I picked up Matt from his home in Coleshill and we drove down towards Brecon on Thursday morning. I chose to stop to pick up electricity at Celtic Manor in Newport before heading north and entering the supercharger free area that is mid wales.
Celtic Manor the one time home of the Ryder Cup, reminds me of a corporate establishment designed without any soul by a bunch of Saudis, all flash and no life. However it’s a much nicer place to stop and have pee than your average motorway service area.
Our next stop, for lunch, was Raglan. Yes it has a castle but that’s its only redeeming feature. The place looks like time has forgotten its existence. There are two pubs in the village and we choose The Ship. Why a pub so far inland should be called The Ship nobody knew, except perhaps someone had left an anchor tied to the frontage.
We eat a half decent bit of pub grub and had a drink and then moved on. At that point we called Mark who travelled down with Ray. They had just left the other pub in Raglan. We followed them, 19 minutes behind.
Matt and I arrived in Brecon and found our hotel/BnB but couldn’t get in. There didn’t appear to be anyone around. Eventually we found an electrician working next door. He tried to help us but didn’t get anywhere. We thought we would walk into town and try again later. I then pressed the front door bell again and remarkably a woman’s voice answered. She apologised and said she had Covid and let us in. She told the electrician where to find our room key and we entered to find a large room with three beds, two singles and a double. I pointed out to Matt that I probably wouldn’t need to go the loo during the night so I should have the double bed on the mezzanine floor.
A little later Ian Chapman arrived. We all shook hands and spent a little time getting reacquainted with Chapman’s latest news and then headed off into town.
We spent the evening in the Brecon Tap in the middle of the town. The campers, Mark, Ray, Nick, Jon and Garry joined us in the bar and we ended up eating there. We had an ok meal and walked back to the hotel around 10 to go to bed.
