Good Hotel Guide
Hostels and Hotels in Llandrindod Wells
If you have a hotel in any of these locations then please contact us to list your hotel below, free of charge.
Brecon, Builth Wells, Knighton, Llandrindod Wells, Llangammarch Wells, Llanwrtyd Wells, Presteigne, Rhayader
For UK travelers going abroad, we recommend Tenerife, with feel of the UK yet all the sun of Tenerife. Read an extract below from More Ketchup than Salsa, the story of a English couple who left the UK to set up life in Tenerife. Info on how to buy the book can be found below.
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Below you will find short extracts from More ketchup than Salsa by Joe Cawley – not to be missed.
Short Extract
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All the hellos quickly turned to goodbyes as the last drops from upturned bottles of Beaujolais dripped onto white linen. The following day we were leaving England to start a new life. The honeymoon was already over. To wake up in the morning and realise that this is the day every aspect of your life will change forever is, to put it mildly, a tad daunting. Try as I might, I couldn’t get back to sleep to delay the inevitable. A tinge of excitement at the start of something new was overshadowed by a cocktail of worry: anxiety that it was too late to stop the momentum; fear that we were stepping into the unknown and into a huge debt that would be hung round our necks for a good number of years; and panic that we had lost something vital paperwork, passports, our minds. Yesterday I had gained a sister-in-law. Today I was to gain a new life, new identity and new prospects. Excitement and anxiety see-sawed continuously. A life with fish seemed years ago and my thoughts were now racing in one direction, towards what lay ahead. Final packing and the drive to the airport were a fuzzy montage of checking, rechecking and re-rechecking. I felt like an obsessive-compulsive. Money? I patted my pocket. Phew or was it? I thrust my hand into my pocket and let out a sigh. Yes, money. Was it all there though? Had I dropped some? I remembered pulling the keys out of my pocket to give to Joy. Were some of my hard-earned fish funds lying invitingly on the wet pavement outside Joy’s mother’s house? I pulled out the wad and counted it again. All there. Or was it? Had I counted it wrong? I pulled it out again. 10, 20, 30, 40 ‘Pack it in. You’re going to lose it.’ Joy snatched it from my hands and folded it in her purse. I was surprised just how calm she was despite having just waved goodbye to her mother. Joy had an inner strength and a practicality that was beyond me. When the going got tough, while I’d look for my coat, Joy would take hers off to wade right in. For her, avoiding trouble and strife was not an option. If she set out to do something, she would continue unfalteringly in a straight line until the mission was accomplished. I would veer right and left haphazardly, trying to find a way round the hard work and confrontation. Some would call it lazy, I preferred ‘creative meandering’. However, creative meandering was not an option now.
Brecon, Builth Wells, Knighton, Llandrindod Wells, Llangammarch Wells, Llanwrtyd Wells, Presteigne, Rhayader
But Gene didn’t disappoint. He was a huge hit with the holidaymakers and many residents from far afield, who would make their only appearance at our bar on the Thursdays when Gene was performing. Joy’s theatrical aspirations were briefly fulfilled as she joined Gene in a dance routine that they had worked on for ‘Up On the Roof’. It was only after a few weeks of Gene’s gigs that we found out he was capable of getting much higher than just the roof. One Thursday he had arrived over half an hour late and the audience were growing impatient. The two Johns were having a particularly annoying day: ‘I think your ex-Drifter’s an ex-Smugglers now,’ said John One. Aye, drifted off I reckon,’ added his sidekick. You want to sack him if he comes in now,’ said John One, trying to stir things.
By now our meal count averaged around 40-50 breakfasts and lunches combined, and 100-120 evening meals. Naturally we had had to increase our efficiency to turn around more tables, but it was no mean feat in the searing July heat. All the more draining as we now provided entertainment in the evening. We needed help. We knew it was going to be almost impossible to find anybody that could cook and that would endure the heat and pace of the kitchen for the paltry wages we were offering. The biggest help that we could hope for would be a couple that could come in after all the food had been served, clean up, and run the bar until closing time. This would at least put an end to some of the 3a.m. and 4a.m. bedtimes that we were suffering now it was summer. The most annoying nights were when only one or two tables remained at a relatively decent hour i.e. before 1a.m. Thoughts of an early night would prevail, especially if all remaining tables ordered the bill before midnight. It was hard to resist breathing a sigh of relief and start visualising fleecy bedsheets. But, as Murphy would have it, the plot would always change. Just as the last people were bidding their goodnights, after the floor had been mopped and all the tables cleaned, a taxi-full of young revellers who had been turned out of a club in Las Américas would shatter the calm and crash into the bar like a herd of rabid cattle. Having slowed to almost a standstill, trying to shift from first to fifth gear in one go required a major effort, both mentally and physically. We’d smile, we’d serve, and we’d even laugh at their drunken banter. Tonight’s idiots could be tomorrow’s breakfast crowd and, having been rebuffed by the nightlife downtown, there was also the possibility that they would choose to dump their entire binge budget in our till if we pushed the right buttons. This involved much more than jolly smiles and chirpy banter, however. Picking diced carrot out of the bathroom plugholes was a real delight, especially after we’d already cleaned the bathrooms ready for the morning. Oh, how we would chuckle at that little jape, coming as it did at the end of a 13-hour shift!