In the morning, I fixed myself a cup of tea and woke up slowly. Breakfast was fresh fruit and cereal. Wynford's daughter appeared, waking late after a costume party where the theme was the Flintstones - how fun! Wynford and I said goodbye to her and headed off by car through the surrounding Rhondda Valley.

There were terraced houses everywhere; the doors and window frames were a multitude of colors, all stacked neatly in rows. We talked about the different terms for housing like townhouses, shop houses, etc. In America we say duplex for what they call a semi-detached house in Wales.

The area used to be a boom for coal mining. But the nationalized mines have all closed and only a few small private mines remain in operation. Instead of pit mines which go straight down in the ground and are costly, these are drift mines which go into a mountain horizontally and at a slight downward incline.

Mines made me think of canaries, used to detect harmful gases. A team of miners would have a canary in a cage with them. If the canary died then they knew they had to get out fast. I imagined someone in these towns had to breed canaries. I wondered if they got attached to them, hoping each time they were carried into a mine there would be no gases and they would live another day.

We stopped in Treochy for Welsh cakes and frothee coffee. The cakes are between a pancake and a scone, full of raisins. There was a candy counter and a got a few items for my return to Cambodia: chocolate bars with orange, Turkish delights and licorice. The diner, Carpanini's Cafe, still had original 50's/60's décor.

From there we drove through the Brecon Beacon Mountains. They were steep and mostly green except for the Tussock grass, so named because the naturally occurring tufts (little mounds) are tussocks. Grass covered entire hillsides and meadows which are the moorlands.

Welsh mountain sheep were grazing all around and the most amazing thing was that they had tails! In all my years I had never seen a sheep with a tail. They were scraggly, too, as they started to shed their winter wool. The price of wool is currently too low to cover the expense of shearing it.

We found a turnout where we could park and walk up the hillside to get a close picture of a sheep-with-tail. Wynford pointed out that in the distance was the land where the Price family name comes from. That is my grandfather's family name. The mist was so thick that it was like drizzling rain, but I kept dry inside my Scottish coat from Chris at the B&B.

As we were walking back to the car, a rancher pulled up with a truck and let his sheep herd out of the back into the hills for grazing. They all had blue spray paint on them. Wynford and I speculated if it was to designate they had received their "doses" (veterinary shots of medicine) or just a new way to brand. Sheep dogs chased them this way and that, up to higher ground. It was fun to watch.

Getting closer to Cardiff, we passed Garth. The folk story about this place was made into a movie with Hugh Grant, The Man Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. It is quite good and basically recalls the surveyors who were mapping Wales and it was their instruments which determined the elevation of a place, and subsequently the designation of either "hill" or " mountain." The town below Garth was not about to let their mountain be called a hill, and through the bickering, the townspeople unite and find a way to make sure they get proper recognition for their mountain.

Nearby there was a view where I could see the Bristol Channel and England on the other side. We drove through Merthyr Tydfil, once holding the title of number one steel production in the world. It was also the home of Osmond family ancestry (yes, as in Donnie & Marie).

Our next stop was a little restaurant called Snails. Thankfully, snails is not what I ate! I had real Welsh Rarebit. A wonderfully simple and delicious dish of toast with cheese and onions melted all over the top. My mother-in-law Joan would put a slice of cheese and a slice of tomato on bread and toast it. She grew up calling this a Welsh Rabbit and taught me to love them. I can tell you she didn't have to twist my arm. But it was special being in Wales eating the real thing.

Wynford said I "had to see St. Fagan's Museum." He had some business calls to make, so I wandered the grounds on my own. This amazing place has taken real buildings from all over Wales and reconstructed them throughout a garden making up the "museum." Placards in front of each place show a photograph of the building in it's original location, a timeline of ownership from when it was first built to when it arrived at the museum, and a story about it's significance, both as an individual structure and its architecture relating to Wales as a whole.

I was so glad to see the simple way of life from years gone by. There was even a Celtic village from the time of the Picts some 2000 years ago. A docent named Hywel was there and explained that archaeologists only had the foundations of the round huts but they tried building huts over and over again until they came up with the best possibility for what the villages would have looked like.

There was another docent at a cottage who was happy to share his knowledge of lime and how the material for the outer layer of mud walls was made by firing the limestone rock to make it brittle and then pounding it into power to mix into the whitewash for both interior and exterior walls. It was almost like a thin cement, similar to the stucco we use now.

Next in our itinerary was to meet Betty. She works with Wynford at Green Bay Media. When they were preparing to come to Cambodia to shoot a TV production about MP Ann Clywd, I was in constant contact with Betty for details to arrange the production management in country. We all shared a drink at the local pub as rugby fans geared up for a momentous game and teens fresh out of school celebrated the beginning of their break.

Back at the house, Wynford's son was shooting water balloons with a slingshot that took three people to work! I had never seen such a thing and asked them to demonstrate for me while I snapped a photo. I couldn't believe it shot down the street past at least 5 houses.

Then Wynford and I went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. There was nan bread and a selection of dips including eggplant. We ordered a chicken curry dish with rice for the main course. It was a hot spot for the neighborhood and it was packed. Of course it was no wonder because the food was delicious.

Back at home we checked the Internet for the train schedule and fares. We sat and watched the news and then the popular late night talk show with host Jonathan Ross, which only airs every Friday. I was falling asleep so when it finished I crawled into bed, warm with another hot water bottle and slept until morning.

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Mariam Arthur
CEO
Kmy Films
+855 (0)12 54 30 74
http://www.kmyfilms.com/
http://www.filmcambodia.org/