Have you ever been to Fochriw? I'd like to say 'don't bother' but that would sound rude to an area on top of a mountain which in nature's terms is rather beautiful. My father during his lifetime seems to have had
a penchant for pubs (nice way of saying he was culturally bound by alcohol), and seems to have known where the most obscure pub was located - including Fochriw, which had a few sheep and an old pub with flagstones and the smell of keg beer, damp crisps and some toothless
retired farmers with bleary stares.
I have a theory that this pub did not exist at all in the 'real' world - my father could just conjure up pubs at will - I mean who'd put a pub up there and the whole scene was like something from the very distant past. Enter the twiglet zone...
Anyway Fochriw .. that day began with grey skies and drizzling rain that
we followed all the way to the top of the mountain - visibility like pea soup as we wound our way along the ribbon road to Fochriw's only pub.
My father was asked several times 'where are we going?' and he would say
'you wait and see... its a surprise!'. Yeah surprise alright, and my mother sighed and held back her ire for our sake and tolerated the soggy crisps and half a shandy. There was a helluva row when we got home, and he left for the nearest pub slamming the door behind him.
Ahh Welsh life - nothing like it 
Of course when it rains that grey drizzly whinging rain that falls often in Wales, we call it a Fochriw day and shiver remembering the isolation of the little pub and the strange atmosphere. My father could not have cared less - all he wanted was a pint and it didn't matter if the devil himself served him! lol...it was the devil himself that made him I think!.
So if you have been to Fochriw let me know that its for real ok?
