Monday May 7th 2012 - A wet and miserable day

For the second morning running I woke to the sound of rain on the van roof and the sight of a very grey sky - I could hardly believe that after the previous day and evening had turned out to be so glorious it was raining again, though I hoped that once I was ready to go out later on it would be fine. Unfortunately it wasn't to be - several times it stopped raining and I thought I would have the chance to go out but within minutes it had started again; even the dogs didn't enjoy their walk round the site and were glad to get back in their bed again afterwards. So with my planned photography expedition for that day put on hold until sometime in the future I resigned myself to the fact that as long as it kept on raining I wasn't going anywhere, and I whiled away the time by reading my book and watching a bit of tv. However, by 3 o'clock that afternoon I was thoroughly fed up of staying in so just for something to do I decided to drive across the Menai bridge and go to Bangor, a place I'd never been to before.

It didn't take long to get there and as I had no interest in going into the town itself I followed the signs for the pier and eventually arrived at the end of a narrow street with a small public garden on a corner and a private car park by the pier entrance. There was an automatic barrier across the car park and a notice on the nearby pay machine said it was £1 to park all day - very cheap if you were staying all day but I wouldn't be there long, though as there were no vacant parking spaces on the road there was no alternative, so I put my money in the machine, the barrier let me through and I parked up facing the water. I sat for a while looking out over the water, with Anglesey just across the straits, and I came to one conclusion - Bangor is just as miserable as anywhere else when it's raining.

Having seen a sign for a cafe somewhere along the pier I thought I would have a walk down there and get a coffee - as it was still raining, and I wouldn't be away that long anyway, I left the dogs in the van for once. As it turned out, my walk along the pier was a total waste of time - the cafe right at the end was closed and the kiosk halfway along was so small that with the four people already in there it was full, so my idea of getting a coffee was abandoned. Under the shelter of my umbrella I got three shots of the pier from the car park then as there was no point exploring anywhere else in the rain I returned to the van and set off back to Anglesey.

When I got back to the camp site I found that most other campers had gone, and in the field where I was pitched there was just one other tent and a campervan left; if the previous evenings had been quiet because of the power shortage then it would certainly be quiet that night. After a quick dog walk and a much-needed brew and something to eat I spent the evening watching tv, and as there was hardly anyone left to overload the site's electricity supply the power actually stayed on - I was glad of it too as yet again it was a very chilly evening. It was 11pm before I took Sophie and Sugar for their last walk of the day and it was still raining, although maybe not as much as before - and when I finally settled down into bed a while later I realised something; Louise's weather forecast the day before had been right!