As it turns out, I didn't hear the chair being moved. I woke up super early because The Dad was standing by my side and jostling me. He needed me to move into the boys' room because he was hiking Mount Snowdon, and we didn't want to leave The Boy alone.
We had been told the night before that breakfast would be at 8:30, and so right at 8:30 as we were preparing to go downstairs we heard a gong. I will say that the gonging was so awesome that it almost made up for the rest. I did go down to breakfast a bit anxious because The Dad still wasn't back and it was raining really, really hard. He showed up in the dining room about half-way through -- dripping wet. Apparently he had gotten a bit lost (to the tune of having to create little markers for himself as he wandered about... that should alarm me, but mostly it just makes me laugh), but had heard voices from on high (a family hiking a different path), and all was well.
We looked at some of the Everest expedition's stuff, and then moved on. I'm glad we stayed there once, but we probably won't need to stay again, though we would like to make the hike together someday as a family... we'll take bread crumbs. (And by "the hike" I mean Snowdon... not Everest...)
We drove through a picture-perfect village. As pretty as those in the lake district, but the buildings were made out of exposed stone. I would definitely like to spend a bit more time in Beddgelert. As it was we drove through the town, then to where "the grave" is and parked. The rain was pouring, so we had a decision to make. While I'm usually the first one to opt to stay in the car, I wanted to see it and so chose to run the 400 yards with The Dad and The Boy (the two who are the first to opt to NOT stay in the car). It was fun. We loped along through the cemetery until we came to the famous grave -- of a dog.
From the stone tablet: "Gelert's Grave: In the 13th century Llywelyn Prince of North Wales had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert "the faithful hound" who was unaccountably absent. On Llywelyn's return, the truant stained and smeared with blood joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince alarmed hastened to find his son and saw the infant's cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood. The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound's side thinking he had killed his heir. The dog's dying yell was answered by a child's cry. Llywelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed but nearby lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain. The prince, filled with remorse is said never to have smiled again. He buried Gelert here the spot called Beddgelert."
On our way back to the car The Boy found an abandoned plastic army man sticking out of the grass. A Welsh army man. That's kind of cool. I mean... I think they're all Chinese strictly speaking, but it at least came to Wales...
Back in the car I read the story that was on the tablet. Guess who didn't like it one bit? She sat in the back fuming. We did talk about all the lessons to be learned -- how we often are most brutal with those we love the most because we are so hurt when they disappoint us, how we shouldn't jump to conclusions, how we shouldn't walk around with weapons because it's not good to have them on hand when a moment of rage comes, etc.
We stopped at another cute village, Rhayader, for lunch. Not so cute was when we reported a plugged toilet and then we got to watch those handling our food walking in and out of the bathroom with dish towels tied to them (to wipe their hands) swinging freely (what must they have touched in that small bathroom?), etc. Ah, well. It made The Sister laugh, and I think she needed a laugh after all the together-time in the backseat.
The drive was beautiful. We must come back to Wales.
With our remaining time, we went to Hay-on-Wye. It's known as the town of books because of the amount of bookshops in the village. It also hosts the Hay Festival -- which Bill Clinton referred to as the Woodstock of books... or something like that... And that festival just happens to be going on this week.
The town itself is beautiful and enlightened. Not only is it loaded with bookshops and fun antique/curiosity shops, but it also has shelves of books along the castle walls. At any time you can go up and get a book and on the honour system you drop in 50-p for paperbacks and one pound for hard. I found a Willa Cather I haven't read yet, so I stole it to teach them that their silly system is weak, idealistic, and unsustainable. Kidding. In fact, I 100% appreciate the ideals of Hay; I think that our homeland could learn quite a bit from this community. It's been decided that no plastic bags are used in any shops (at the little visitor's center where we stopped to use the loo I bought a really old recitation book for 50-p, and when I requested a plastic bag because of the rain I felt like I was asking for some heroine for my newborn. The worker-bee did rummage around and found a recycled one that she gave -- with pursed lips -- to the neanderthal American). So, no plastic bags, and it's five pence any time you want a paper bag. How would Americans deal with such rules? There would be an initial fuss, but eventually... ? I'm thinking of the ban on smoking in public spaces. At first it was all about "my rights!" but eventually we decided that the rights of the whole (the right to not consume second-hand smoke) over-rode the rights of the individual. At some point we will acknowledge that some habits are not sustainable and so in an effort to protect the rights of the whole, certain individual rights (my right to have a plastic bag for free!!!) will need to be set aside... Right?
And even though we were soaking wet and chilly-chilly we stopped by to get Shepherd's ice cream. I tried a sample (The Dad had a scoop) of the brown bread flavor. Brown bread is what they call wheat bread, so it was kind of weird (but not as weird as you would think).
And finally! On to the festival! There is a brilliant Simpson's episode where they went to a book festival and on the banner that said, "Book Festival" there was a parenthetical statement: "(This banner is available on tape)" Ah, good times.
The Sister and I got tickets to hear Barbara Kingsolver talk about her new book, Flight Behaviour, while The Dad and the kids went to hear Holly Webb talk about her latest animal series.
