About Me

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Hi! I'm Eunice and I live in Bolton, Lancashire, with my two dogs Sophie and Sugar and an assortment of cats - well it used to be Sophie and Sugar, now it's Sophie and Poppie. I first began camping back in 1997 when my then partner took me to Anglesey for my birthday weekend. We slept in the back of the car - a hatchback - using the cushions off the settee at home as a mattress, and cooked and brewed up on a single burner camping stove. The site was good, the views were great, the weather fantastic and I was completely hooked. Following that weekend we got a two-man tent and some proper accessories and returned to Anglesey two weeks later, then over time we progressed to a three-man tent followed by an old trailer tent, then a new trailer tent, a campervan and finally a caravan. When my partner decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the street - literally - in April 2009 and I suddenly found myself alone after fifteen years, I decided there was no way I was going to give up camping and caravanning if I could cope on my own. This blog is the story of my travels, trials and tribulations since becoming a solo camper - I hope you like it

Saturday April 25th 2015 - V is for Valley

This post is part of the A - Z Challenge.

Valley is a village on Anglesey just over three miles from Holyhead and situated by the crossroads where the A5, A5025 and the B4545 meet. Not far from the crossroads is the Stanley Embankment, designed by Thomas Telford and constructed in 1822/3; it's 1,170 metres long and connects Anglesey to Holy Island via the A5 and the North Wales Coast railway line. During the embankment's construction a dip was formed in the flat land on the Anglesey side and a workers' hamlet was built around it; over the years this has grown into the medium-sized village it is today, and even though the dip in the land has long since gone the village is still known as Valley.

Some distance from the village is RAF Valley, a Royal Air Force station which provides pilots with fast-jet training and search-and-rescue helicopter training. The base also acts as a civilian airport providing a twice daily passenger service to Cardiff airport in South Wales.

At the crossroads in the village itself are a number of shops and businesses - a barbers, petrol station, bathroom and kitchen showroom, newsagents, take-away, the Valley Hotel and Stermat, the garden, hardware and homecare centre. It's one of those stores which sells everything other than food and clothes, and even if you don't want anything when you go in there you'll more than likely find something you didn't realise you wanted until you saw it. It's one of my favourite stores, and a stay on Anglesey just wouldn't be complete without a visit to Stermat at Valley.





6 comments:

  1. Hi human, Eunice,

    My human's ex wife has been to that village. Yep, those were the days. He'd be working hard so she could take off and go exploring places such as Anglesey.

    Thanks for this and happy travels to you, my kind human friend.

    Pawsitive wishes,

    Penny :)

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    1. Hi Penny - It's nice to know there's someone reading this who knows the place I've written about. If you've never been to Anglesey yourself you should go sometime - you'd like it, there are some lovely places and the beaches are great :)

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  2. I love stores like that - ones where you find something you didn't know you needed.
    ~Visiting from AtoZ

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    1. Hi Wendy, thanks for stopping by and commenting.

      I remember several years ago I wanted a yellow breakfast tray to use in my caravan. I searched everywhere, even on the internet, and couldn't find what I was looking for - yellow just didn't seem to be the 'in' colour for kitchen accessories at the time. Then on a camping weekend on Anglesey I went into Stermat and found exactly what I wanted - I was so happy I bought two :)

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  3. When I saw the name, I thought, "that's an odd name for a town. Wonder how it came about." Thanks for enlightening me. :)

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    1. I've always thought it's an odd name for a place but at least there's a reason behind it, and it's pronouncible even in Welsh - Y Fali.

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I really appreciate good comments - who doesn't? - but due to a recent tide of spam from anonymous readers all comments will now be moderated, and only those with a direct bearing on this blog will be published. I'm sure my regular blog readers/commenters will understand the need for this - and to anyone whose comment isn't published, you know why.