Summer Holiday Day 3: Bethesda

We did a family voice memo discussion and here is the transcription:

Okay, summer holiday 2023, day three. So we woke up in Chester in the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
And it was Sunday. I think it's important to note that D.C. was Sunday.
And we hadn't booked breakfast. That was crucial, because it would have been £20 a head.
We had planned also to potentially go down to the swimming pool in the morning.
But Conor's body clock had been so messed up that he was still awake at midnight.
It was already midnight before he fell asleep. It was important that he got some sleep.
Meanwhile, I was doing some more research on the iPad as to what we were going to do.
And then we messaged through to the other room to find out what time it would be ready.
So we left at 9.30. We checked out at that point, put stuff in the car.
We went back down and went out. We walked in circles really for a bit, trying to find somewhere to have breakfast.
And we went to be found somewhere. And it was this, what would you call it?
It was called neighborhood. Is it a cafe? I think actually, it's probably, I mean, it said...
It's for mostly purpose. It's not like a bistro. I think it was a little bistro. I think at night it has live music.
Bar bistro. A bar bistro. Yeah. But it was very much a kind of, it was lovely.
It was lovely. It had lots of natural wood and kind of plants and things with a straw.
And the waitress said, Oh, I love your top. I am Kenneth.
I am Kenneth, which I got as a present from Auntie Katie for my birthday.
So yes, I've been wearing this hoodie a lot. And the waitress complimented me for it, which made me feel very happy.
And I was also very happy. This morning I was generally just very happy.
I was just very happy because I had an amazing breakfast.
I had French toast with cinnamon and rabang and berries and cream.
And it was amazing. But you were also going to ask if you could have a hot chocolate with that.
Well, you have kind of taken the mic. It's because I told her that if your birthday is on a weekday,
then you're allowed to kind of claim the New Year's weekend as part of your birthday celebrations.
I knew I was pushing it, but I wanted to see what I could get.
Yes, so you didn't get the hot chocolate. Fair enough.
You admitted it was like this because you couldn't even finish what you wanted.
So we had a nice breakfast. So I finished it. And then we went to...
Conor, remember, unfortunately, only was able to eat one slice of sourdough toast.
And he didn't really like that either.
Yeah, but like I said, in there, this is not going to last much longer in this situation.
I mean, there'll be a point in time where Conor's eating absolutely everything
and we're laughing about the fact that he used to not even eat a slice of toast.
You can hear us.
So then we were heading towards Waterstones, but before we got to Waterstones,
we discovered this really, really cool record shop that had records on the ceiling and stuff
and had loads of old vintage books.
And I got a copy of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, which we already have.
Yes, Conor knows.
I got a copy from 1909, 114 years ago, for £3. I was very happy about that.
And it also had cassette tapes, which you've never really seen before.
I've never really seen a cassette tape before, which seems strange, but also unsurprising.
It was the Rick Astley album, wasn't it?
Yeah, which you actually had.
Which I actually had. I actually had that.
Yeah. Well, that's what my first album was bought on cassette.
Well, my first of many albums before I got CDs.
Yes, and you made a point about the 80s being like the best decade to grow up in,
setting aside the impending threat of nuclear annihilation.
And AIDS and the risk of dying of a drug overdose, even if you'd never been anywhere near drugs.
And the housing crisis.
But anyway, apart from all of that.
Yeah, we could go on a massive tangent.
Yeah, let's not. But that was a cool shop.
And then we went into that square where Conor sat on the grass.
Yeah, Abbey Square.
Abbey Square.
And then we walked a little bit of the...
The cathedral was really nice.
That was nice. And the weather was really nice as well. It was sunny for once.
Chester city walls in the sunshine.
And yeah, it's a really nice city, even though it's more like a town than a city.
It's a bit like York, really, I think.
And then we went to Waterstones.
And I didn't get anything, but Dad, you got stuff for Conor, and I read loads of blurbs.
Dogman. The Dogman book.
The Minecraft book.
I picked up two books, and then I put them back, because I have books and I haven't finished them.
So I was like...
Yeah, me too.
And so I was being very disciplined.
