“What bloody festival?”

“Shrewsbury folk festival. Bit of history there, to say the least. It’s where the Woodruffs met for starters, as well as where Annie and Eric got together. It was also the girls’ first trip away, as a couple, that is, and not with either set of parents. We thought it would, well; it’s not just a chance for you to get some relaxed time with both of them, but it also seemed like a proper present for Maz and the little one. They tell me it’s very good for kids, loads of activities just for them. The last weekend of the month, ah? Give my girl a chance to breathe. I’ll let you know who’s on, but not today. Enjoy the trip, love. We’ll be fine”

I went out into the sunshine after a hug, thinking of how Pen had said ‘we’, as always so strong in her sense of family, and Maz raised her eyebrows in silent query. I simply sighed, and said, as gently as I could manage, “Not now, love. Let’s have a brighter day”

The first bus went from a stop a little west of Gerlan, and dropped us off at the big shopping centre near Bangor bus station, where we did a quick grocery run for our lunch provisions, as well as for a word LC had quickly picked up, ‘losyn’—sweets (“Lollies, Dad!”), and then the next bus took us along the Menai to Caernarfon, where the train terminus was right next to the castle, which delighted LC. It was also a steam day, rather than diesel, which had Maz, Ish and Clara swooning. We found seats, things went chuff, hiss and bang, and we were off. Once the train was rolling, I called for their attention.

“Penny, Mrs Hiatt, has bought us--- Start again. Several of our friends over here, like Penny and the Woodruffs, have bought us a present, and it will mean rejigging our plans a little. That’s us four, Clara. Not meaning to be rude. Anyway, it’s August, last weekend, and it’s a folk festival that Pen says is very good for kids”

“Which one, Dad?”

“Shrewsbury, son. Don’t know who’s on, but it will be camping”

“Yay!”

He waved his phone.

“Give me a minute and I’ll tell you the line-up”

While he tapped away, and we gradually neared the bigger hills, Clara asked a question out of the blue.

“Why ‘elephant view’, Mr Rhodes?”

“Sorry?”

She waved her own mobile.

“Hut place on the map called that”

“Ah! Mynydd Mawr. Means, well, ‘Big Mountain’, but English walkers call it ‘Elephant Mountain’ because it looks like the back and top of the head of an elephant. On something called the Nantlle Ridge”

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“Steeleye Span, a load of African groups I don’t know, some man from northern Spain who plays bagpipes, Afro-Celt something, Lindisfarne, Richard Thompson, Show of Hands and loads of others. I think there’s three main stages, and a dance tent”

“That’s a lot! How many nights?”

“Says early entries on the Thursday, main event starts Friday afternoon and finishes early Monday evening. Looks like a busy weekend. Found it on the map as well”

He paused, with a sneaky smile.

“Beer festival as well”

That actually sounded like a seriously attractive weekend, as well as a ‘busy’ one. If we timed our move from Bethesda, it was a comparatively short run to Shrewsbury, and then we could bimble down through the Malverns or the Wye Valley to get to Cardiff. It would work nicely.

Ah.

“Just coming towards what I call the Quellyn Valley, folks. There’ll be a lake, and---Elephant Mountain”

Maz was the first to spot it, laughing happily, and then cameras and phones were clicking away as the scenery got steadily more dramatic. LC shouted happily each time the steam whistle went, waving back frantically as random walkers cheered the train on. There were some comments about the names, especially when we rattled through Salem, and Clara held forth on the two youth hostels, one of them now private, and their associated footpaths to the summit of Yr Wyddfa, an area I had never really explored. Mountains, a lake, a quarry without climbing, and finally Beddgelert itself. I had to agree that it was a far nicer way to arrive than driving.

We disembarked, Maz frowning at her phone while tugging us towards a group of small shops. One had a window display dominated by a very familiar cartoon bear, which had Maz sighing contentedly.

“Stuff from my childhood, darling. I read the strips when I was little, but Mum wouldn’t have them in the house because of the pig and dog”

I understood immediately.

“I never got into it, because it was too twee, and it was in the Express. My parents wouldn’t have that in the house, also because it was full of pigs. Just, these ones were human. I always thought of it as utterly English”

“He lived here, the artist and writer, love”

“Dad?”

“Son?”

“What are you two going on about?”

I pointed at the posters and stuffed toy display.

“Rupert the Bear, son”

“Oh, whatever. Elsie wants to know why that bear is wearing trousers”

I had anticipated a request/demand for another bear, but LC was clear in her dismissal. While bears might wear hats, helmets and climbing harnesses, trousers were a step too far. Never mind; Maz bought one for herself.

We ambled past the church and out into the big field that held the ‘grave’, as I tried to find circumlocutions to tell the invented tale of a fictitious dog, so as to avoid risking an upset daughter, and the word that came to mind concerning my wife was, oddly, preening. She caught my look, and grinned.

“So many little things here, love, so many of them with huge shadows. It was… drop back a little”

We let the kids get a little ahead of us, and dropped her voice.

“When I was a student, I had a room mate who, well, she left a book out once, and it was all about master/slave silliness. That was her thing. One paragraph—I didn’t read it, just opened it, and this jumped out at me. It was something about the master limiting how far his woman slave could move. No chains, no bonds, just a notional boundary she wasn’t allowed to cross. I thought of that a lot when… Before you found us. We had boundaries, but they were more concrete. I’m here, now, on this field. No limits, no overseer waiting”

“No man with an axe?”

She turned, her eyes wide.

“How do you--- Carolyn?”

“Yes. She said her big brother Ish would keep the man with the axe away”

“Oh. I… No. Like the dog, love. Not a day for such details. Just, well, tradition and religion”

She lowered her voice to add, “And fucking inhumanity. Sorry”

I took her fully into my arms.

