Lactic Enlightenment Searching for the essence of Milk and Milk Bars

Pictures are here

So, arrived in Dolgellau at around about 5pm and decided that I couldn’t face a long drive home. I went to the Tourist Information and they suggested the Royal Ship Hotel just across the street (the ex-NMB is next door but one to the Barclays bank at the left of the picture). It looked nice enough and was not too pricey, so I checked in. Ran across the street to Boots to buy some necessities and to the camping shop to get a clean T-shirt. ‘Wierd Fish’ is what I now appear to be.

My room (113) Overlooked the Dolgellau ex-NMB. How cool is that.

Eschewing the hotel bar and local hostelries, I opted for a whistle-stop visit to Barmouth to visit their Milk Bar (not an NMB, alas) and get some fish (well, meat and potato pie) and chips from the chippy with the plastic dolphin outside - class.

Returning to the hotel saw me strangely tired, so an early night - punctuated only by the boy racers practicing their skills on the tiny streets outside. The skills in question being the ability to behave like complete tw@ts, of course.

Pictures are here

A quick trip up the road to Machynlleth to get a picture of the map which somehow failed to get taken last time I was there.

Had a nice cup of tea and a cream scone with jam (the cream was freshly whipped just for me) which was lovely.

As I drove past the NMB a space had opened up in the car parking just outside, so I took the opportunity to take a picture of the milk-mobile outside a National Milk Bar. Sweet.

A jaunt to Dolgellau to get a GPS fix and then I could go home happy. Yeah, right.

Pictures are here

Fantastic as NMB reports-by-proxy are, I do feel that I need to visit each and every open NMB personally. To this end I left Corporate HQ in Welshpool and struck West to the metropolis of Aberystwyth.

After an uneventful journey and a brief stroll in ‘Aber’ I located the NMB and had a pot of tea, sitting on the ‘Billy No Mates’ table. (A small table by the door with only one seat).

There is an interesting picture of an old Milk Bar on the wall by the front window. I’m not sure which NMB it is showing. It doesn’t seem to be the Aberystwyth one, as the building is all wrong. I could only stare at it from afar, as there were scary people sitting in the table underneath it.

It would be nice to get a good quality picture of that photo. If anybody’s in there with a digital camera - can you do the honours please?

Back to the m-m via a bookshop (for a postcard) and off to Machynlleth

Pictures are here

Saturday morning and I decided to go on a day trip to tidy up some loose ends. I reckoned I could fit a few things into one journey and then get back in time for tea. The plan was:

• Go to Aberystwyth for a personal visit
• Go to Machynlleth to take a picture of the Map
• Go to Dolgellau to get the GPS coords of the ex-NMB

So, set off in the milk-mobile on my own. Stopped off and bought a Guardian, which came with a free CD. The free CD turned out to be pretty good and became the soundtrack for the journey. (Best moment on CD is the lyric “Keepin it real, we’re ready to rock” from track 7 - genius.)

It was tipping it down, but, as if to prove the rule, just as I passed into Wales, the rain abated and the sun shone weakly. This set the tone for the rest of the trip; mostly fine and cloudy, patches of rain. Well done Wales - England was getting a soaking.

By the time I was passing Welshpool it was time for a little smackerel of something: NMB visited; Tea and ‘Supreme Burger’ ordered and consumed; Belly filled; Job done.

This time I parked in the Pay and Display car park by the Tourist Information Centre. I forgot to pay (or display) and I guess my luck must be a-changin’ because I didn’t get a ticket. Yippee.

Onwards with the quest …