Beat me on the bottom with a rolled up newspaper!

Yes, I'm a slacker!!! I haven't made posts for days. I do have some reasons for not posting, other than just being a lazy bint... For the last week we have had a friend, Pete, from Oz staying with us as well as Jon's Dad and girlfriend and a few other passing friends popping in last weekend for a few days. Due to this we have been out and about showing people the joys of Wales, and to be honest writing a blog article was the last thing on my mind.

We've been all over the place. This is Henrhyd Falls. The little person on the rock behind the falls is my fabby sister Cath. There wasn't all that much water coming over the falls on the day we visited, but it was still fun rock hopping and walking behind the water. Later that day we went further up the valley and swam in the river. It was ice cold. Getting out of the water and standing in the wind, that before you got in felt cold, was like stepping into a pleasantly heated room on a cold day. The water was freezing and made you feel glad to be alive!

This was the day that we learned that you should not stand behind cows at the Dan-y-ogof caves. There was a sign just past this gate that told you lots of do's and don't as far as the animals were concerned... but nowhere did it say I couldn't put a emu into the boot of our car..... Oddly they had emus running around in the pen with the sheep, goats and cows. Who knew emus were native to Wales? hehehe.

On another day we took everyone on a bit of a hike around our village. Here is Jon stopping to pose for a photo on our walk up to the Elephant rock. He was practising just in case he gets called upon to stand in for a catalogue photo shoot, hehehe. It's a steep trek up to the stones so the break to laugh at him posing was most welcome.

This is me sitting on the Elephant Rock in the sunshine. We walked over to the river Tawe after we had admired the view and caught our breath at the top.

This is a photo of one of the small water falls on the river. It really is lovely by the river with the dappled light coming through the trees, and the sound of the water rushing by...

as this calmer stretch of the river shows. It's green and enclosed and away from the rest of the world. It's a place I love to be. It re-energizes me just being there. We are so lucky to have all of this on our doorstep.

As Pete had never really seen a Welsh castle before we combined going to visit the beach with a trip to Weobley Castle. The Castle is more like a show of money rather than a big kick ass castle that would keep out a marauding army. I should imagine it looked pretty impressive to the local people at the time, who were living in houses built of mud and sticks.

Being as Oxwich Bay is just around the coast of the Gower from Weobley, it would be rude not to go and wiggle our toes in the sand and climb the dunes, so we did.

Jon also decided he should try and hug my head off on the beach... I'm not sure why, but it was fun!

All in all it's been a fun, exciting and exhausting week. Yippee for antipodeans coming to stay and bringing lots of joy and laughter with them.
(most of the photos here were taken by Pete)