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What is it about this bloody place? I've posted about it's weird draw before! Derbyshire born and bred and I love that bloody county and it's countryside, however I'm in a foggy, wet miserable, 15m visibility, well weathered Wales and I don't want to leave. Admittedly I'm currently posting from a huge hot bath in a holiday cottage after an afternoon session at antur stiniog with my 12 year old nut job of a son which may sway my current opinion of the place but every time I come here I want to sell up and move!
Spend more time with the Welsh and you'll be cured!
If I could I would live somewhere in between Afan and bike park wales and Abergavenny.
It does have a good mix of facilities, accessibility and exciting scenery, but the reason is probably because those things lead you to take holidays there during which you have a good time 🙂
The nice thing about it though is that you can move here and still get great riding. Plenty of jobs in the South!
@emsz between and around those places is more superb natural riding than you could shake a stick at. In fact you could ride between them and have an epic off-road outing. The ride from Afan back to my house is a cracking 4-odd hours.
If I could I would live somewhere in between Afan and bike park wales and Abergavenny.
Dowlais Top welcomes you...
So you haven't met any of the Welsh yet then.
What's with the anti-Welsh comments by the way?
Know what you mean. i couldn't work down a mine though.
The wife did comment in how people weren't that chatty in the town earlier but she said the lady in the cafe was lovely. And the guy running the bus at antur was defs Welsh and he was also a top fella.
Anyways back to the bath and north Wales favourite brew, a cold can of Stella 😳
I really like Wales too. Howevee dispite growing up on a working farmvand hence accustomed to rural life the bits of Wales I like are a little too far from large town facilities, and the bits near Cardiff I am not keen on. Probably are some areas that would suit me but finding them and finding jobs etc or increasing my travelling is not something I am interested in at the moment.
[i]Dowlais Top welcomes you...[/i]
apart from Merthyr Tydfell...I've been there... 😆
Always found the Welsh to be about the same as most parts of England I have been to as far as friendly and chatty.
emsz, you want Crickhowell. I grew up there and it's paradise for an outdoorsy person! I would move back there in a heartbeat if I could afford to.
What's with the anti-Welsh comments by the way?
Maybe they have met some of the locals? I'm proud to be Welsh but we do have certain parts of our brethren who do let the side down somewhat 😆
Crickhowell, that's the place I was trying to think of!! Went camping there with my dad ages ago, and went back a few years back with the gf to the Bear, was an ace weekend
I was at Crickhowell back in September, what a beautiful place. I'd definitely move there 8)
Lake Vyrnwy, with all those lovely cat 2//3/4 climbs around Bwlch y Groes? 😈
One of my missions for 2018 is visiting there and around the Dolgellau area on my road bike, ~27 years since I last visited, after briefly living there as a nipper in the early 1980s.
I'm off to St Davids as per most years for Xmas. People are always friendly and nice. However, the climate is wetter and colder than West Berks 99% of the time. Hence, it's a no from me.
what about North Wales, I want to live in Betws Y Coed, and sell stuff to tourists. 😆
We keep promising to visit the great riding that is to be had down there instead of our Scottish road trips ..but the draw of the Highlands is too strong ..maybe one day!
As for living there ..not for me
The Varteg emsz is where you want.
Straight form my front door onto the hols for biking/running, 20mins from trad or sport climbing, Aber, Crick and others withinn 20-30mins.
Sea view to England on a nice day, 3ft of snow last week.
Did I mention Cwmbran is 20mins and BPW a similar distance...
Might start renting rooms...
Better than Varteg get up the British 😆
Weird when I was 18 Crickhowell was one of the roughest places around, mix of squaddies and farmers 😆 quite volatile
Still is pigface!!
Just other than outsiders with ££ - they’re the only ones who can afford the housing as it’s either old family or free 🙄
The British is a mare to get up most of the time now though.
No such issues from the terrace
Great init - as for ‘the people’ a few miles and a silly accent don’t really change people - some are nice, some are dicks, some are chatty, some aren’t. Just like the rest of the UK.
My family is varteg/British
Only shifted to the port for the steelworks many years ago
Talybont on Usk isn't a bad option for a mountain biker - you could always come and live in one of my shepherd's huts. Quality rides right from the door. 30 mins over Blaen-y-glyn to Bike Park Wales.
We've even got a bike wash in the village and showers that are better than mine at home!
If you camped in Crickhowell you were at the bottom of my garden 😆 and the Bear probably had my dad in it at the same time you were there!
Sadly living there again is well out of my price range so I'm looking at the area round Dolgellau as a close alternative. Need to escape the city life soon, it's really getting to me...
i couldn't work down a mine though.
Neither can anyone in Wales. Update your stereotypes mate.
Dunno there is a couple of opencast molgrips 😉
What's with the anti-Welsh comments by the way?
Possibly the same as the anti-English that used to be common in some parts of Wales, along with the vandalism of properties owned by English people, and of the English names on bi-lingual road-signs.
I’ve had experience in the past of walking into a Welsh pub, with people talking in English, and then switching to Welsh when they heard my accent.