And yeah, so we left Waterstones, headed back to the car, and we set off to...
Where did we go next?
A caravan.
A caravan.
A caravan, yeah.
We got onto the North Wales...
Well, no, we didn't. We went to Colwyn Bay.
Yeah, we went there.
Yeah, the North Wales Expressway to Colwyn Bay.
Yeah, so we went to Colwyn Bay, and it was along a beach, and we had lunch.
I had a sausage roll at, what would you call that kind of place?
It was a beachside cafe.
Beachside cafe, I mean, eight and a half side.
And we had far too many chips.
Yes.
Because I'd ordered some chips to go.
Chips to the side of the chips.
And we got an extra portion of chips.
I don't know why, but it looked like I had some chips with a portion of chips.
When she came over and she was like, I'm going to bring you the rest of your chips.
And I was like, we don't need any more chips.
More chips, because you were going to have...
Conor had a hot dog, which he didn't eat, because it wasn't a hot dog, it was a sausage.
With a side of chips.
And then I had a sausage roll with a side of chips, which I wasn't going to eat anyway.
So I was eating your chips, and you were going to eat Conor's chips, and you had chips.
And more chips.
And side of chips.
More chips.
It was like chips and chips.
But thankfully they had English mustard, hot English mustard.
So I could dip my chips in that.
Uh huh.
And yeah.
We went on a 10 minute walk.
And then I went on a walk.
Oh yeah, there was a nice little kind of sea view, wind platform thingy, which we took pictures on, which was nice.
A wind platform for the offshore wind farm.
Yes, and I spoke about the Muppets Christmas Carol, because its songs have gotten stuck in my head for some reason.
Oh well.
Oh yeah, and I was telling you a lot about the fact that I had, out of nowhere, the song Lucille by Kenny Rogers stuck in my head.
Which became relevant that evening, so we went back to the car, and then we drove to the caravan.
No we didn't.
No we didn't.
We went to Canarvon.
We went to Canarvon Castle.
Oh yes, we went to Canarvon.
Because we were, I was, in fact, we were going to go to Aber Falls for a walk.
Yeah that was the original plan, and then we were, thought about going back to Conwy Castle.
Which would have been a great decision.
Which actually we should have done, but we'd driven past it already, so we decided to go to Canarvon, but really we should have gone to Conwy, but anyway.
So we went to Canarvon, and we, I had, me and Conor had a tub of chocolate ice cream sitting on a bench.
And then we went around exploring all the towers and stuff, and the spiral staircases, which were very steep and very steep.
The last time that we were there, Conor didn't do any of that, me and Conor didn't do any of that, because he was too young, too little, and he didn't want to go up all the giant stairs.
I took a photograph of you, in that room with the chessboard, I took a photograph of you.
I'll have to see the comparison between the two pictures.
In the exact same spot that you were in 2019, four years ago when you were there last.
So we'll see if it looks, what it looks like, how much taller you are.
See if I have the same, because I was copying the chess piece, see if I had the same idea four years ago.
And Conor went into the black tower, which the last time we refused to do, because it was too creepy.
So the last time me and Conor were doing this kind of treasure hunt thing for kids, and I had to go in there and collect the, you know, find out the thing, because he wouldn't go in.
The spooky face.
The spooky face.
For this time, I was taking photographs with him, trying to be half of the spooky face himself.
Yeah, and we read things on the back of the spooky faces, and we learned that King Edward I was a knob.
I think we knew that already.
Yeah, you know, we're related.
We're related to him.
I'm not.
Well, I am, sadly.
And then.
And then we went to the caravan.
And then we went to the caravan.
It's a very nice caravan, and they had a farm.
Well, before that, we went to Tesco in Bethesda.
Bethesda.
Bethesda.
Bethesda.
Bethesda.
Bethesda.
But this was the relevance of it being Sunday, that by this time it was like six o'clock, and we were like.
We were going to go to the Tesco in Carnarvon.
And it was shut.
Yeah, it's Sunday, so we went to this small Tesco.
And I got some chicken thighs and chicken wings.
OK, so we went to the caravan, and I was sent outside to play with Conor with the aerobie.
