Wandering...

We wandered over to Caernarfon on Saturday. The town is dominated by the castle - in fact there isn’t much else other than the castle.

Caernarfon is one of those towns that, when it was a busy port, must have been magnificent with the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Today all you need is a couple of hours to take in the sights (castle excluded). It doesn’t seem to have a proper high street. Bits and pieces of shops and streets just run to dead ends blocked off by plastic bollards. An odd place. Even the narrow streets around the castle - boutiques, cake and gift shops, a florist or two. It has that not quite permanent, not around for long, soon to be empty feel. Everything is running down in Caernarfon, apart from the castle, the castle is simply ruined.

Mind you by Welsh standards Caernarfon has plenty of pubs. The Four Alls, The Anglesey Arms Hotel, The Castle Hotel, The Crown, Morgan Lloyd, Pen Deitch and The Twthill Vaults and the oldest pub in Caernarfon, the not very politically correctly named and pub-signed Black Boy Inn.

The Black Boy has stood inside the walls of Caernarfon castle since the 1500s. It’s said to be haunted by several spirits (not the bottled kind) but we didn’t see any ghosts when we had lunch there one sunny afternoon in the not so distant past, sitting outside under the hanging baskets swiping at the wasps.

It seems such a long time ago now.

Afterwards we walked along the length of the harbour walk, the Castle towering above us on our left, Holly chasing the seagulls and laughing when they flew away from her. It really does seem such a long time ago, my small laughing girl in T-shirt, shorts, and pink flowery pumps skipping along in the sunshine.

It was sunny last Saturday but we didn’t have lunch at the Black Boy and Holly didn’t run along the harbour walk laughing and chasing the seagulls. I avoided it. I didn’t want to bump into any ghosts, what’s gone is gone. We just looked around the apathetic shops… then left.
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