That timetable planner at Cardiff Bus with the weird sense of humour has been at it again.  The No.44 bus goes to and from St Mellons over 300 times a week but on just two occasions it deviates from that route.  Those two occasions are early on a Sunday morning when it starts at the Eastern Leisure Centre in Llanrumney. In order to make sure I’d ridden the full No.44 route I therefore had to be up and out before dawn to ensure I was in with a chance of catching the 06.27 into town.

I waited nervously at the bus stop which had no mention of the No.44 on the sign.  When I popped my head around the corner, there in the distance I could see a No.44 waiting at the side of the road.  I scuttled back to the bus stop and sure enough, dead on time, it appeared around the corner.

As the sun slowly rose and we rode smoothly around St Mellons, Trowbridge and Rumney more passengers embarked probably heading into town for their jobs.  By the time we got there it was light. I had a walk around for half an hour, watching the streets being cleaned up from the Saturday night exuberances.

By now the Wetherspoon’s Prince of Wales pub was open so I went and had some tea and toast and a read of my book Why Can’t Elephants Jump?  This is a New Scientist publication, a collection of questions they publish which readers have a go at answering.  Fascinating stuff.  The Prince of Wales is also fascinating as it is an old theatre and then cinema which I never came in before it was a pub.  I’m only emphasising that because it used to be the X-rated movie house when I was young.

After a look around the pub I headed out to catch the No.44 back to St Mellons.  And no it doesn’t return to the Eastern Leisure Centre, not for another week and only then ‘out of service’.  By the time I got home it was my normal ‘getting up’ time and I still had the whole day ahead, and yes, I confess, I did have an afternoon nap.

I think I read somewhere that this is one route where Cardiff Bus do their very best to make sure the buses run on time as they risk loosing the franchise if not. I suspect therefore that the bus I caught may have been a rushed replacement for a late running predecessor held up because of a fire engine causing hold ups on Cowbridge Road. Then again I may be talking rhubarb.

I had a good plan for today.  I was going to visit the Saint Fagans Museum where lots of buildings from various parts of Wales have been moved, rebuilt and opened for the public to wander around.  There is a farmhouse, church, shops and as of last year a pub – The Vulcan which used to be in Adamsdown, Cardiff until the land was needed for redevelopment.

The plan was to buy my lunch – some bara caws (cheesy bread) from the bakery and take it to the Vulcan and have it with a nice pint of beer. There were just a couple of stumbling blocks to that plan: it was half-term and the queues outside the bakery were long and the Vulcan has a long list of things not allowed including taking in food, even food purchased from another museum outlet. Sigh.

Never mind. I headed for the Vulcan. I’ve mixed feelings about it I must say. Great its been saved and rebuilt.  Full marks for the period outfits the bar staff wear.  Wood shavings on the floor rather than sawdust?  It looks kind of weird. The beer is keg not cask and Glamorgan Ale not Brains but having moaned it wasn’t a bad pint today. I sat, supped my beer and dreamt of lunch. Most people just come in to have a look and wander back out again so you do feel like part of the museum display sat there on your own.

The majority of visitors to the Vulcan miss the best bit – the gents.  The giant urinals look like they have been moulded out of toffee.

My book for the day was Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid, a fine author with science background and ability to write good page-turning novels.

One of the most attractive building in the museum is Gwalia Stores which used to be in Ogmore Vale.  I was doing some genealogy research a few month back and discovered it was owned by William Llewellyn who was Dr David Owen’s material great-grandfather.  I popped in to Gwalia Stores and explained this to the young person there.  They’d never heard of him not even after I gave them hints like Foreign Secretary in Callaghan’s government and a founder member of the SDP.  That seals it for me – I’m not going to seek fame as it only lasts a blink of the eye.  Better to have another beer in the Vulcan and forget about all about it – but keep an eye on the time because the last No.32 back to town departs early afternoon.

This bus holds a World Record!  The No.30 is jointly run by Newport and Cardiff Bus.  The buses alternate throughout the day and I had to be careful to make sure I always caught a Cardiff Bus.  It wasn’t that challenging – one is bright orange and the other green, plus the timetable indicates who the operator is. The No.30 is the longest period of a jointly operated municipal bus service in the world and started operating 80 years ago.

I had a dash to a local bus stop and arrived just as the No.30 was pulling up. The bus goes along the A48 all the way to Newport.  It was quite a shock to the system to be travelling at speed on a Cardiff bus in the non-built-up stretches. I got off in Tredegar Park.  Now I must admit that I had been thinking I was going to Tredegar House but had got the two nearby locations mixed up.  Not to worry, Tredegar Park is another nice location. 

