We drove.
From Germany, through The Netherlands, into Belgium and then France. We spent the night near Calais and the next morning drove our Audi A4 Avant wagon onto a train and under the English Channel. When we popped up on the other side Herr Johnson bravely drove on the left side of the road, whilst I frantically googled U.K. speed limits and kilometer to miles conversions.
We checked into an adorable Air Bnb in Northwest London and then parked and locked our car for three days. We spent 72 hours traversing the city on foot and by public transit (Minding the Gap on the London Underground and enjoying the view from the upper seats red double decker buses to locations the tube didn't as easily accommodate.)
For much of the trip Millie served as our personal tour guide. She's been twice to London since we visited as a family last spring :: once with her HL art class and again with her soccer team. As Sean and I found ourselves in the unfamiliar role of following our daughter through tube stations and markets, We caught a glimpse of our future :: learning new things and being guided by our global girls. We also got the premonition that our future will involve passports and travel ... chasing our adventurous children around the world!
We Christmas shopped on Oxford St., visited the V&A museum, walked through the Spitalfields Market and down Brick Lane (Little Bangladesh). On Christmas Eve day we toured the hip Camden markets and had some of the best food from a vast array of international food options.
On Christmas Eve eve we attended a "Crib Service," an Anglican tradition of making the Christmas story accessible and real to very young children. Our no-longer-very-young children found it at turns quaint and sweet. We walked back to our rented London home and popped samosas and shepherd's pie into the oven (which we found at turns both traditional and cliche.)
On Christmas morning there were no stockings or presents or even a tree. But there was breakfast. We brewed strong Yorkshire tea and ate crumpets with clotted cream and jam to fortify us for our journey into Wales, the ancestral home of my Canadian relatives. We left a very quiet London ... zipping easily along the motorway. So much of the land was busy celebrating Christmas (not driving to Cymru).
The drive would take about four hours. We were headed to the wee town of Carno. A village where both my great grandmother and great grandfather hail from. They later immigrated to Canada. My paternal grandfather was their sixth child. My grandpa died when my dad was four. The connection with that part of my family is not strong. But the idea of being so close to my roots compelled us.
We snacked on apples and good English cheddar and cold samosas on the road. We talked about how our families all originally came from Europe before immigrating to North America, and the irony of us, as North Americans, now living in Europe.
We are coming full circle.
We arrived in Carno and found the football club, with a community centre Canadian cousins helped finance, there was a well groomed soccer pitch and tidy lawn bowling courts. We regrouped in the parking lot there ... shuffling between emails and photos and anscestry.com to find the spots we were looking for :: the Smithy, where Great-great grandpa Gittins worked as a town's blacksmith, the old Gittins house, Tyre Mar (the Big House my great grandpa Lewis grew up in), and of course the church and church yard where the relatives are buried.
We found all these places.
The sky was grey, but it wasn't cold. The ground was spongy. Everything felt old. Maybe because nearly everything that stood still acquired moss. Or maybe it was because everything really just is old. The Free House in Carno has been serving ale and renting rooms since the 1600s. Nearly 2000 years ago the Romans came through and claimed the area. And ... 700 years before that the Celts were here.
As Americans we come from a land of strip malls. Where 70 years ago we carved the faces of respected leaders into some hills and proclaimed it a landmark. Sometimes it's just hard to wrap your head around just how old things are in the Old World, and how newly invented everything seems in the New World.
It's also interesting to think that this place is where one quarter of my people originate. They spoke a language other than English. They contended with wind and a harsh climate. And at some point, a brave young couple named David and Annie Jane set sail for Canada leaving it all behind. I don't know exactly what drove this move. But what a massive decision!
We took a final pass through the quiet little village of Carno and then headed toward the coast. We arrived in Aberystwyth at sunset and caught the salty spray of the angry Irish Sea. The beach was all smooth black rocks. The temperature was noticeably cooler. As wiki explains, "Air undergoes little land moderation and so temperatures closely reflect the sea temperature when winds are coming from the predominant onshore (westerly) direction."
We hiked up to the castle ruins. It was now dark — uplights provided illumination but hampered photography. We listened to the waves crash.
We had a full day in Wales.
We drove a mile or so up the hill to our home for the night. We marveled at a place so sweet and safe that email correspondence declared, "they would just leave the key in the door." They did. They also left a lamp on and a little Christmas tree lit. There were Christmas plates and tinsel. The front mat declared "the weather outside is frightful," and we could imagine that if there was a strong wet Welsh winter gale it would be, but it was hard to describe the wall mounted electric fireplace as "delightful."
It was a little like coming home to grandmas.
In a way ... we were.
Cymru am byth
"Wales forever"
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