I went up the mountain

Just after Christmas, I jumped on board a train (and a bus and a train and another train) and headed over to Wales to see some of the family. The weather was pretty damn awful, as it rained all the time and was just a little chilly. It was good to meet family that I'd heard about, and to catch up again with those that I'd already met. I didn't have a lot of time to go site-seeing, but I will do that next time I go back.

I went to the Rhonda Valley in South Wales, not too far from Swansea. I stayed in a village that was once a mining town, as the pictures of the houses below show. There are rows and rows of terraced houses, which used to be cottages belonging to the miners. They're all built into the sides of mountains - amazing to think about how miners used to walk up to 10 miles a day to work backbreaking shifts underground in the coal mines.

My grandmother's ashes are buried there, beside the graves of her mother and father. It was the first time I'd been able to see where she ended up, and I have to say, I'm jealous of the view!

One of the mountains had a Welsh dragon on the side of it. There's some dispute as to whether or not it's actually a dragon, as some claim it to be a pegasus. What the reasoning is behind that I'm not sure, but hey, they're Welsh!