It has had a lot of money spent on it in recent years and is looking very smart I must say with good new tarmac paths. I had a brisk walk around the circumference and then had a coffee at Able Coffee. Two dog walkers arrived with their poodle in prams.  I was a bit confused why three drinks were delivered at their table until I realised one was for a poodle.  I think it may have preferred a scone and jam.

My book for the day was Dry by Augusten Burroughs, a memoir of a New York advertising agent as he battles with alcoholism. Amusing, yes, but not hilarious as described on the cover but then again humour doesn’t always travel well.  At one stage he is sent to a drying-out clinic in Minnesota and is describing arriving at the airport not having received any details of who was going to meet him there.  It very much reminded me of my experience in the early 1980s when I went to live in Minneapolis for a year. That was in the days before e-mail, phone or fax.  There was one telex machine on Swansea University campus and a telex would take about a week to be delivered across campus.  I’d received the job offer and accepted but never got the telex saying I was going to be met at the airport. The only advice I had ever got from friends was don’t make eye contact with anyone coming out of Arrivals at the airport otherwise they will take you home and mutilate you. I exited the airport and jumped into the nearest cab, which happened to be one of those stretch limo ones, and requested a cheap hotel near the University of Minnesota campus.  It was only the next day was I told that someone had been at the airport to meet me.  

The timing worked out well and it was to on time to catch the next Cardiff Bus No.30 into Newport, have a brief mooch around town and then hop back on the same bus which took me back to Cardiff, then a short wait again to hop back on to get the bus back to where I started the day which was all orange and no green! 

The No.29 bus heads out of Cardiff city centre following the same route as the No.28, through Roath etc, but then does a loop around Llanishen area instead of going up to Thornhill. 

I alighted near Llanishen church and headed straight into the Honeybee House Tearooms, on the off chance I may get a table in this popular venue.  I was lucky and got the last one on a busy Saturday morning. They don’t do their famous honey cake any longer but Sue’s Coffee and Walnut cake was a good substitute.

I thought of complaining about the weather to the lady who served me but had noticed that Derek Brockway, the weatherman, was sat nearby so didn’t just in case he took offence.  Instead I read some amusing anecdotes from Ricky Tomlinson’s Cheers My Arse!

Derek had evidently been on a Parkrun, as had many of those in the café, so inspired by their devotion to exercise I went for a walk around Llanishen Reservoir.  It was such a soggy day the path around the reservoir was virtually empty.

A walk back up to Llanishen village and then another No.29 took me back into town to complete another bus-book-beverage adventure, the next one of which takes me outside the city!

I am heading up to Thornhill again today but the No.28 doesn’t take a direct route.  Instead it loops around Roath and then Llanishen.  Plenty of scope therefore me to choose where to have a walk and a coffee.

Today I chose Roath Park so after going all the way to Thornhill I remained on the No.28 until it returned back to Roath Park Lake.  The clock tower in the shape of a lighthouse is a memorial to Captain Scott and his four companions who perished in 1912 having been the second team to reach the South Pole, a month after Roald Amundsen. They must have felt incredibly disheartened coming over the horizon at the South Pole and spotting the Norwegian flag flying there. 

It is grey day.  Even the cormorants don’t fancy being in the water, instead perched on top of the Scott Memorial drying their wings.  I visit to the Terra Nova Café, named after Captain Scott’s vessel that took them to the Antarctic. I’ll let you into a secret.  He wasn’t on board all the way.  He left Cardiff with the others but jumped off in Barry to return to England and do more fundraising for the expedition before catching them up later on board a faster mail-ship.

I had been told the cakes were good in the Terra Nova and there was a large selection on view today.  I choose a chocolate-creamy thing.  Why, I don’t know.  Simply because it looks the most gooey I guess. Never mind taking a minder along on these trips, I think I need to take along a cardiologist. My reading is a book of short stories by Alex Dunlevy.  I do enjoy the short story format, punchy and cram a lot in to a few pages.

To walk off the cake I did a circuit of the lake and wild gardens before hopping back on the No.28 to complete the route.

It was a smooth ride out of town and up to Thornhill today aboard the No.27 on an electric bus. I got off at Sainsbury’s where a quick dash up and down the aisles failed to reveal a discreetly hidden café.  I struck lucky however as nearby I discovered the busy Cariad Café in Thornhill Church (opens Mon-Wed).  I can thoroughly recommend the tuna and cheese toastie – toasted to perfection.

My book for the day was ‘The Versions of Us’ by Laura Barnett.  It is a book that has three different versions of the same story set in Cambridge University.  A clever, though not original idea.  I’m not sure I am going to be able to cope with it.  It get lost watching a programme on TV which has adverts and have trouble remembering what went on before the commercial break.

I fancied a walk so headed south to the ribbon park that goes through Thornhill and just kept walking east.  I ended up walking around Llanishen Reservoir but on the lower path rather than the one overlooking the water. A grey day but some good exercise.