Today is as much of a complete rest day as we ever seem to end up taking. Not much to show and tell, so this will be very brief.  First the show:

Heart

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Heart

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Now the tell, what there is of it.  First, about the place.  It’s a small cottage next to the owner’s house, named Little Skirrid Cwtch - a name that sounded cutesy to me until I got here and understood its origin.  Little Skirrid is the name of the hill behind us, and one meaning for Cwtch (rhymes with butch) is cupboard or cubbyhole.  So that makes sense.

It has two halves, separated by a door.  The front half, shown above, is the living area/kitchen/utility room.  Includes a fridge, range, French press, TV (with Netflix!), a table, four (!) chairs, a couch, and a combined washer/dryer.  The back half is the bedroom/bathroom/shower, with no doors for privacy.  It’s all pretty cozy but fine for four days.  A Cwtch.

It was raining this morning.  I heard from the bike shop about 9:30 that the bike was ready so I waited until about eleven after the rain stopped to walk down to pick it up with the idea to take a ride afterwards.  The ride I had mapped out was a 25 mile loop around Skirrid Mawr (the great Skirrid, Little Skirrid’s big brother).  As I walked through downtown though umbrellas started popping out; and looking up it was clear that there would be no views today with all the hills (Abergavenny is surrounded by hills) completely blanketed in clouds and fog.  Not inviting, so I just biked back home.  And stayed there for the rest of the day sipping coffee, reading blogs and the news and sketching out candidate ideas for next spring’s tour, assuming there’s enthusiasm in the team for a tour when the time comes.

Rachael did the laundry and can happily report that with the use of the manual she operated it correctly and our load came out clean and dry only seven hours after the wash cycle started.  Then she went off for a walk downtown and along the canal, returning only six miles later - which for her constitutes nearly a day off.  Only six miles, and mostly flat!

For dinner we walked down to Casa Bianca for a very nice Italian meal: a goat cheese salad, salmon for her and spaghetti with clams for myself.  Turkish tomorrow night, and then Casa Bianca again if we can get a table.

Back home, we binge-watched episodes 2 and 3 of the fourth season of Borgen (after watching the first episode the night before), a terrific Danish political series we were enamored with in the past but had forgotten about until Rachael saw that after a seven year lapse it’s returned with a fourth season.  Highly recommended.  If I remember correctly, this is the first time we’ve watched television since leaving Portland back in March.

Oh, the bike.  It’s fine.  The bike shop suggested that I might try lubing the gears from time to time.  For the second time in a week I biked home from the bike shop feeling like a dope, but a happy dope.