Wales

Quite unintentionally, I posted two stories from Wales this afternoon, which is rare for me. However, the Scottish news is drab by comparison - arguments about the extension of the Cairngorms National Park into Perthshire, the county to its south. I've visited Wales a few times in the 1980s, and used to know people there on the border with England near the town of Knighton. My abiding memory is of a beautiful if small place, with some stunning mountain scenery. I climbed Cadair Idris, a mountain in the west of the principality, in 1984.

Three years after that, I had an interminable train journey when travelling to Knighton on a round-UK train holiday. The last leg of the journey that day, which started in Salisbury, southern England, led me from Swansea in South Wales to Knighton, right through the heart of Wales. It took 3 hours on a small diesel train, which stopped at every post. A few months later, the same train ended up in a river when one of the bridges collapsed as a result of flooding.