Afterwards, in search of lunch we made our way to nearby Neath where we discovered the remains of Neath Castle in the Morrisons car park! Ahh, ruined castles are a dime a dozen here in Wales.
After our lunch which we ate in the car, we drove on to the yet more ruins, this time Neath Abbey which is very substantial and is undergoing renovation work. Unfortunately this means much of it is screened off by fences for safety which somewhat spoils the ambience and of course it is not seen at its best in the rain, but an impressive structure none the less.
By now the rain has set in and is steady so we head home to continue to enjoy our farmhouse retreat.
last day in Cardiff and despite the forecast the weather is party sunny, so we set off for a walk along the Taff trail towards Cardiff.
First stop is Llandaff Cathedral where the children's choir was practising for the morning service.
Pretty excited to get a photo with sunshine in it.
From there we walked along the river to the Castle, making some friends on the way.
Continued all the way to the Castle then went into town to have some lunch.
Completed the day by returning whence we had come, stopping for another paddle in the Taff along the way.
A little sad to be leaving our beautiful temporary home in St Fagans today, especially as the sun has managed to peep through the clouds.
Marion and Ralph arrive safely home from their holiday and we get the car packed up and bid them farewell to settle back into their home.
On todays agenda is meeting the hosts of our house sit in Warwick then on to an airbnb in Belper for a couple of nights near the Peak District.
We find our way easily enough to Warwick and receive a wonderful warm welcome from our hosts and their menagerie of pets. The house is an original barrel style lock keepers cottage (much extended now) and has a lock literally on its doorstep, in fact there is a narrowboat coming through the lock as we arrive.
We are fed cake and spend a couple of hours chatting and looking around. Aidan & Holly spend some quality time getting to now the gerbills and miniature hamster - yep, who knew something as small as a hamster could still manage to come in a miniature version?
After making arrangements for our return we bid them farewell and set off for our airbnb accommodation in Belper.
I always think it sounds slightly ominous the way the road signs all point to "The NORTH", as if they want you to consider whether this is somewhere you really want to go.
The rain has set in by now and it is a wet drive up the M6. Haven't set the sat nav back to toll free so we find ourselves stung by an unexpected 5.50 toll. Also caught out by our nav being 2 years old and not recognising the address of our house in what is a fairly new estate, but a quick phone call sorts us out and we arrive in good order with our pizza from Morrisons.
The house is all black and white, frills and bling. Feels very ritzty but will do us well for a couple of nights. Cook the pizza, enjoy the bottle of wine kindly left for us and let the kids watch some tv while cuddling the friendly neighbours cat. Pack them off to bed by 9pm (yes we are still struggling with the daylight at that time of night) in
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