We waited a while in the unusually seedy cafe on the track, finding an empty couch by chance, but after a while, I went downstairs to the main corridor where there were a few shops of the usual sort...a small M&S, a Costa...and walked while the notice board pushed our train time farther and farther out.
Darkness was closing in. We were due at our Airbnb, but as it was fitted with a key-box, no one would be inconvenienced awaiting us. It would just be good to get there and settle in after the long day's journey.
I was looking very much forward to Cardiff, at first hoping to get to the north of the country but realizing that time didn't permit it this time. Cardiff, however, a port city with plenty of places to explore, would also bring me to meet Alastair, my uncle's nephew, whose path I had never crossed as we were growing up or later traveling.
Finally to Cardiff, we grabbed a taxi outside the station, as we didn't know the city well enough to walk...we were tired, too, and the rain coming down hard by then, and the unlit dark, prevented us mapping it. The driver, however, didn't seem to have memorized the streets of Cardiff, and only Denise's phone's intervention eventually got us where we needed to be. Hidden between a tiny cul de sac and one of the small closed canals (called docks or basins) that lead by paths to the port on Cardiff Bay, the two-story apartment seemed quiet, though strangely unready for guests. True, home-store style signage everywhere welcomed us, invited our remarks and congratulations, pointed to cabinetry, and explained the digital heating system (a challenge even for our diverse experiences...heat going off at odd hours, etc.), but cupboards were full to the brim with the owners' foods and supplies. Are they new at this? we wondered. How did others before us manage? We unpacked our dinner, some hot food we picked up at M & S in the Cardiff Central station, much more welcoming than the one at Bristol, and with some wine the owner(s) had left us, settled in. At least the beds were comfortable, though undressing I had to drape my clothes over the television which overtook the dresser top and over my suitcase to avoid wrinkles...there wasn't a speck of room in the closets, chocked with the owner's things.
After a confused first night, morning bloomed cheery over the basin, where white swans dunked for food and a blue heron perched on a fountain in the yard next door. People emerged from the surrounding houses with coffee cups and packs to work or school, families gathered on doorsteps and dispersed, and I couldn't wait to begin exploring. The narrow table in the bow window downstairs was a perfect place to have early tea and watch Cardiff open. I was greatly looking forward to this day, Sunday, when Alastair and Jayne would meet us, he had written, and tour us around a bit, as they both worked the other days of the week, he in a tech office and she in a music school she and her sister run...long hours for both.
Here are my journal notes from our first day in South Wales:
Alastair and Jayne came about 10 to drive us around Cardiff...we should first see, they said, a round of the central city, from the Bay just below us to the park near the University of South Wales and the Museum where they were busy setting up the Christmas carnival. We stopped there and walked a bit in the welcome sun. Cardiff on a pretty Sunday is lively and full of walkers, bikers and children. We found one of their favorite cafes and stopped for cups of tea, coffee, and a snack (I had a seed bar with dates, perfect).
We sat awhile, talking, catching up, trading stories and opinions, then found the car again, meaning to drive to St. Fagan's historic site, which was a preserved farm and town that was a favorite spot for such a nice day.
Jayne wasn't feeling her best, but insisted on accompanying us...in fact she was our driver, as she said she felt better doing so. The colors of leaves, the scent of flowers, and the warmer air followed us to an entirely erroneous route out into the countryside where sheep farms along narrow and narrower paths (one couldn't quite call them roads with the correct connotation), some still flooded with yesterday's rains, which made an adventure through the beautiful Welsh countryside, an adventure which, for us tourists, was worth every mistaken mile...we'd never have seen such bounty outside Cardiff otherwise. Even Jayne, who is native to Cardiff, hadn't seen parts of it!
Hero of the day, she drove on til the GPS told us we'd arrived. At this juncture of two even smaller paths, nothing but hedgerows to define it, however, St Fagans was nowhere in sight.
