Life of a yummy baby ... and now there are 2!!!!!

Last year we'd been to the Gower in South Wales for new year and thought we could head up north to the Welsh mountains this time. The original last-minute plan was to take a ferry crossing to Dublin from Holyhead but we changed our course when we realised we haven't got our passports with us. Typical!! So we drove to the village of Betws-y-coed and decided we could go walking on Snowdon the next day weather permitting.

On the way we thought we'd stop at Llangollen to show Morgan a real steam train. The train was named 'minced pies special' which led me to wonder if minced pies were specially delivered on this train over Christmas.














Day 1
We stayed in the Churchhill hotel in the middle of town for the first night. It was a spacious private family suite with 2 separate bedrooms complete with attached shower rooms and all but was quite expensive too, about £75 a night full breakfast provided. As I was worried about leaving Morgan on his own in a strange room, I decided to put him in our room on a mattress next to our bed. That night was a nightmare. He went to bed late after 9pm, wasn't too happy to sleep, and kept waking up intermittently in the night screaming his head off. So I put him in our bed and still ... it wasn't any good because; we didn't get much sleep with him turning and tossing and he wasn't happier with the situation. By the time we all tried to get some sleep it was already 6am in the morning. Oh well!

Day 2
The weather wasn't great - it was misty and quite cold but we were well-equipped. After a big breakfast, we went up to Snowdon to do some serious walking.

About to trek up Snowdon - which is in the background in the clouds.














Stumbling on the hill sideways ... and just checking that we are still uhmm ... on the map I hope?










Going along a precarious stone bridge. I was told some of the stones around here were from pre-historic times which means that no fossil was found on the stones here.










Signs of past civillisation ....



















Our walk ended around 4pm with a sleeping baby on daddy's backpack. We only made it halfway up Snowdon but had to trek down quickly before it got too dark.





On this night we stayed in a youth hostel next to the Swallow Hotel, 4 miles outside Betws-y-coed. We managed to get a 6-bed-sharing accommodation but rented the whole room to ourselves at half the price of what cost us last night. As it was also self-catering, we found ourselves amidst families with children of varying ages which was really nice for Morgan as he was happily mingling with the other children in the common room. The best bit was he had no trouble at all getting into bed that night. He went down in one of the bunker beds that daddy prepared for him, and slept like an angel for the rest of the night. Probably all that fresh air from the walk had properly tired him out!

Day 3 (new year's eve)

Lewis would have liked to carry on trekking around Snowdon 3 times if not for the bad weather, phew! I wouldn't mind a bit of adventure but I would much prefer to drive along to our next adventure. So we headed for an unplanned visit to Uncle Hywel further north towards Conwy. Uncle Hywel is Lewis's mum's cousin and a retired headmaster who lives in a big house overlooking the Conwy Valley. According to his daughters Anna Jane and Mair who were house-sitting at the time, he had gone skiing with his grandchildren in Switzerland but without insurance. I was well impressed by Uncle Hywel's great sense of adventure at 77!











By Conwy Bay and a walk along the castle walls surrounding the pretty town of Conwy....













The front view from the house ... and Morgan at the breakfast table ....











and I was really excited when I spotted some real retro gems including a red chic coffee-grinder and some really cool toy trucks from the 50s.




Those trucks kept Morgan entertained for hours!!!