There has been a short break in the blog posts on thegreenerdream. This is due to our recent holiday, visiting family in England and camping in Wales. We travelled on the ferry from Rosslare in the south of Ireland to Pembroke in Wales. As we want to be as green as possible we chose not to fly off to some far away country for our holidays, but to combine family visits with a few days of camping and visiting friends.
On the first few days we visited family in Gosport in England and had an opportunity to go see the ancient yew trees at the Kingly Vale nature reserve. No one quite knows how old these trees are but they are thought to be several thousand years. It is a very special feeling walking amongst these giants with their steady presence, and imagine all that they have seen come to pass.
Most of them would already have been old when the Vikings landed on the shores of England. Some of them are hollow inside. Around the ancient yews at the bottom of the valley there are thousands of younger yew trees growing all up the slopes towards the top of the hills.
We walked up to the top and admired the beautiful views and the large ancient burial mounds. These mounds are the reason behind the place name; The Kingly Vale.
After a couple of days we moved onto visiting more family in Westbury, and had a lovely walk up on the hill by the white horse. The origin of the White Horse of Westbury is obscure. There is proof that it has been carved into the chalk hillside as early as 1742. No one quite knows how long it might have been there before that. It was latest restored in 2012.
After a lovely time in Westbury we drove back to Wales for a few days of camping and visiting friends. The weather was lovely and warm and apart from a stone that got stuck in the brakes and wore out one brake-pad, there were no great mishaps and we all got to see friends we had not met for a few years. Our van spent a day in the garage and we went for a beautiful walk along the river in Cwmtwrch. There we saw a very old limestone kiln and mine, and a couple of brave members of the family went for a dip in the very cold river.
When our car was repaired we got to spend a couple of magical days with friends, having a sauna, sitting around the campfire, eating lovely food and enjoying the beautiful wild countryside before it was time to head for the ferry and the journey back across Ireland. It is great to be home again, and we can’t wait to get back into the work on the conservatory and the relatively overgrown garden. Next time we hope our friends and family will come visit us instead.
thegreenerdream 
What a fantastic holiday. Your photos are lovely. Welcome back home!
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