Worries

Today started off with much anxiety with the news that Dad is in hospital with a chest infection. All along this has been my biggest fear about being away for 9 weeks. But my wonderful children and Margaret and her family have been great and have swung into action to make sure he is receiving good care and lots of visitors.

We took off around lunch time and called in first to buy a wedding present and to have some lunch at Charlie's at Welshpool. This place is a great place to shop as it sells everything from hardware, farm goods, food, homeward and crafts plus lots more. They also have a cafe where we had lunch.

After this we travelled to see an old church called St Mellangell at Pennant Melangell near the village of Llangynog, Powys, Wales. There has been a church on this site for 1200 years and the present church is 800 years old.

It houses the restored shrine of Saint Melangell reputed to be the oldest Romanesque shrine in Great Britain. The church is set in a circular churchyard possibly once a bronze aged burial site. The grounds are ringed by yew trees some of which have been dated as 2000 years old. In the reformation they were given 8 days to dismantle the shrine. Very cleverly the people dismantled it carefully and built it into other parts of he church. When the church was later restored the pieces were removed and rebuilt as it was.

When the church was restored the grave of St Mellangell was discovered.

On the way home we wanted to walk along a part of Offas Dyke. Easy to say but my goodness where to find it! We consulted Patrick maps.

Using both this map and the ipad sat nav we finally found what we thought was a portion of it. We took off down the walking path across a farmyard. We went past a very large enclosure with big metal food bowls and an open door. As I walked I hoped we wouldn't meet the occupants. But then came a noise that sounded like the hounds of the baskervilles and turning around there were 3 huge black dogs tearing towards us. We stood really still and tried to stare them down. Immediately they were licking and jumping and wanting pats so all was well.

We think we found a portion of the dyke and walked for a while but it was pretty unimpressive so we left for home

Another lovely meal from Eddie and time to have another family night around the fire. Anxiously awaiting news of Dad.