Murky

We met the newlyweds for lunch today, and had another enjoyable debriefing session, before heading off to Raglan Castle. I quite like a ruined castle, though they are a bit samey, and I suspect that they may all have been designed by the same person. Raglan has a tower that you can climb, if you’re a masochist, or - like me - feel that you still need to pay sentimental homage to family holidays that were judged unsatisfactory unless at least one vertiginous structure had been scaled. (The Offspring did the bell tower in Bruges twice in four days, the memory of which nearly made me faint with retrospective terror when I later saw the film In Bruges.) 

Anyway, R and I did our parental duty and climbed the tower; my brain, which doesn’t currently trust the information it’s getting from my feet, took serious exception to this and tried to make me sit down, so I distracted it by letting go of the hand rail and taking some photos, while concentrating quite hard on not whiffling. When you can see it properly, Monmouthshire is almost indescribably beautiful, but even in today’s murky light it has the kind of scenery that lifts the heart.

Back at our holiday place, we were preparing for a zonkers evening of sofa and TV, when the Bride messaged and invited us out to a party - so we went, and had a really good time with G’s lovely family. We often describe ourselves as unsociable, but over the past week we’ve thoroughly enjoyed socialising with the newlyweds’ friends and with our new “outlaws”. It’s probably a good thing we’re going home on Friday, though - we really need to get some rest.