Ruthlin, the cottage in Wales

To celebrate  the first anniversary of our marriage, Denty and I rented a little (well, not-so-little as it was a four-bedroomed barn conversion) in the middle of nowhere in Wales. The building was a barn once belonging to a nearby-ish farm called Ruthlin Mills, hence the converted cottage was named Ruthlin.

It was a mere 200 mile journey, so Denty and I thought it would be nice to make a little detour to visit Stonehenge on the way there.  You see, about 20 years ago, little Denty found a Stonehenge souvenir bookmark in church and has used it ever since. What was once a leather bookmark with the respectable amount of tassels is now a sorry piece of cow hide with 3 and a bit strands of tassel. Since Denty had never seen Stonehenge, we thought it would be a great opportunity to get him a new bookmark.

After the little detour, we continued our journey to Ruthlin.

The cottage, like I said, was in the middle of nowhere and in order to get there, you have to drive pretty much on a single track road (my dad would love this!).

This is what we found at the end of our journey…

It was so lovely that it was perfect. The cottage had no mobile phone reception, no internet/computers and the only “technology” was the tv (with the five basic channels) and a dvd player. I have forgotted how liberating it is to hideout for a bit from the world and just enjoy Denty’s company.

Further shots of the cottage…

This is the river at the end of the garden. Due to the incessant rains, it was very swollen and muddy so I could not fish. Besides, I found out a couple days before the holiday that there was a “catch and release” policy at that stretch of the river… I was disgusted, I tell you! There are usually otters playing around there as well, but like I said, the river was very swollen. Maybe they were flushed downstream, paddling frantically with their little otter paws.

This is the stonewall at the cottage that doesn’t seem to serve much of a purpose except for being very green and pretty.

This is the heap of logs that is now no more…

This is the fire that Denty built out of the heap of logs that is now no more…

Finally, my one and only internal shot of the cottage. This is the floor to ceiling windows (two floors height), offering very nice views of the countryside from the comfort and warmth from the fireplace…

Denty said “this would be a very nice place to take your parents to”… More about the holiday in my next few posts.