After a night out with the No Saints 5-a-side team on Thursday, I overslept and had to get the later train out of Southampton with a heavy head. The journey seemed to pass so much quicker than it should have done but it helped to be surrounded by the glorious scenery of South Wales. I arrived in my guest house after half an hour of wandering around trying to find it which I didn't mind too much with it being a beautiful day out. Port Talbot is a strange mix. On one side of the railway line is fantastic scenary and rolling hills while on the other sits a busy industrial estate.Having finally found my guest house thanks to two very helpful ladies in "VideoWorld" I was greeted at the door by the American co-owner, Eli, and her two huge dogs who seemed to pay more attention to me than Eli did at first as she finished a phone call before greeting me. Eli was kind of creepy and unnerving at first, like one of those strange characters from an American horror movie! My room was basically their computer room and was decorated in Native American paraphanalia and lots of pictures of dogs on the wall. She even had a dog calender by the computer- the month of March being taken up by the 'curly girl' breed. The room also seemed to be Eli's clutter room because random CD's, books and an exercise bike were dotted about! One thing that was very welcome was the small treats laid on for me next to my bed- a Nutri Grain bar, Chocolate Tracker bar and a bottle of Evian!
After settling in, I headed out to search for a place to sit and relax, away from the hustle and bustle of town life, my main reason for this chill out weekend away. My first port of call was a nearby park, Talbot Memorial Park. It was a little smaller than I had in mind and I was put off by the chavs that were scattered about the disused bandstand, desperately trying to impress each other with 'wheelies' on their bikes and seemingly seeing who could shout the loudest while doing so!
Moving on, my journey took me into Port Talbot town centre which is basically one street with a Tesco's and a shopping centre at the end. I decided that a coffee was in order while I thought about what to do so I settled down to try and figure it out. Having planned to find a cool, refreshing place named Waterfall Country I finished up with the coffee and escaped the screaming town folk and kids just coming out of schools to try and chase those waterfalls. Unfortunately a man stopped me in my tracks and asked me to please stick to the rivers and the lakes that I'm used to.
My plans did change when I went outside and had a closer look at the mountains that surrounded Port Talbot. I noticed that there were houses built into the side of them and pathways that seemed to lead up the mountain face. It was staring me right in the face. I needed to get away from the commercialised rubbishness of the town centre and there was a mountain just waiting to be explored. So I did it. It started out as just a small walk up but as I went further and further up, my self-challenging nature set in.
"I can get to the top," said my brain.
" You're too tired," said my body.
Luckily my brain won that particular argument (they're always fighting, them two) and I reached the top. The views were absolutely stunning and I could literally see for miles, watching as the welsh townfolk went about their daily business from way up high and writing these words in utter peace. I imagined what I would be doing back at home at that point. Probably on msn, replying to e-mails, on facebook or myspace while rushing about trying to cook dinner. I sat there on the side of that mountain, watched the sun setting in the distance and listening to music from my ipod. The sun's position behind a cloud created a fantastic red shadow on the horizon and I felt like the king of the world. Finally I had found my space!
Back to civilisation and I soon realised that I would have been better off staying up the mountain. Random drunk man number one shouted a welsh insult at me while random drunk man number two sounded an air horn from a passing car. Back at the hotel I wondered if Port Talbot was really for me and at one point considered even moving to Swansea for the next night instead but I eventually realised it would take up a lot of precious random exploring time before the football so I thought one more night wouldn't kill me!
Saturday, March 24th
After being woken by the dogs early on Saturday morning, I was treated to a very nice breakfast and had my first proper chat with Eli. I realised during the chat that she wasn't as scary as she first looked and more of an eccentric than a creepy old lady, with a laugh for every tale she told, even those that weren't meant for humour. Eli was born in Long Island, New York and moved to Colorado for university and stayed there until meeting her partner and now guest house co-owner, Lisa, and moving to Wales. Eli said something that struck a nerve in my writing mind when talking about the type of people she meets while running the guest house...
"Everyone's a character in their own way," she said.
I thought at that point what a great venture it would be to open a guest house and to just write about every person that comes through the door, something I regularly do at work when thinking up characters for stories and scripts. I find the most fascinating characters are already with us and sometimes you don't need an awful lot of creativeness to make a character up-real life is a lot stranger than fiction!
Lisa and Eli were having an argument about the plumber and his lack of appearance that morning to I left them to it and headed for Swansea!
Arriving early for away games really is something that I should try more often. In this instance I was in Swansea by 10:30am and by simply wandering aimlessly I found a city with plenty of history and things to explore. I find that if you walk around somewhere for long enough, you'll eventually find something interesting! I finally managed to find a beach near Swansea's old Vetch Field ground and this gave me some more relflection time before I started to make the walk up to the new Liberty Stadium. I managed to take the scenic route to the ground round a country park and river and arrived in good time before the game.
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