“Never, ever, sorry, love. Sunshine, now, sunshine and Rupert and hills and steam trains. Wander back?”

She nodded, and I gathered our little brood for the walk back to the train, which rattled its way through the Aberglaslyn gorge, Clara again adding surprising context.

“Nana had a couple of friends, Pat and a man called Stevie”

“I knew Pat, love. Someone I really miss”

She winced.

“Yes… She was there for so many of us, Mr Rhodes. Trying to remember her when she was with us, not, you know. Anyway, Pat and this Stevie, they said that this used to be a footpath, but it had---there! Tunnels! And at least one of them curved enough that you couldn’t see the light when you were in the middle. Don’t know if I’d like that. Oh, and they shot some film or other around here. ‘Sixth Inn’ or something, and this was supposed to be China. In the film, I mean”

We pooped out of the tunnel, Ish tapping away on his phone, until he called out “Inn of the Sixth Happiness”

He was chuckling, as well as shaking his head, sharing his phone screen with his girlfriend.

“Dad, this Wiki page is hilarious! They film in North Wales for China, they use a tall Swedish woman for a short cockney, and all the Cninese parts are played by European people”

I grimaced, terrible memories bursting out.

“That was the thing back then, son. They would do this”

I squinted, pulling my kips into that ‘buck-toothed’ expression.

“They thought that made them look Chinese. Some of the casting back then was unbelievable. Fu Manchu played by Christopher Lee, for example, or Omar Sharif as Genghis Khan”

“Tell me you’re joking, Dad”

“Nope. There was an even worse choice for Genghis Khan than an Egyptian, though”

I left them hanging, before I added, “John Wayne”, to a chorus of “NO!”, even from Maz. I decided not to mention Benny bloody Hill; I have my limits. Distraction time.

“Over there, son, is some really good climbing. The original sea cliffs, at Tremadog. If we have time, we can do something there. See that building, you can just see the roof?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s Eric Jones’ café. Don’t know if he’s still there, though, because he must be in his eighties by now. One of the really great climbers”

“What did he do?”

“First British solo ascents of the Matterhorn and Eiger north faces, just for starters”

That stunned him, but I got an audible gasp when I added, “I think he mostly does skydiving now. Saw a video once of him BASE-umping Angel Falls”

Again, Clara surprised me, translating it to “Building, Aerial, Span, Earth. Jumping off a high building, a transmitter mast, a bridge and a cliff. Saw a picture of someone BASE jumping St Paul’s in London”

Maz said something about clearing the dome, and Clara shook her head.

“No. They were landing, photo I saw. INSIDE the place”

That set me laughing, and we had a short discussion about limits to sanity, before I mentioned parapenting off Crib Goch rather than walking back to the car park.

Maz stared at me.

“Tell me you didn’t”

“I didn’t. But I know a man and woman who have, and they now run a folk club in Bedfordshire. Running into the port now, people. Time for lunch, I suggest”

I had had a suspicion that Maz might just delay things once she realised where exactly the station sat, and I was right. We gathered our lunch supplies, , ignoring the pub, and crossed the road to find a spot overlooking the wetlands and nature reserve behind the Cob, which brought a sharp look from Ish, so I let him know what was just around the corner, that being the main shop for Cob Records.

“Hence the name, son. Here’s a suggestion, okay? I know they do mail order, so rather than me having to traipse round there, or you spending all your money, you make a list of what looks good, and then we do it from their website, delivery to the Woodruffs. Now, your Mum wants to do some bird naming, and I have a taxi booked in one hour for Portmeirion. Only so many hours in a day”

Carolyn and Kawan stayed with me, Maz went into her bird zone, and I simply sat and enjoyed the day, relishing the ‘high’ that came from my family rather than needing that lift from a high place. Life was not just good, but getting steadily better.

The taxi man was chatty, Portmeirion was smaller than I expected (the buildings aren’t full size, but use a lot of forced perspective, or whatever it’s called, but none of us were numbers, and we were most definitely free. And the taxi was there for us for the trip to the Minfordd station and the continuation of our train ride up to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where it rained. All od us were fascinated by the spiral turn at Dduallt, which was amazing, but Blaenau brought less appreciative comments.

Slate quarries, slate spoil heaps, house built slate with slate roofs, and rain. I knew Neil loved the changing colours on wet slate, but there is a difference between wet and dripping. We took a short walk around part of the slatery, looked at the rime, and decided to ignore the draw of a slate safari and visit to a slate quarry and simply board the train once again and descend to the light.

All three kids slept much of the way back, which confirmed my logic in taking the taxis, as it had been a much fuller day than I had anticipated. We stumbled onto the bus up to Bangor, then the second up to Bethesda, where we simply picked up a large package of chips, ‘crunchy’ sausages and so on, as well as a few drinks from the supermarket. Just as we were settling down to our food, Clara’s phone chirped, and as she read the message, she winced.

“Holiday is over. That’s from Nana; they’ve already packed my other bits and pieces away, and they’ll pick me up from the Cow at ten tomorrow morning. I… It’s silly. I don’t want to go, but I DO want to go, because college and stuff, but, well. Got to go. This is me being an adult, I suppose, which is a joke. I just… Can I just say thank you, all of you, for making me so welcome. I felt like I’d be intruding, but you’ve all been so sweet, I…”

She was crying by then, so as I poured the wine and beer, the rest all cuddled up to her, LC simply saying, “You are my big sister, Clar. No crying. Crying doesn’t help. Where are you going?”

“Cardiff, Carolyn, where I live”

“Can we go to Cardiff, Dad?”

I smiled at her directness.

“We are going there, love, in about ten days”

She turned back to Clara with the widest of grins.

“Kawan and me will see you in Cardiff. Do you have climbing in Cardiff?”