The ride to ‘Abergavenue’ was glorious. We’ll gloss over the rest…
Appropriate Noises
Another morning; another cooked breakfast. We made the obligatory small talk as our host’s partner delivered our food. But as the enforced chat dried up, he didn’t move. And then he launched into another topic. Still half asleep, we made appropriate noises but were relieved when Lesley lured him away.
Tired Legs
This morning’s ride took us up onto the edges of the Black Mountains. And was another hefty climb. As yesterday, this was largely in manageable stages. But our legs were tired after the push to get to Llangadog in good time.
Early on, we came across a small flock of sheep being herded up the narrow lane. Rob, some way ahead, was ushered through. However, by the time I reached them, the sheep were filling the road.
Poor Bloke
The flock was being driven by a lone chap on a quad bike, with his sheepdog on the back in a makeshift carrier. I followed at a discreet distance until the shepherd stopped and, painfully slowly, heaved himself down from his machine. Seeing me waiting, he explained he’d recently had a stroke. He didn’t look in a good way. Poor bloke.
At his suggestion, I tried to ease past the animals. But they just became panicked. So, I pushed my bike slowly behind until, finally, they turned off.
Glorious Vista
The climb continued up and up. Sometimes painfully steeply. Until the track led out of the trees up onto a wild, rugged landscape. Here, there were many red kites, skylarks and pipits. Dominating the skyline to the south were the peaks of the Black Mountains. To the north were rolling, sheep-littered fields and valleys.
Rob had found a picnic spot on the edge of this vista at which to wait. He’d encountered some rather humourless squaddies and their stern-faced leaders. These had now disappeared but we watched together as a group of motorcyclists stopped to take photos, before zooming off over the hills.
Fruit (& Veg)-less Search
After a little more climb, we started the gradual descent back down into the valley. At the main road, we made two fruitless attempts to find something vegetarian for lunch. Apparently there’s not much call for it in these parts. Eventually, we were directed to a garage, which turned out to be a small service station, complete with café and outdoor seating.
I realised I’d stopped here on a previous trip. Knowing the food here was good, I suggested we treat ourselves to a sit-down lunch. Which we did. During our break, we heard there was heavy rain in Brecon. However, we just caught the tail end of this, happily avoiding a feared drenching.
Uncommonly Helpful
In Brecon, we pulled up outside Costa for a coffee break. We asked if we could borrow a towel to dry off the seats but the assistant insisted on doing this for us. Then, when it began to rain again, she invited us to bring our bikes inside. In a Costa! I couldn’t imagine that in Bath.
Leaving the town, there was a short stretch of canal tow path to navigate before joining the friendlier B road to Abergavenny. This had its ups and downs but little traffic and allowed us to set a goodly tempo. And the views, now opening out towards the Beacons, were lovely.
Garden Sheds
We gleefully sped along this, then a short section of main road, before picking our way through the suburbs of Abergavenny to our digs, just up the road from the venue. Our accommodation was a pair of ‘lodges’ (essentially, garden sheds), comprising a twin bedroom and a lounge/kitchen. This was all very well thought-out, well equipped and comfortable. We were even invited to take our bikes into the lounge shed (‘lodge’).
Tonight’s venue had been a concern. Communication had been intermittent and – once again – riddled with last-minute doubts about advance sales. I’d suggested we’d be happy to perform regardless but had had no response. So, we assumed the gig was cancelled and resigned ourselves to another evening off.
Unimpressed
Imagine our surprise when Rob discovered a Facebook post from that afternoon, advertising our event. I’ll spare you the details but we eventually managed to speak with the venue manager and agreed to cancel. They clearly had little hope for a decent audience and this felt like a mis-booking. Make no mistake, I’d provided plenty of marketing material over the preceding months: they just hadn’t done anything with it.
Our host’s son overheard the telephone conversation and was unimpressed. He’d not heard of the venue, even though it’s about 200 yards from his door. In the morning, his mother said she never receives any information about what’s on there… and she runs a B & B! Come on, people: make an effort.
Refreshingly Affordable
After a perusal of the eating options in town, we settled, once again, for Spoons (no, they aren’t sponsoring us). This one was a quirky, converted cinema, which had quite a few people inside. So, there was a bit of a buzz. Maybe we should have had our gig here?!
We both enjoyed fish and chips for an embarrassingly small amount of money. This was washed down with a refreshingly affordable IPA. Then another.
And maybe one more…