Fifteen miles later, after backtracking a bit, then traveling through St. Donat's, the storytelling capitol, many more tiny paths led us to the site and we had a fine afternoon--Jayne recovered a bit to good humor and smiles, or the bravery of them, as we walked through the old village farm, stores, houses, barns, sheds, following children as they ran here and there. (Would they find it so wonderful if they lived in such a place at such a time, I wondered? Who is there to ask, except Jayne?)
For grown-ups, St. Fagan's village brought memories of toasting bread on fires and sewing on slim machine as they came along in the graduated years of the houses on the Terrace alley. On the way out, I stopped for as long as I could at an exhibit in the front hall called "Anchor People", sponsored by the University to record voices of people whose skills and leadership had pulled together communities in difficult times. Tall photoboards of standing folk, all sorts in all sorts of array and poses and expressions, looked mostly straight at you as the recorded voices, heard through headphones, spoke their piece. So well coordinated and arranged, it was a statement part sociological, part historical, part artistic that made you want to listen, to watch, to learn what strengths and trials ordinary people in Welsh towns counted.
Admiring the Welsh handcrafts in the gift shop window, I listened while Jayne pointed out the Welsh gold, rare now, and mentioned that her mother's wedding ring had been made of it. What a story she has...
Growing up not far from St. Fagan's, her mother blind and with five children under 7, their house burning, Jayne was called on to fetch her baby brother from the upstairs and come downstairs through the smoke. "Count the stairs, Jayne," her mother called to her and they were all got out. They never went back to that house again. They moved nearer their grandmother, so that each could be a help to the other.
The music school Jayne runs with her sister clearly inherits that resilience. They work at it from 8-8 each day, and Jayne also teaches in the school and helps with church music. You can tell their investment in it is heart and emotion first. She talks about her students not only as musicians but as children with potential for a good life...the multicultural lot of them from the polite, diligent Japanese to the militant, physical drive of the Chinese, and other Welsh from poorer backgrounds whose music lessons are an opening into a wider view of the possibilities...there are older students (and their parents) who come in to help the younger ones with piano, violin and school work, often influencing them to go on to university (sometimes to the wary surprise of their families who might not have figured that). Many, surprisingly, go into the medical field. We speculated why...the math? the practice? the hand work? At the end of the day, Jayne drove us by her studio, a first floor over a dentist who owns the building. There is a large waiting room, she said, with two pianos, then a hall with a kitchen and bathroom nearby, a few more teaching and practicing rooms...all of which she is justifiably proud of.
She and Alastair met when he taught the Alexander technique, not far from the cheerful pub we ended up in that night, one of their favorites, where good food and drink after a long day gave us a respite from the returning rain. Talking and talking (and why not? among people who are passionate and concerned about the world and slowly getting to know one another), the theme continues. I hadn't known or remembered that Alastair was a nurse, to begin with, but eventually left because administration, the only way to increase one's advantage in the field, didn't appeal to him. His job now, as a software developer, seems to suit him...he likes the puzzles of getting out quirks and kinks in the programs they do, which much enhances, I'd think, the company's reputation. [And sure enough, just before the holidays, comes a photo from his proud mother of Alastair and a colleague being recognized for their work!]
A good day, a treasure of the trip to Wales.
The following few days had us exploring the port and riding on the water to get a sense of the city from its sea borders, visiting the Senned, Wales' parliament (see photos below), and the small castle (the house there was so much more interesting to me) and its grounds.
One day we explored the museum where the folk art and beautiful Welsh crafts especially attracted me,
and later took in a concert at the famed music school, at the edge of one of the most beautiful and natural parks I'd seen (and, believe me, I've seen quite a few)...
One morning I got up early and, at the suggestion of one of the Parliament agents, attended a committee meeting held to inform and question its Parliament member on children's rights, particularly as it referred to their health. I couldn't take photos of them, but they had no qualms about letting me listen to their spirited and quite focused debate, the Parliament member getting quite a drilling. I was proud of them for unearthing all kinds of World Health Organization rules being obtusely ignored by the Senned in regard to children's care. It was clear that they brought their case well-researched and sent their member back (not without some shame, it seemed) to right matters.
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