Sometimes the Best Place to be is Lost

Back in November I graciously offered to drive Jeannie home from Aberystwyth. I have done the journey many, many, many times and so didn't think much of our travel arrangements when we left town.

However, once safely out of Ceredigion we became engulfed in the biggest snow storm I have ever seen. I have never been so scared in my life.  Never having really driven in snow before, only that sludgey excuse for it that we get in Birmingham, I was rather nervous & racking my brains for information that my driving instrutor had mentioned 5 years ago. After 3 hours we were still in the middle of Wales, when usually we would have been home. Just as we got to a little town called Rhayader, the two cars in front of me collided, which i think was the final straw. This was the last town for a very long time, and I knew that further on the roads got steeper and at the pace we were going it wopuld have taken another 5 hours to get home. So I stopped the car.

Rhayader is a little farming community. It takes less than a minute to drive through and I had never really taken much notice of it before, except to moan about the ridiculous town clock that is just in the middle of the road. Luckily we found a bed and breakfast run by a nice old lady, so had a chance to try and relax after a horrible few hours stressing out.

After the pancea of a cup of tea, we tried to figure out what to do. It was still fairly early in the day and we didn't have anything to do. We decided that the most sensible thing to do in a blizzard was to go to the park and make snow men.

The town had come to a complete standstill as most of the roads in and out were now closed, and we meandered around until we came across a bit of country side that had been untouched since the snow had started. Needless to say, we went a bit mad. We had a snowball fight, made snow angels played on the swings and got completely drenched in the process. There was one hairy moment where, in my haste to avoid one of jeannies snowballs, I almost fell in the river. Aside from that it was so much fun. Just me and Miss Jeanniekins and a field of snow.

Come the evening we found ourselves in a little tiny pub, sat next to a log fire and chatting to two bikers who were in a similarly stranded. Warm and cosy, full of beer and pub grub, all of the days earlier stress and panic were completely forgotten. It was a few wonderful hours in what turned out to be an undiscovered beauty spot.

I encourage more people to go out into the countryside when it starts to snow, find a little tiny town to hole yourselves up in to enjoy the best winter can offer. Snow scenes to run around in and crackling fires to cuddle up to.