Nakked

Spending a few days recuperating at a lovely, peaceful B&B in Barmouth, Wales. As soon as I finish this, I'll go for a walk to the harbour, now that it's stopped raining.

It's been an action-filled few days. After visiting my Grandma Jarvis's house in Cwmavon, I went to a mining museum and had a tour with a retired miner, then missed the bus and was offered a ride back to Swansea with the head ranger (the museum is on a forest reserve). Then I heard a choir practice by a Welsh men's choir and got another ride home with one of the singers. It was a great day, especially looking at the village and hills surrounding where my family had lived.

Yesterday, I took a train to Machynlleth (pronounced Ma-HUNT-lech, with some expelled spit) and a bus to the Center for Alternative Technology which is a very well-developed center for teaching about all things to do with wind, water and organics...worth a visit if you're in the neighbourhood;they have a train up a steep hillside, pwered by water weight. Then I hitched a ride back with a handsome young Welshman in his pickup truck... I've been doing well for rides!

Today, the tiredness has hit, partly because I've been fighting a sore throat... I REFUSE to be sick! Got some coarse seasalt from the Shrewsbury B&B... OH! Yes, Shrewsbury! Almost forgot... I stayed there for two nights between Swansea and Barmouth... The old Tudor houses and narrow cobbled streets, all intermingled with newer buildings and streets... are breath-taking! The old buildings lean into the streets, some even lean sideways with wobbly rooflines. I've taken so many photos, but the camera doesn't want to connect to the computer, and the little secondhand Netbook is pretty much useless.

During a chat with the owner of this B&B, I said how much I'd done and how tired I was. He said, So now you're nakked. I blinked. Pardon? Nakked, he said. It's an English expression, like what they do to horses. Oh I said, comprehending... knackered! Yes, I'm knackered!