Primero Brickworks Apartments, Cardiff Wales

I had set my alarm for 7 am again and showered and met Jill downstairs for breakfast.   I wanted to get a few photos of her garden before I left.  First we watched the foxes in Jill's garden - such beautiful animals!    Then we went outside.  She has a neat set of green painted outdoor cupboards for her gardening tools.  Jill led me up the steps  to the first level - she has a terraced garden on the steep hill at the back of her lot.  She pointed out some trees her son gave her for Christmas (I think) and she mentioned how most of her flowers are not blooming now in mid-summer, one of her trees only had one bloom but her damson plum was loaded with plums.  She showed me jars of jam she had made because she had so many plums that needed attention.  There were other trees that had grown huge since she had planted them and other trees in neighbors' yards that were shading her garden (which she resented, of course).  It was nice to see her garden.  I was impressed by the amount of work she has put in this past year.  She says she loves to work in the garden.  She had rejected a suggestion that she should get someone to do the work for her.

After the tour, I went upstairs to pack up and was ready to leave by 9:30 am.  Jill was lying down but not asleep so we said our goodbyes.  She had already given me detailed directions  for how to get to the proper bus stop.

I left, took a few photos of the front of the house and headed for the bus stop - which I did not find as easily as I should have because her instructions had been spot on.  I now had to get a ticket since I left her my Oyster card which she probably would get not use from since she was eligible for free transportation by bus in the UK.  When I finally went to a news shop after bungling around a bit, I was told that I needed to get the Oyster card for a 5 pound deposit if I wanted to ride the bus.  Then he said that if I had a credit card that I could tap, I could use it on the reader and be billed via the credit card.  So that worked out.  I found the bus stop, waited 8 minutes and the bus arrived, I tapped my card and it worked!

When I got to the Paddington Station Stop, I was not totally sure how to get into the station, but managed without too much difficulty.   I got in a line and wound my way to a person.  They had helpers for people in the line who just wanted a ticket but since I wanted a senior RailPass and a ticket, I had to wait in the line.  It moved pretty quickly and I got my stuff for only 54 pounds which I thought was pretty reasonable.  I waited for my train platform to come up, found where it was, went to the platform, and even got settled in a non-reserved seat.  When a bunch of people were seated, we heard a message that the train was cancelled because of animals on the line

I went back to the ticket line, and the man who had assisted me in the line earlier told me I could just get on the next train which was only 20 or 40 minutes later.  I looked and it was boarding on the same platform as the previous one and so I headed out.  People were waiting at the closed doors and I followed them to get a seat.  This one started off.  I was really too tired to get our my computer or book, so I ended up dozing off.  I woke up and feared I might have missed my station stop, but luckily, no.

When I had access to wi-fi at the various train stations, I tried to message Marilynn to let her know when I would arrive in Cardiff.  Obviously, this had to be repeated several times.  When I arrived and headed to the information desk, she called my name and came to meet me.  Since she arrived shortly after 1 pm, she had decided to stay at the station  and wait for me because we couldn't go to the apartment until 4 pm anyway.

We were both hungry:  she had no lunch and I only had a granola bar so we looked for a place for lunch.  It seemed the majority of places we saw were just serving drinks but we then found a place with outdoor tables that was just opening for the afternoon dinner hour so we checked their menu and decided to stay.  I had some kind of Asian fusion dish that was quite good - with udon noodles and separate dumplings - but they all had a heavily salted sauce.  We stopped at a grocery store to get some supplies for breakfast and dinner and made our way to the apartments.  We had some confusion over where the apartments were but then Marilynn asked someone and we found it.  Marilynn looked on her phone for the numbers and I punched them into three different key pads.

The apartment is pretty spacious - the bathroom and kitchen quite functional.  All in all, quite satisfactory.  I have my stuff spread out all over the living room floor.  I was dead tired and went to bed as soon as I could.  I think I might have managed to put in a few things to charge and give Marilynn a few of my things that needed washing since she was taking advantage of our having laundry facilities.

And then I was dead to the world.