Ogmore By Sea - our local beach

Summer finally arrived on the weekend so we went to the beach at Ogmore by Sea - about 10km from Bridgend. It was about 22 degrees and the locals were stripped down to their togs and swimming in the ice cold sea!! The coastline nearby is really scenic but windy and cold even on a summer day! We walked along the beach and had ice cream but no sunbaking or swimming for us!

Royal Welsh Show

Last week we went to the Royal Welsh show, it's held in Builth Wells, a rural town about 1.5 hrs north of us. It is considered the largest agricultural show in Europe. There we no rides or showbags, it was very rural and we had a great day. There were thousands of trade stands selling anything rural from clothing to tractors, including RM Williams boots! It was really muddy, wellies had to be worn and the arena looks brown as it was a mud pit. The photo below is of a sheepdog working ducks!

Hunts parading

Murray Grey Cattle! We were suprised to see this breed (developed in Australia)

Show ponies.

Snowdonia

This was our second trip to Snowdonia national park in north wales. We took my brother who was visiting for the weekend. It rained all weekend so most of our time was spent in the car! here are a few photos of the scenery. The waterfalls below are called Swallow falls, you have to pay 1 pound to see them! quite spectacular after all the rain in the previous days.

UK Summer

RAIN, RAIN AND MORE RAIN! This picture was taken last weekend during the floods in England, we were driving back from North Wales and had many road closures to contend with. The water was quite deep in parts on this road. It has rained most days for the past month and we are dying for some sunshine!

Exmoor & Devon

Exmoor & Devon

Last weekend we went to Nth Devon and the Exmoor National Park.
We finally had some sunshine after 2-3 weeks of rain.
This photo is taken on the hill above Porlock, a small town where we stayed.
Nth Devon coastline

Town of Lynmouth, really cute village, very touristy. We had lunch, caught a train carriage thing up a mountain which is powered by water.

Exmoor Ponies

Exmoor Ponies - we saw a few groups of wild Emoor ponies on the moors. Very exciting for me as I have heard about these since I read horse books as a little girl. They are wild but do have brands so I guess they are monitored or cared for to some extent. The pony lying down was a young foal - sleeping in the sun. They certainly seemed used to people but I didn't go up close to them.