Sennybridge

Was lovely driving back into Sennybridge after all these years. We booked into the Usk & Railway hotel which was closed down in 2015 but was roaring with life back in 1991. We called into the Welsh Shearing Centre where I worked for 8 weeks with Brian Davies while Kim & Kylie went to school and Rachael went out with Neil shearing with Brian’s brother Gethin.
The Usk & Railway has been fully renovated into a popular pub, restaurant & hotel. Kim came home from school one day, horrified, the world map in the school did not have NZ on it. I thought I had better check and sure enough, it wasn’t there! Apparently this is quite common, good thing these days, we don’t really want the rest of the world to know we exist!
Brian came to see us, which was lovely, as he has been ill with cancer & Legionnaire’s disease over the last 3 years. He had his 81st birthday on Friday when we arrived. Gethin & his partner Marion also came to see us. Gethin and Neil are like long lost brothers when they get together, the bond is still there even though there is such a long time between meetings. We have tried to get Gethin to come out and visit us but he is definitely a farm boy and doesn’t stray far from Wales.
Toby Small, one of our Welsh sons was with us as well on Friday, his memory of events when he was with us in 1994 was amazing. The bar lady kicked us out at 11pm 😆
Saturday, I went for a big walk to reacquaint myself with Sennybridge. There has been a large army camp here for many years, occupying 15,000ha of land on the hills for training purposes. They have a replica town built so they can train hand to hand combat in confined spaces.
The town seems to be prospering which was great to see, only 515 population but the next town Deffynog is practically joined and Sennybridge services the farming community. It has 3 thriving pubs and Deffynog has one.
We visited the White House Hotel that was another frequent haunt back in the day. This has been totally revamped into a quirky restaurant and bar. The owner said it reflected his mental health status at the time 😆 Apparently the local farmers weren’t impressed, they do tend to be a bit traditional!
Saturday night another of our Welsh sons, Brian Pritchard (Trigger) came to see us, he lived with us in 1992. Of course these boys all have children in their late teens and 20’s, time certainly does fly.
Sunday morning we spent with Gareth Davies (Taffy) and his wife Sal and family, had a trip around his farm. We would have liked more time with them but Brian had invited us to his granddaughters wedding after party. That deserves a post all of its own.Meer informatie