Welcome in the Hillsides

By Diamond
November 8 2009

Now that memories of summer start to fade, its time for a few nostalgia pieces. Diamond very kindly wrote a retrospective of his week or so in Wales following Middlesex. Several of the usual MTWD travelling characters are there, as is the mandatory chat about travelling in Wales. Many thanks to Diamond for his evokative piece. Here is the first of two parts,

Transported.
 
With a heavy bag to get to the station my wife took pity on me and dropped me off at Ealing Broadway on her way to work, which was jolly nice of her. Having already booked most of my travel arrangements online I got “the stopper” up to Paddington to catch the 12.15 to Cardiff. I should be there well in time, it only being Tuesday!
 
Found my Reserved seat was with three other reserved tickets for the same journey, when the two young ladies who were travelling to Cardiff to give a talk to the Welsh Office of DEFRA decided there were spaces elsewhere in the carriage giving them room to work it gave the other two of us room to stretch out a bit, my travelling companion was only going as far as Bristol having spent the week in London with family.
 
A swift journey down to Cardiff for £17.50 avoiding the M4, bridge tolls and endless miles of traffic through numerous sets of road works saw me arrive bang to timetable. I have done this trip many times and knew exactly where to meet my Welsh contact David. Straight down the stairs to be greeted by four police officers and a sniffer dog, bit of a surprise to say the least! Then through the barrier passing another sniffer dog check. Welcome to Wales.  
 
Sticking to the Welsh custom of greeting all visitors with a drink he decided the journey must have been traumatic and we needed a pint, his journey or mine? I am still not sure. Swift couple in the big Wetherspoons near the Bus Station and then time to go “home”.
 
Cardiff is similar to London in many ways. It is a Capital City, it’s road system sucks and it is one big building site. Most of the Bus Station is out on Queen Street due to building works, good job I had a local guide with me.£1.50 single fare (tfl £2) got us way up into the valleys to his house. Settled into my accommodation and having met Tara the dog Dave was sitting for family we went out for a very nice pub dinner in the evening. Watched the Celtic v Arsenal match on the box and then headed for bed.
 
Bay Tour and P40 under lights.
 
Brunch to cover the food options for most of the day before setting off for the City Centre around 11am. A bus down from there to the Bay through the Commercial District where David used to work for Sun Alliance before retiring 12 years ago. We are on a mission, the hunt for Reverend James, assured there were pubs in the Bay that stocked it I was up for the start of the day. Got into the Bay to find no sign of the Reverend! Seems it is not popular ale with Cardiff’s elite. Ah well, few more pints of SA and then ease back onto the perfectly palatable normal bitter it is then.
 
Being due to meet a friend of David’s up by the castle we hopped on the Aqua bus at the Bay which dropped us off at Bute Gardens by the Castle walls. £3 fare and a different view of Cardiff Bay and the Millennium Stadium, what a structure that is, a truly amazing building.  Brought a sheep for my daughter and a couple of cards then went to meet our friend, you guessed it, in a pub at the bottom end of Cathedral Road. He was running late and in the rush to get up to the ground I managed to leave the sheep and cards in the pub, nothing at all to do with the amount of ale consumed thus far of course.
 
I had not been to Sophia Gardens since it was rebuilt. Sorry, the SWALEC Stadium, no Welshman calls it that and the street signs still give directions to Sophia Gardens so that was a bit of a poor marketing deal on some ones part! Within the restrictive layout of the ground (public right of way behind the Taff Stand and lack of elevation to build on) I thought they had done an excellent job of increasing the capacity. Personally I do not like the big “rugby stand” but bums on seats is what will pay for the stadium at the end of the day and they will get a few in there, even more when they double deck it.
 
Settled in the Members Area to watch the game, told David I thought we would get about 220, Compo,AC and the lads had different ideas on that posting 254 off our allotted overs .A beer in the members lounge at “half time” resulted in meeting up with Beefy Roberts and Kimmy, Beefy a dead give away in his blue and pink quartered top like myself. Both like me would be transferring to Swansea in the morning.

The floodlights were put on during the break, good, but not as good as ours at Lord’s. Superb bowling from Middlesex and a good performance from Tom Maynard were the highlights of the Glamorgan innings, the lowlight being Kruge’s performance, you thought some of our overseas imports were not popular, well they got nothing on this lad, I think they would hang draw and quarter him off the castle walls if they could get an act past the Welsh Assembly allowing it! A tidy stumping by Scottie to finish things off with a Middlesex win and it’s “home” time.

The walk back to the bus station being a long one it had to be broken by a beer in the “Spoons” opposite the old Arms Park. A word of warning folks, when using this pub the loos are on the third floor! Heaving with students celebrating their A level results it was also rather full even at the late hour we used it. Home for sandwiches and bed by bus (this time from the Bus Station). For a match report read the one that was done straight after the game [link below] for a more general view. Cardiff is a cracking City, great people and their cricket team ain’t to bad either.
 
 
Transferred to Swansea.
 
Few Footballers ever do this journey, it being a bit like Millwall to West Ham. Into town to the station for 10am, got a ticket for £7. Great price, not so great was the £13 in pound coins I got in change from a £20. The time it took me to fish my change out of the machine was the difference between catching the 10.04 and waiting for the 10.48, curses you pesky machine.
 
I thanked David for his hospitality and arranged to meet again this summer if he gets tickets for the Eng v Aus ODI (that will please the wives). Waited for my train and got a text from him asking if I got the train at 10.04? The reply was on the lines of “I love Cardiff so much I thought I’d stay another hour and look at the trains!!”
 
With the late finish to the P40 game the start at Swansea had been pushed back half an hour and the prospect of rain in the area meant I wasn’t too worried that I would miss much if any cricket. 30 miles between the two cities and the train takes nearly an hour to get there! Not the worlds fastest service but I think it goes round the houses a bit. Just to get past the Corus plant at Port Talbot takes 5 minutes though this is a massive place, huge mills and sheds everywhere.

Arrived in Swansea and walked to my seafront hotel to drop my bag before heading up the ground (Glam had already lost a wicket, so much for my weather forecasting!)