Day 533 from Nash Oakland in Presteigne to Cefn Coed, Dolgellau 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏕🚐🪵🌳🔥in wild Wales

Another great nights sleep last night. It rained again but didn’t start until about 9.30pm as we went to bed.

Dinner was an amazing spiced Lamb hotpot.

So dinner took 7 hours to cook yesterday but that’s the fun watching it’s progress. I read and crocheted throughout the day. Hard life eh?!

We spent the evening by the fire… as you do!

All packed up this morning and ready to go.

My first overlanding in the van to get out the field. To be fair…. It was nothing…. It was like driving out of a supermarket car park… I’m glad I woke up at 5am and worried about being able to get out of the field given the rain…. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

So this morning had coffee but skipped breakfast and headed down into Presteigne to go to the local butcher. The woman who runs it is Argentinian and she lived in Sourh Africa for years so Warren and Doug go their to pick up their meet for their Potjie (poy-kee) and Braai (our BBQ!) Warren is from South Africa 🇿🇦 and Doug from Zimbabwe 🇿🇼.

So Doug has agreed to join us for the next few days of our trip. We are headed to Cefn Coed in Dolgellau. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (I’m getting the use out of all my flag emojis today!)

It was a beautiful drive over. The sun is desperately trying to come out and when it does it’s very hot!

We stopped at Caffi Jo-Jo for breakfast about an hour and 15 into our journey.

They had a streamer but cute wee mini village in their front garden….

The roads are mostly double carriageway with single track in places more due to the high hedges but they were very up hill and down valley…. Lovely scenery though!

So the boys did prep for dinner while I went off in search of the sun….. out of the shade….to write the blog!

Tonight we are having chicken tikka, pepper and onion kebabs. I know I’ve said this before but the food has been a game changer for us as it’s encouraged us to look for different things to prep and make that a part of the holiday…. She says as she sits out in a field doing none of it 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

We decided to go for a quick explore as we are close to the Mawddach Estuary.

So good news to report is Calaidh hasn’t had a dodgy tum so we’ve been getting to sleep through the night. The sun is shining and is forecast for tomorrow too. Chicken Tikka is marinating so I’m looking forward to that.

Most of all I have been very calm. I’m doing all of the driving and it’s helping to build my confidence. I still have my moments (climbing a 20% incline today while Craig was asking me a question….. 😳😬🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️😱)

I’m still thinking about work. I don’t have my work phone but still see chat on messenger and social media. It’s on my mind a fair bit and I guess that’s gonna take some work to stop thinking about it. I’m not worried about it which I guess is the main thing.

Sitting here in the sun right now I suddenly remind myself that I am almost exactly 31 days without anti depressants for the first time in almost as many years. I’ve driven from Ayrshire to Islay and back and down to Wales and will drive back.

I am pretty damn proud of everything I’m achieving.

And the sun’s finally gone behind the trees… enough rambling. Heading back into camp to see what’s for eating 🥘🔥😉🤣

Stay safe everyone 🔥🔥🔥