Ogmore Castle

Day 1 of Croeso (meaning welcome), the Welsh Orienteering Festival and we had a long drive to the first event which was on the dunes of Merthyr Mawr, south of Bridgend.  We had late starts, almost at two o'clock, so took it slow getting up, packing up lunch and the car, and stopping to pick up some extras from the supermarket en route.

Once at Assembly, there were lots of orienteering friends to catch up with before we set off on the 2km walk to the start.  It was a beautifully sunny afternoon with a brisk wind.  Our courses were not long but physically quite difficult running on a mix of low scrub and sand, up and down the dunes, my running shoes filling with sand!  I enjoyed the outing and only lost time on two controls, finishing in 11th place in my class, happy with that.

Tony was waiting for me at the finish so we chatted awhile to Club pals before the walk back, finished our sandwiches and drove back to the cottage.

I am writing this the day after as I completely forgot to upload yesterday my blip of Ogmore Castle, or what is left of it, which was in the Assembly area and used for the children's string course.  Ogmore was part of a defensive 'wall' of three fortresses built to protect Glamorgan, beginning as a structure of earth and wood in the 12th Century, before being replaced by stone.  Sitting on the Ewenny River, it has a series of banks and ditches, one designed to fill with seawater at high tide.  There is also a set of medieval stepping stones across the river at this point.

It's early morning and, as I type, I am enjoying the slight rain shower clearing the wooded hill (see my blip yesterday) out of the large window in the living room.  There are rabbits munching on the grass outside, sheep and lambs waking in the field beyond and the wagtails have arrived searching for bugs, very peaceful.

My apologies for the lack of commenting this week.