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Wednesday 6/27

Tony Blair resigned amidst ongoing police investigation into allegations that he was complicit in a campaign finance scandal in which it is alleged that 10 Downing Street ’sold’ seats in the House of Lords to high-value party donors.  Gordon Brown succeeded him.

On this misty day, we toured Snowdonia National Park by double-decker bus, following the Llangollen River. We stopped by the river and walked over a bridge, along the river to see the local railway station where a 1937 train was loading.

Later we stopped at BetwsyCoed for lunch in town.  After eating at a bakery with Mike and Mary, we crossed a stone bridge and birded upstream partly along a boardwalk, seeing many birds but no new species. 

 We continued past Swallow Falls, where we saw only the water flowing to the top, proceeding over the top of the mountain range, along the Nantygwryd River viewing wonderful panoramas of valleys, sheep, and rock walls.  When we stopped to view a mountain lake with hikers on the other side of the road, a fighter plane flew low right past us,  twisting through the narrow valley and giving everyone quite a thrill.

We completed our circuit back to Chester by driving along the Irish Sea from near Bangor to Conwy, where we toured Conwy Castle on the Conwy River, dating to 1283-7and built by King Edward-I as one of a series of castles on river crossings to isolate the Welsh people in the mountains where they eventually gave up.  An innovation at Caernarfon and Conwy was that instead of a separate castle standing on a high point with the settlement spread out around it, the castle walls enclose the entire medieval town. The reason for the strong defensive walls becomes clear when you consider that Edward not only imported builders, he imported a whole population of English settlers. These new settlers were carefully protected from the local Welsh population by the castle and town walls.  This castle costs the king an entire year’s income.  Edward was forced to grant concessions in exchange for the money he needed, and during his reign Parliament gained considerable power and influence.  Bird watching from the castle produced Shelduck, cormorant, and oystercatcher.

The double-decker bus and driver were not nearly as good as our regular coach and Stefan. The day was rainy, though it seemed to stop raining whenever we stopped to get out. The bus leaked. Marla was sitting under a roof leak. The windows rattled loudly. When we drove into the street in front of the chapel where we performed that night, the driver misjudged the height of a tree and dragged the left edge of the roof (already leaking) along a branch so that it was now significantly dented, the dents visible from the inside. Marla moved to a different seat.

Wednesday night we had our second concert at Selio Chapel, Llandudno Wales, where church women provided sandwiches.  The Battle Hymn of the Republic was well received. We were followed by the Cor Meibion Colwyn male voice choir, who were excellent. We traded CDs.  The concert had been well organized (Robin said on TV), and I counted 150 in the audience.   Mike arranged our basses on the steps to the pulpit where we could see him well, and we did much better keeping rhythm. We arrived back at the Ramada Inn ~12PM and slept late the next morning.