Day 45
The Mumbles to Briton Ferry: 11.5 miles
Fun Fact of the Day: Highway signs are way, way bigger than you think
Reason: Walking past them is very different than going past them at 70mph
..th mmbls..
Otherwise known as 'The Place Where Catherine Zeta Jones is from' The Mumbles (the 'The' is at times used in the town name) is a posh-ish little beach resort, just on the edge of Swansea. Besides CZT, the town's other major claim to fame is that it was the location of the world's first passenger train - which went from Swansea to The Mumbles. One other notable fact is where the name 'Mumbles' came from. There are two islets at the end of the town, that were referred to as the French word 'mamelles' for breasts. That eventually became 'Mumbles' or 'Mwmbwl' in Welsh.
So I feel like The Mumbles should be twinned with the Grand Tetons, and everybody would really enjoy themselves.
As it is, the town has a very prominent castle, a lovely lighthouse, a long Promenade, and sweeping views to. . . Swansea and Port Talbot. The latter of course means views of a giant smokestack, but it's far enough away to not really matter. The town seems full of high end eateries and shops, and the walk along the Promenade is easy and scenic if you don't count dodging bikes.
On the way, I even learned about the first female industrialist - Amy Dillwyn, of Swansea. Daughter of Lewis Llewellyn Dillwyn M.P., she took over the family's Zinc Smelter Works on his death in 1895, and basically saved them from bankruptcy, and eventually made them profitable. In addition to noting she was the world's first female industrialist, an author and a female emancipator, the plaque I read also notes she was 'a cigar smoker!' [emphasis the plaque's]. I'm not entirely clear why the plaque was particularly shocked by her cigar smoking and not her other achievements, but maybe this was just a problem of grammar than of emphasis and the exclamation point was meant for everything. Female emancipator! Author! Town Councillor! YAAAAAYYYY!!!
Walking along, I passed tight herds of benches overlooking the water and wondered whether the city planners built them in close pairs so they would multiply more quickly. I've always said British bench technology is the best, and combined with a love of gardening, who knows.
Swansea and beyond
I actually quite liked Swansea. The 'ugly, lovely town' of Dylan Thomas' birth is still that - clearly some areas are nicer than others. Some still smack of Swansea's gritty history as 'Copperopolis' and some have been completely reworked.
One area that's been substantially redone is the Maritime Quarter, the city center and the docks. I think they did a good job, even though development like this always for some reason brings to mind the 'Springfield Squidport' redevelopment from The Simpsons, home of such shops as 'Have it Uruguay' and 'It's a Wonderful Knife', that's because the Simpsons is obviously mocking the redeveloped docks model that many cities with less than savory areas have adopted.
Frankly I think Swansea did a very good job of it. The restaurants look inviting, the bridges and the architecture are lovely and it's a very nice place to spend some time in. A lot of the developments have interesting sculptures and there are small museums and informational plaques everywhere (although again my camera decided to malfunction so I don't have all the pictures of them). We also took the opportunity of being in a small city to eat Asian food - which, of course, was thrilling.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Briton Ferry
But actually the best part of the day was after I'd followed the disused Tennant Canal that reminded me of walks in Central Massachusetts all the way to where the path turned towards the highway in Jersey Marine. At that point I stepped in clearly very new gum, and couldn't get it off my shoe.
When I met up with P in front of the old Jersey Marine Tower folly. Incidentally, it's believed this is where the boxer Rocky Marciano was billeted during WWII, and people say he got into a fight with an Australian here, and instead of court martialling him, they had him box for the Army (though I feel like that was also part of the plot of From Here to Eternity). Anyway, I met up with P here and asked him to get the gum off my shoe.
I lay back onto an inclined hill of grass, and he held my foot and tried to get the gum off with a stick. I was just thinking this must look strange to the people driving by not a few feet away when I saw a giant police van. The passenger was looking at me, so I tried to give my best smile and wave, but I'll be honest that I'm terrified of the police (no I've done nothing wrong, I just have an authority problem). It appears that came through quite clearly, although possibly the police read my expression as fear of P who was, to be fair, really focused on doing weird things to the bottom of my foot at that time.
So as we went to walk on, suddenly the van pulls up along the other side of the street and the police officer yells 'Everything ok then'? And I start giggling hysterically as I do when confronted by something that makes me nervous and explain about the gum. As always, they can't understand my accent and so ask again. So I laugh more and tell them again. Now P's laughing, I'm in frantic hysterics, but luckily the police officer and his partner start laughing too. Which is lucky because I'm certain there's some 1000 year old law here about men not being allowed to touch women's feet by the side of the highway after noon on Tuesdays in July.
That having been the most exciting thing to happen all day, we navigated our way under, over, around highways, concrete pillars and pylons, giant signs and traffic moving at 70mph (at which I kept yelling 'where the h*ll are you going so fast?' and shaking my fist at it) on to Briton Ferry where we stopped for the day.
Which was a good thing, because by the end my case of old lady hip was starting to act up quite violently again.