My g/f spent quite a few years in Wales, and speaks Welsh passably well, did it at school to O-Level standard, and her family had their car tyres regularly damaged by nails and tacks placed underneath, the culprit their neighbour’s son.
The sentiment goes both ways, Mol...
If you camped in Crickhowell...
Camped there last year and this, for Greenman, which is a fantastic little festival, almost moving there to be close to.
Still is, I used to get grief in clwb ifor Bach in Cardiff in the 90's, for not speaking Welsh however I can fight Welsh and I'm a big boyo.
And born in Pontypool and Newport has been my home since 1976
I’ve had experience in the past of walking into a Welsh pub, with people talking in English, and then switching to Welsh when they heard my accent.
It's weird how many people have experienced [url= https://whywelsh.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/welsh-speakers-are-unwelcoming/ ]this exact same thing[/url].
A whole pub full of people speaking English and who immediately switch to Welsh.
Do you have the name of the pub and the date of this?
Myself and 5 other South walians stayed in CYB and we were staying in the holiday sheds place up the road, whilst drinking in the pub on site, Simmonds one of the boy's turns to the group to our right and fires off some rapid fire Welsh. "akin to oi STFU"
Group of lads slagging us off as English speakers didn't know one of us was fluent so yes even as a Welsh man it does exist in my experience.
What's with the anti-Welsh comments by the way?Possibly the same as the anti-English that used to be common in some parts of Wales,
You're having a laugh with that, right? Seriously? You think it's ok for people to constantly insult the Welsh in the name of humour because someone Welsh was once an arsehole to you?
It's not, by the way, in case you were wondering.
Tis funny tbat Welsh speaking thing. Lads at antur were all cool, I mentioned I'd be riding with my 12 year old who was outside and asked if he needed to come in to listen to the usual disclaimer stuff as i signed us on. It was a quick no then tbey preceded to talk in nowt but Welsh. I assumed tbey were saying "look at this dude", with his 12 year old, hes on an enduuurrooo bike whilst sticking his lad on a 120mm old xc'er, no full face, bet they'll kill themselves on the first run etc etc. We managed 7 runs on the afternoon session, I shook the driver dudes hand and wished him a merry Christmas as we rolled away smiling. I still called him a Welsh **** tho under my breath, just to reaffirm my Englishmeness and to make me feel better about the welsh words he spoke earlier....
The only vaguely* anti-English sentiment I've encountered in 7 years of being an immigrant is my very Welsh neighbour talking about another one of our neighbours:
"They're English.... [long pause]... But they're very nice."
Nearly pissed myself laughing.
The "English" neighbours are Welsh. But as the don't speak Welsh, that doesn't count. So they're English...
* not really anti at all
Group of lads slagging us off as English speakers didn't know one of us was fluent so yes even as a Welsh man it does exist in my experience.
Very sorry to hear this. It's not right that you should have had to listen to Welsh people speaking Welsh in a public area. Make no mistake, the only reason they'll have been doing it is to connive and plot against you.
It's a bigotry that us English monoglots have to endure throughout the globe. Wherever we go, we have these locals babbling away in their primitive languages, when everyone knows they can speak perfectly good English.
walking into a Welsh pub, with people talking in English, and then switching to Welsh when they heard my accent.
Cazzo
I can’t believe people still trot out that ‘switched to welsh’ bollox. It’s never happened and never will. Unless you’re a paranoid idiot.
My wife and I are both English and we’ve lived here since 1999. Never felt anything but welcome.
6 nations are the funnest times, don’t take it seriously and it’s fine.
Copa, Roedden nhw'n ffuginiau basically.
I assumed tbey were saying "look at this dude", with his 12 year old, hes on an enduuurrooo bike whilst sticking his lad on a 120mm old xc'er, no full face, bet they'll kill themselves on the first run etc etc.
They probably weren't. It's not a novelty to them - it's just normal language.
Sometimes people do it as a bit of a joke. As we were sat in the pub one night as students the next table were having a great laugh in Welsh, whilst we were chatting away in English. However the lad on our table sat with his back to them was listening to them with an increasingly shocked expression.. he leaned forward and told us that they were talking in extremely lewd and very explicit terms about sexual acts involving us. When he turned round and spoke to them they were utterly mortified. I think they then left, sadly without doing any of the things they said they wanted to...
I bet they were form Swansea. 😀
Yeah we had the same result in CYB as soon as Simmonds piped up they legged it.
They probably weren't. It's not a novelty to them - it's just normal language
Mol tbey probably weren't hence my final comment about calling the driver a Welsh **** just in case.
If someone has something to say about you or even I then if it isn't in a legible language then tbey may as well be ordering tomorrow's cake delivery.
No matter what, I still love this place and it's big bath!
Good stuff.
yboy - MemberStill is, I used to get grief in clwb ifor Bach in Cardiff in the 90's, for not speaking Welsh
Only about 10% of Cardiffians can actually speak Welsh with any fluency. As an English speaking Welshman I can honestly say no ones ever remotely made it a problem. Just because you hear people speaking Welsh it doesn't mean their talking about you !!