Birthday Boy Tour

Day 1

So it's a million degrees and we've decided to head to South Wales for a little Birthday Tour. Heading down the East and riding The Marches - It started off beautifully, with temperature at about 21 degrees. Lovely riding all the way down to Craven Arms for a short breaky stop - obviously had to have a full Welsh breakfast at our favourite café in Craven Arms.

Now the fun started in the heat. We walked out of the air conditioned café into the furness!!! It was fine riding but the moment we stopped we just started to drip!!

Originally we were going to ride to Chepstow and up and over the Brecon Beacons - abandoned that in Monmouth!! Turned west to get to the hotel and cut off an additional hour and a halve riding in the blistering heat!
Arrived thank the Lord, had a few beers, went for a well deserved shower and down for dinner. Sat in the shade for a pre-dinner drink. You could see the shimmer of the heat radiating off the mountains and smell the pollen in the air form the dust that arose from the arid land.

In the shade it was very relaxing, but even going to the bar for another drink was a trauma for the 15 yards we were in the sun.
We must recall checking how old we all look and P looks in his late 40's to 50's according to Chat GPT, T looks in his late 60's to 70's (That didn't go down too well at the time, so apologies for that T)
The food was pretty good, despite the shananikins with the wine -Minuty was on the menu and recommended by the Chef, but where was it....nowhere to be seen, that's where it was!!!! We also had the world's clumsiest water - can't remember his name, but he was a joy to behold! He dropped knives, forks, couldn't get the wine order correct; he was a disaster, but it was his 3rd shift ever and was just learning. Throughout it all he kept his clam and we did give him credit to his boss!
Starters - gone!!!!
Mains - Gone - well they did after this picture was taken!!!! Sure P&C had dessert, but can't recall (it's now the 3rd August and I'm only just writing this up - that's a bit shabby really as i normally blog the very next day.) Must have been very busy or something, anyway here it is now.
Not sure Mrs C enjoyed her pie though, from memory, she left all the pastry, but ate all the filling.
More evening sunshine, before we hit the hottest rooms for a nights' sleep ever!!!! They definitely need to invest in air conditioning me thinks!

That red sky at night is reminding us that we're going to be boiling our socks off again tomorrow. The forecast is HOT HOT HOT!!!!!!!

Day 2

A great breakfast to start the day off. Full Welsh obvs....
Then a very long day riding to Aberaeron, Aberdovey, Tywyn, Barmouth, Harlech, stopping for a pint before turning to ride the Crimea pass down to Betws and home through Nant-y-garth. That was a proper days' ride!
Sproglet out on a ride with Steff as well! Riding around Anglesey somewhere - It's brilliant that the mini dude loves to go out on the bike!


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