Wales has always been a big part of my life; from when I was born our holidays were Scout Camps in St Asaph. My parents were both involved in Scouting, I still am.
When we first met Hubby and I spent many of our holidays at his parents's caravan in Llwyngwril on the Cambrian coast. We explored most of this beautiful coastline by car or by taking the superb scenic railway which travels along cliff tops so close to the sea, such spectacular views.
Years later we had our own caravan a little further down the coast at Tywyn. We had 10 very happy years spending as much time as possible in this lovely Welsh community with our children.
When we sold our beloved caravan our Welsh dragon took pride of place at home thinking our link with Wales from then on would be the occassional holiday....
... however 8 years ago our daughter studied at Mid Glamorgan University in Pontypridd, graduating 3 years later in Sport Management with a BAHons (first) and our regular trips to South Wales began.
She stayed in South Wales and now lives in Cardiff Bay. We've visited so many times in the eight years, staying in many hotels and airbnb rentals. Being a huge city Cardiff has plenty of choice; after some unexpected finds and some disappointments we have our favourite places and I'm certainly hoping to be back there soon.
For my birthday last year her partner, who is Welsh, gave me a dragon for the garden. My dragon has pride of place on the wall, keeping an eye on all around and reminding me of such a lovely country.
I've always been a rugby fan, I used to watch it on tv with my Dad on a Saturday afternoon; rugby is a huge part of Welsh culture and I've always had a soft spot for the Welsh boys. Every Welsh game my 'sheep hat' is hugged, my eyes watching the game with full focus and my voice loud enough to be heard across the miles. The 'sheep' was taken on holiday to France last October where it was worn and hugged throughout the World Cup games ... wet early mornings in the bar!
Earier in the year Hubby saw a larger dragon for sale on the internet ... it's taken many months to arrive but well worth the wait. He sits perfectly in our garden, it's so lovely to see him, he has such a lovely smile.
As you can see Wales is very important to us and as I have missed our visits this year I was delighted when it was Welsh Wine Week, a week highlighting Welsh vineyards.
Through Brad Horne's superb #winesocial at 8pm on Instagram and catching up on IGTV, I have discovered many more Welsh vineyards.... and have asked myself how I have missed them before!
To my surprise and absolute delight I was a winner of two bottles of wine from White Castle Vineyard and even more delighted to discover they are near Abergavenny. This means a visit is very very high on the can do list as we pass by here on our way to see our daughter. Hopefully it will not be too long before our travels resume.
Robb and Nicola Merchant celebrated 10 years of wine production in May 2019, and to mark the occasion planted a further 2000 vines of Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc.
Siegerrbe and Regent were my prize bottles, I am so I intrigued by both. Siegerrebe is a grape I have not known before and according to the tasting notes it's a dry white wine with a nose of peach, orange blossom and nectarine with flavours of lychee and a soft spicy finish.
Regent is another new grape to me, it is a light Beaujolais style and as I enjoy Gamay wine it should be super. The tasting notes suggest dark berry in colour with rich cherry aromas with excellent fruit on the palette and balanced tanning.
I'm saving my wines until I can appreciate them properly, life just now is mainly soft drinks or alcohol free beer. I need my tastebuds to be working 100% too before I open these Welsh wines. They will be very well looked after in our cellar although they do look good next to our dragon.
