I'm back from the land of y Ddraig Goch...

[One, Two, Middlesboogie]

... a day early and not a moment too soon! I tell you, there's nothing like a week in a damp, draughty 17th Century gatehouse in the middle of nowhere to make you realise how much cool stuff you have in your house and how many places worth visiting you have in your area. I can honestly say that that was the least enjoyable holiday I've ever been on, and that includes the one in Eastbourne in which we stayed in a bungalow that faced a car park, backed onto a building site, was being steadily taken over by Japanese Knotweed and had a smelly loo. At least Eastbourne has stuff to do.

I've always been proud of my British mongrelity, and the fact that even though I'm English I have very little English blood in me... but now I say Nuts to Wales, England rules! And while we're at it, vive la France! (that's where we normally go for our holidays... it may not be an original idea, but it's a damn sight cheaper and has better... well, everything, really).

[Gluk Schmuck]

Yay! You're back! Wheee!

[One, Two, Middlesboogie]

Oh wait, there was one really funny moment....

Diana (my mother) cooked bacon for us on our first night there, and she emptied all the fat into a coffee mug, and she forgot to later dispose of it. The next morning, Chris (my dad) came downstairs, half-asleep, to make his and Diana's customary morning mugs of coffee. Without noticing, he poured his coffee into the mug half-full of bacon fat! (he must've been pretty dozy that morning if he didn't notice that the coffee granules were halfway up the mug and that it took much less water than usual to fill it up).

Chris then took both mugs into his and Diana's bedroom. I'm sure you can guess what happened next... he shouted 'F*CKING HELL!', gobbed the coffee back into the mug, and ran into the bathrom to wash his mouth out, making 'bleagh!' noises like a cat gobbing up a hairball. We laughed like loons on loon tablets and mocked him for the rest of the day, and always said 'pig fat' instead of 'coffee'.

[Wil]

...but now I say Nuts to Wales...

You'll notice I wished you good luck in your farewell post.

Yes, Wales does have a certain aura about it, though that may just be the rain. And the fog. The precipitation there is too thick to be able to see the sheep from any distance far enough to make them seem picturesque. Snowdonia (seems to be the only pronouncable place-name in Wales) is not ironically named.

I'd say 'you're probably glad to be back', but I know what it's like to get far, far away from the place.

[One, Two, Middlesboogie]

I did notice that, yes. We were going to visit Port Merion but we never got round to it.

Speaking of the sheep, they're everywhere! They're allowed to roam wherever they like and nobody minds. They seem to be completely unafraid of trains and cars too.

We took a steam train up Snowdonia, and it was f*cking freezing! It was all foggy and lashing down with rain... we could not see shit! And there's nowt up there but a grockly gift shop and a naff caff.

Some more funny things:
- At Beamaris casle (which was actually quite nice... there were some friendly baby ducks there), Diana dropped her guidebook in the moat. She fished it out and kept it... she's actually quite proud of the fact that she's got one that fell in the castle moat!
- In the castle grounds, Oli (my bro) found a worm, and Chris said 'how do you tell which end of a worm is which? Dip it in a bucket of flour and wait 'til it farts'. Tom (my other bro, not Tom the Gluk) and I laughed our socks off at that one.
- Yesterday, Chris, Tom and I went for a walk in the local hills. I trod in a huge pile of cow crap and was mocked for the rest of the day. What made it worse was that I trod in it on purpose, thinking it was a stone! I still haven't got round to cleaning my shoes; I think I'll just bin them.

[Gluk Schmuck]

Originally posted by One, Two, Middlesboogie
We were going to visit Port Merion but we never got round to it.

You should have gone there, it was a very pretty place. It had a clean beach too.

[Danny]

Am I once again to be the only person in the room to stand up for Wales? So be it...

I think Wales is a lovely place. My family went there four years in a row, and rented the same house in Pwhlelli(sp). It didn't rain once. The beaches in Wales are gorgeous white-sand ones (not like the manky brown North Sea beaches or the nasty pebbly Channel beaches), and the sea is warm and very nice to swim in. The people there are very friendly, and mostly speak at least passable English, so you can get by.

And the Welsh Language, if you ever actually hear it spoken, is a very beautiful and melodic one. No, it's true - it's just the place names that are impossible to pronounce without half a pint of phlegm in your throat... I reckon they only made them like that to drive away tourists...

Tourist #1: So where shall we go this year?

Tourist #2: Let's go to Plachhtigradshtipo-

Tourist #3: F*ck it, let's just go to York instead...

Which is why we end up with so many tourists here in York...

EDIT:

Tom laughed our socks off at that one.

[Wil]

No, Wales's geography, population and language are all excellent. It's just their meteorology and nomenclature that are bad.

Tom laughed our socks off at that one.

Tell Tom he should only wear his own socks.