So today was Grandmas day, she’d been looking forward to this for weeks, a ride on the Gwili Steam Train…how exciting!!
It should have been last week to be fair, but Grayson was a little unwell and we had to reschedule, so she’d had a full week to re-psych herself up for the exciting train journey through the mountainous beauty of Carmarthenshire…god help us.
Oo I felt like Harry Potter, but slightly unprepared. No visit from Hagrid, no gold in the bank, and worst of all, I’d missed the early morning stop to Diagonal Alley to stock up on wands and potions…and thus I would be continually praying we didn’t encounter any death eaters or dementors along the way…
First, a quick stop at the ticket office to pick up our tickets. My goodness, we could not have met a man less satisfied with his job…this bloke was raging that we had gone and rescheduled from last week and tried to stick us on a later train because “we can’t just ram people on the train”…yeah we know that bud, and we are all for health and safety, but we were told to come at 1pm, and have arranged our day around this…”fine, we’ll chance it, here are your tickets!”.
Thanks bud…to be fair, he would have actually done us a favour by denying us entry onto the train 😂
Right, come on, we’ve managed to snag the tickets, let’s get on quick before we have to bunk up with some randomers…the train is full after all…
Not before a quick rock hunt along the way though, Grayson and Alaska gathering a collection of their favourite rocks from a gravel pathway…wonderful…leave the rocks guys, I’m more concerned how mags will traverse the rockery to gain entry to the train…this was a challenge, but we got there…go mags, nothing will stop her this week!!
And off we go, waved off by some avid trainspotters, toodle pip. BTW there were plenty of empty seats on the train, no idea why the tickemaster was so furiously denying this.
Lovely view of some people back gardens, a few cows and sheep along the way…and a train graveyard…displaying faces of Thomas the Tank engine like some perverse medieval display of heads on spikes, warning the passing steam trains to stay in line or suffer the same fate…this was not the trip I expected.
Moving on though, the Gwili Railway equivalent of the refreshment trolley passes by…”can I get you anything?”…so you sell Ice cream?…afraid not mags, we’re in the peasants section…only chocolate frogs and Bertie Bots beans for us…some lightening scarred bugger and his ginger mate had ransacked everything else in the upper class cabins…bloody wizards!!
End of the line…OMG why have we stopped??!! Don’t panic Gray, it’s only to turn around to go back…Have we broken down??!! No you nutter calm down…poor kid was stressing we’d have to walk back to the car…to be fair so was I, mags wouldn’t last and we’d have to make the tough choice to leave her to fend for herself along the river or carry her back…and I’d already made the decision…fortunately though, we were off back in the opposite direction soon after…myself and Grayson sigh in relief…as did Mags.
Next stop along the line…’we’ll be here about half hour if you want to get off’…where are we then?? Ahhhh the bloody train Graveyard…fabulous…come on the guys, let’s go for a wander and see play around in Thomas and Percy’s corpses.
“Bring back memories??”…some guy had decided to single Mags out…oh yes, very much so…bloody hell Grams, always guessed you were a witch, I’ll have to think twice before talking back to you in the future. Back in my day, trains were run on steam, and men were men…I feel attacked Mags, what are you implying??!!
Oh yeah, and as we’d stopped, Grayson breaks back out into panic at where we were and how we would get him, why could he not play plants vs zombies or watch rainbow friends instead??!!…chill out Kid, almost home…glad to hear your enjoying your day though.
Back to the train graveyard…little explore, standard Grayson nagging for any toys he may view as acceptable, no matter what they are…and best of all, a miniature train journey for the kids to go in whilst we wait…for the big train we are literally on!…hmmm, apparently you can never have enough trains!!
I need a wee!!! Damn it Grayson, what is it with you and railways trains that make you want to pee…quick come on then, the train is going soon and for some reason you need to ride the monsters one first…made it, miniature train done, back on the real deal!!
Back home we go, another stop, to ‘get the train a drink’…well that’s how one kid described refilling the steam trains water…he was raging!!!…little fight between the kids, why not. Alaska sulking, and screaming ‘I’m Sorry!!’ At Grayson so no apparent reason, and Grayson breaking down because the train had again come to a stop to refuel, and I was beginning to think that today may have been a bad idea 🤔. Finally, we were back to the station…hoorah!!
Back home to chill…we had fun, we always do.
Quick side note: Gray and Loo have gone to my parents for a sleepover - had the following report from Paige:
Gray on Burger King ‘they love making kids sad because I love cheese bites and they’ve decided to change them to make them spicy’ also grandma dropped chips everywhere ‘what the hell are you up to’
He’s off his head I had to make a detour to McDonald’s to get cheese bites he then realised McDonald’s are doing Pokémon cards so I also had to buy a happy meal.
Nice one kids 😂
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