Because it was a massive big field.
Massive big field.
There was a family next door as well.
They had a wee six-year-old girl.
I didn't speak to them though, which I think we could have, but oh well, we didn't.
I went back inside, and we had dinner.
We would have only heard we'd been there for more than one night.
Yeah.
And we had dinner, and we played a playlist of our top 50 artists.
Oh, here we go.
We started off by playing some country music because of me talking about the fact that I had Lucille.
So what's the line from Lucille?
You picked a fine town to leave me, Lucille.
Four hungry children and the crops in the field.
Yeah, we sort of lost it.
I've had some sad times.
I've been through some bad times.
I picked a fine... I don't know.
This time we...
Oh well.
Anyway, so...
Yeah.
We're going out already.
But yeah, it's like all... It's very tragic.
It's basically a song about Kenny Rogers going to a bar and meeting a woman who turns out his...
And then her husband... She takes her wedding ring off.
So...
And then her husband turns up and sings to her about how she's left them with their four kids and the crops.
And you're kind of like, well, actually, do you know what, Lucille?
I can sort of understand why, you know, because that sounds like a crappy life.
But anyway...
Anyway...
And then we listen to some more country in Western.
So I explained what TKC meant to you.
And you decided that Kitsch was actually exactly the genre you liked the best.
I mean, you said it was like Elton John, Queen and Abba.
Of course I love Kitsch.
Even though I didn't know what it was until yesterday, but oh well.
We explained what torture was and played a few songs.
And then we kind of got onto the top 50, our compiled list of our top 50 artists that we think are the best 50 artists of all time.
Which is a playlist that you and I made...
Last year it was, I think.
Yeah.
Maybe.
I can't actually remember, but we made it anyway.
And one of the most...
Orla made...
The song Baby Jane came on.
And I remember...
Not necessarily Baby Jane, but I remember asking Orla if she recognised a song that Rod Stewart was singing previously.
And I was like, he's got such a distinct voice.
You know, this is the whole point of him being on this playlist.
Because this playlist was of people that we felt that you shouldn't always know that that's who it is if you hear them singing.
And I said, I've told you before who this is.
And Orla was like, I don't know.
My memory's terrible.
Said, who do you think it is?
So who do you think it is? Tell me.
I prefaced it.
Prefaced it?
Prefaced it with saying, I don't know.
And this is a complete guess.
Because we've done this thing before.
And like I said, I don't know.
My mum just said, have a go because you might be right.
And then I did it and I got it right in the past.
So then I vowed I'm always going to guess even if I don't think I'm right.
Because I only say I don't know because I'm afraid people laugh at me.
So I took a guess about the first person that came into my mind.
And I guessed Stevie Wonder.
And then we did laugh at you.
And then you laughed at me.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
100%.
Because it was the funniest thing you'd ever heard.
And I was sitting there laughing myself because you were laughing.
What was even funnier was that the next song in the playlist.
It was Stevie Wonder.
It was actually Stevie Wonder.
I mean that was the thing.
That's when I really lost it.
Yeah.
Because you can't find it funny.
It was funny.
But I wasn't laughing at you.
I mean I was laughing.
But don't let that put you off guessing things.
Because actually it was genius in its own way.
You need to own something that, you know, that big.
I can pretend that I did it on purpose.
My mum owes, you know.
Just like, you know.
Be funny accidentally.
One night at a disco in Newcastle, Bristol.
It can't harm me because I tell people that myself now.
So that's how you diffuse the power of the humiliation and the embarrassment.
You're just like, oh yeah.
I genuinely thought that's what they were saying.
I genuinely thought that Rod Stewart was actually Stevie Wonder.
So yeah.
There were a lot of laughs.
A lot of laughs.
And then there was some dancing as well.
I danced around some music.
Then there was a lovely sunset.
Mum and dad went outside and sat on the balcony while I sat inside on the couch.
And read Stardust.
Which I'm quite close to finishing-ish.
And then of course you and Conor were in a nice little cosy cabin.
Cosy wee room.
Yeah.
Hose your bed.
Narrow but comfy.
And then day three.
Night night.