North Wales (cont...)
Oct. 18th, 2007 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo We checked out house prices while we were bimbling around. I thought they'd be sky high and they're not. We could exchange our terrace house in Oldham for something similar in Holywell and not be out of pocket. Holywell is lovely and rural and highly desireable from that point of view but it's not within reasonable commuting distance of any hub of business or industry so the movers and shakers don't want to live there. The nearest big city is Liverpool and that's across water and in a different country.
Monday we set off along the coast for Conwy. As we were driving over the Great Orme the sun came out- ever so briefly.
The hotel on top of the Great Orme (see below) once belonged to the middleweight boxing champion Randolph Turpin and the bar is now a boozy shrine to his memory. His glory is that he once beat Sugar Ray Robinson and Robinson was the best there's ever been. Professional boxing is a filthy business and Turpin- like most great champs- was fifty percent fucked-up little shit and fifty percent victim. He beat his wife, stood trial for rape (he got off), was shystered out of his considerable fortune and committed suicide at the age of 37. It took two bullets- one to the head and one to the heart. There are- of course- those who say he was murdered.
Conwy is a medieval walled town. And the walls are complete. It's the Carcassone of the north. I'm in two minds about Conwy: one it's magnificent, two it's a symbol of Empire and oppression and the Welsh would be justified in bulldozing it to the ground.
While we were there two army transports flew in low over the bay.
Monday we set off along the coast for Conwy. As we were driving over the Great Orme the sun came out- ever so briefly.
The hotel on top of the Great Orme (see below) once belonged to the middleweight boxing champion Randolph Turpin and the bar is now a boozy shrine to his memory. His glory is that he once beat Sugar Ray Robinson and Robinson was the best there's ever been. Professional boxing is a filthy business and Turpin- like most great champs- was fifty percent fucked-up little shit and fifty percent victim. He beat his wife, stood trial for rape (he got off), was shystered out of his considerable fortune and committed suicide at the age of 37. It took two bullets- one to the head and one to the heart. There are- of course- those who say he was murdered.
Conwy is a medieval walled town. And the walls are complete. It's the Carcassone of the north. I'm in two minds about Conwy: one it's magnificent, two it's a symbol of Empire and oppression and the Welsh would be justified in bulldozing it to the ground.
While we were there two army transports flew in low over the bay.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 12:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 11:53 am (UTC)The new road across Anglesey, plus the improved Cardiff - Bangor rail service, plus the air service Cardiff to Valley, have all encouraged much bilding of new houses and restoration of buildings that have been derelict for thirty years.
I'm told that the demand has slowed for the winter, so this might be a good time for you to lok at this
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Date: 2007-10-18 01:52 pm (UTC)We're not really thinking of moving, just fantasising. We put the house on the market a couple of years back and I bottled out as the offers started coming in.
I like it here.
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Date: 2007-10-18 06:40 pm (UTC)Well, I've got a rather cramped spare room, and a sofa bed.
But why couldn't you live there?
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Date: 2007-10-18 07:22 pm (UTC)Why? Basically because I'm a stick in the mud. I don't want to move from where I am now. Also it's a roots thing. If I moved to the country it would have to be to some place I already feel a connection with- like East Kent or Sussex or maybe Somerset.
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Date: 2007-10-18 11:56 am (UTC)Esp as one of the motives for building it just there was to conceal the burial place of Llwellyn
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Date: 2007-10-18 01:58 pm (UTC)Edward I was a bastard.
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Date: 2007-10-18 03:38 pm (UTC)Edward I was a bastard
It takes a very special and nasty mind to do what he did at Conwy - build his castle on top of Llewellyn's grave.
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Date: 2007-10-18 01:30 pm (UTC)What magnificent walls! I´m aware of the reasons for bulldozing but I still think it would be a historical crime of sorts to do so. There aren´t many sights like that left in the world.
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Date: 2007-10-18 01:59 pm (UTC)It's an amazing castle- but horrible with it.
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Date: 2007-10-18 04:12 pm (UTC)Great piccies
V
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Date: 2007-10-18 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-20 12:12 pm (UTC)It's fun to know you two are traveling these days. I still tell my family about Tony and Ailz going to Spain by train over the mountains to see Picasso's exhibit. It sounds so exotic (she gushed).
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Date: 2007-10-21 10:39 am (UTC)I love to visit places like this, but after a few days I'm itching to get home.
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Date: 2007-10-25 08:56 pm (UTC)Very beatiful photos.
:)
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Date: 2007-10-26 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 09:06 am (UTC)