt the need to crack some gags about the lack of a clutch or brake. All was going well until we left the flat field and began to walk along a very narrow rocky path with a steep hill to our right and an almost sheer drop to our left. The most alarming thing is that when you are on the horse, it looks like the animals legs must be about to go over the edge because their body blocks your view of their hooves. I found this very unnerving and the banter quickly stopped.
I can reveal that I didn’t fall off, and while I’m not going to be buying a horse anytime soon I wouldn’t be against having another go sometime. Everyone we met was very friendly, we all had a fantastically fun and relaxing time and I’ll certainly return to Wales.
Whatever you are doing for your holiday this summer, whether that’s jetting off to the Caribbean, having a barbeque on one of Orkney’s beautiful beaches, or simply taking a week off work in August to attend the agricultural shows, I hope it’s a good one.
