The key to enjoying any bank holiday on this crowded island is to avoid the masses at all costs. Hoards of highly decorated people in vests and  3/4 length shorts is not who I wish to share a picnic spot with. If you feel like this then a Gliffaes style picnic on the river Usk maybe for [...]

An hour or two clay pigeon shooting is very often seen as part of a weekend at a Country House Hotel. Gliffaes is very fortunate to have Woodland Park Shooting Ground about 30 minutes away, just north of Brecon. Clay shooting takes place on Fridays and Saturdays ( thanks to the heavy hand of the [...]

While the hotel was closed in January Susie and I took a short drive west along the A40 to the Pembrokeshire Coast, to the village of Newport, smack in the middle of the Pembrokeshire National Park. This is one of our favourite spots in the whole of the UK and thankfully has not yet been [...]

It really is a stunning Autumn this year around here and yesterday was the perfect day to visit Tintern Abbey with my daughter, Alexandra.  She is doing an art project on ruins and felt that Tintern would be the perfect place to do a little sketching, pastels and photography. A remarkably complete Cistercian Abbey Church, [...]