Reflections after a holday in Wales

Pen-y-Banc Farm, Llanwrda

Eight days ago we returned from a sunny and delightful week’s holiday in rural Camarthenshire, not far from Llandovery overlooking the Towy Valley. It’s a place we’ve been to a number of times in the past, a holiday cottage set in what should be a show garden. Our hosts were the amazing Kenneth and Gill, who over twenty years have converted a run-down farmstead into a place of beauty and a haven for wild life. The reason I call them amazing is that as well as being the epitome of hospitality they have made the transformation in the years since they retired.

Across the Towy Valley

My one sadness is my inability to explore the garden intimately in my wheelchair. However Jane brings back photos from around the paths – and I am able to sit in the back garden and enjoy the view over the valley to the Black Mountain.

For us one of the joys of that part of Wales is that is relatively accessible from our home, and yet it feels remote. Crossing the Severn Bridge is not exactly like crossing the English Channel, but there’s a faint sense of that as you go through the toll booths and all the traffic signs change to bilingual, with Welsh coming first. Talking of roads, what a joy they are after the terrors of our potholed, pock-marked tracks! Even the most minor of country tracks have scarcely any potholes. The Welsh government is often cited by Tory ministers as an example of Labour mismanagement, but I have to observe that they are a hundred times better at maintaining their roads than the English administration. I guess it’s a matter of allocating funds. In England local authority grants have been cut by 49.1% since 2010. Maybe it’s because the government allows local authorities 52 times less per mile to spend on local roads than it spends itself on major roads. And it's not just the roads that the cuts affect.

Just this morning I met a chap with a very complex medical condition who needs a support worker. The funding for support has been taken away, so that he now has to pay for his carer – which is taken from his pensions. When he suggested he might do without the support, he was told that wasn’t possible, and he would have to go into a home – funded by the sale of his assets. Apart from his small bungalow he has precious few assets. Meanwhile in a neighbouring council, there’s a team of social workers in child protection, half of whom are off ill with stress. The pressure on remaining team-members is scarcely imaginable. (Think of a half-strength football team in the World Cup, with the nation's expectations on them.) Such is the human cost of economising all in the name of cutting the national deficit. The people it hurts are not those who decree it, because, of course, if anything goes wrong, they'll not get the blame.

Aberaeron

Carreg Cennen Castle

How it is that Wales manages to maintain all its roads so much better than England, I don't know. Perhaps there's a strong lobby of Geraint Thomases. Certainly we met a road race of lycra-clad cyclists on the road home. (By the way, am I the only one to mourn the passing of leisure cyclist in normal clothing on normal bikes?) Nevertheless I'm grateful to Wales that I'm still able to enjoy its excellent roads, its beautiful gardens and castles, and its coast. We'll be back.