Barbara Kingsolver was, of course, insightful and intelligent and all that. Here are some things she talked about:
a) She said that novels can wake us up from sleepwalking. We live in a society that is half the time telling us what to wear and half the time telling us that destruction is eminent. Out of self-preservation we tune out most of life because otherwise it would crush us with banality/fear. But novels can make a package -- an empathy engine -- that moves us into new situations so that we wake up and tune in. We eventually put the book down and return back to real life, but we fit into it differently.
b) She was trained as a scientist, so she felt almost obligated to write a novel on climate change. She said that we are so consumed about worrying about stupid things, when the new weather is happening all around us. The domain of the novel is denial. We must wonder why we do, or do not believe things... and the novel shows what happens when a person wakes up and then has to tell the truth of what she has seen.
c) While children are rarely main characters in adult novels, she chose to write one in order to continuously remind what the stakes are. Her child character ended up being her favorite character. After watching what's going on, he wants to be a scientist -- and again we have that empathy engine -- the protagonist (the mother) is worried for him, for she realizes that there is a burden that comes with knowledge. Once you know something, you can't un-know it.
d) She wrote a protagonist that "has everything to learn." She wanted to demonstrate how a "common" person can make a difference.
e) During the first half of the book the chapter titles ascend -- they start with one person, then a family, then a church, then a community, etc... The second half they descend -- starting with the world it goes in order back down to an individual. Thus demonstrating that an individual is a part of something much bigger, but one also has to figure out how that all fits back inside of each of us. She also talked about the importance of choosing names. And that the first sentence of her books make a promise that the rest of the book keeps. Can I just say that I was like mentally doing backflips while chanting I-told-you-so? If I had a dime for every time a student said something like: how do you know that's not a coincidence?... And I was like: *sigh*... writers do stuff for a reason -- idiot.
After our presentations we met back up in the tent where you can meet the authors. The Dad, The Sister, and The Boy went to another session: Hugh Aldersey-Williams talking about his book Anatomies: The Human Body, Its Parts and The Stories They Tell. The Girl and I stayed in the tent and queued to meet Holly Webb. The Girl got two new books to have signed. Ms. Webb was very charming. Apparently in ten years she's cranked out almost seventy books. She's a machine. We then looked around at some of the books available and rather inadvertently ended up where Barbara Kingsolver was about to wrap up her signing. I had debated getting the novel on the trip because I didn't want to lug it around, but when I saw there were only two people left in line I went ahead and jumped in -- I figured it would be kind of fun to have the UK-version (i.e. behaviour vs. behavior and all that). Ms. Kingsolver was friendly. As she signed my book (why not? she was right there...) she chatted with The Girl about polkadots (they were both wearing them) -- she said that she and her 16-year old had just gone shopping and both decided to buy some polkadot jeans, but they made a deal to not ever wear them on the same day. I told The Girl that she had talked to a famous author. I want her "celebrities" to be cerebral (cerebralties?).
The rest of the group returned from their session (sounds like it was interesting), and we figured that it was time to get on the road, as we were a couple of hours out from our lodging for the night. I don't want to make it sound like the weather is dictating our trip, but goodness, when you are cold you certainly don't want to do as much...
While driving I read through the festival program. It goes almost two weeks, and it is filled with people and topics that have the power to take the quiet desperation out of life. Just reading the synopses was inspiring -- each event would beef up neuron retention. The poet Roger McGough is scheduled to do a reading and in the program under his name it includes a snippet of poetry: "Take comfort from this / You have a book in your hand / not a loaded gun or a parking fine / or an invitation card to the wedding / of the one you should have married." I would love to go back to Hay sometime and spend a few days hanging around the town and going to dozens of book festival events.
Also while driving I finally got reception and received an answer back from a doctor regarding a picture I sent of The Boy's ear. A couple of days ago I started to notice that the skin texture on his ear was weird, and on closer inspection saw that under the surface there were a bunch of bumps. By Sunday night it was red and the bumps were really creepy looking. While it is hard to tell anything from a picture, our doctor said that the bumps/redness/etc. could be serious (cellulitis? bacterial?), so we should have it checked out. Ugh. Cue the three-bricks-in-the-stomach feeling of dread. We got to our hotel in Swindon after 9pm, got The Girl and The Sister settled, and set off in search of an emergency room. Because nothing says: hey, now we're having some fun on this trip! like a visit to an emergency room with your kid.
Long story short, we were home around midnight, having seen a doctor that didn't feel too concerned (the redness had gone away by this time). She didn't have an answer for what it was (which always sucks), but at least she wasn't alarmed, and if that's all we have to hold on to, we will take it. Walking back to the car The Boy said something about being sorry that we had to go, and I answered that things like this are awesome because it's an opportunity to see what we're made of. He was so good -- cheerful and obedient and fun. He's been such a turd at times on this trip (haven't we all) that it was helpful to have such a straight-up reminder of how good he is when it really comes to it. Sure, he might make up obnoxious songs and scream them into The Sister's ear and/or slip comments about defecating and/or flatulence into almost every conversation, but he is sweet and kind-hearted and wants to do the right thing.
Long day.
