Monday 17 January 2022

Tales from Wales #10 :: An unexpected visit to Swansea

Hi there everyone 😃

Finally … welcome to the last of my Tales from Wales. Our two week break back in September/October certainly gave me plenty to blog about.

For this final post of this series we are in Swansea … definitely not somewhere we’d planning to visit but we were faced by a series of unfortunate events and decided just to make the very best of it.

To cut a long story short … on our way back from Llawhaden Castle we had one of those nightmare warning lights randomly appear in the car, which meant an afternoon spent finding a ‘local’ dealer that could fit us in on the following day. Whilst there is no way that Swansea could really be called local, it was the only option available so we were up at the crack of dawn on the Wednesday to drop the car in for 8am ...

The dealers were great and dropped us in the centre of town so we could at least spend our day doing something more interesting than hanging around by the dealership … Covid restrictions at the time meant we wouldn’t have been allowed to wait inside.

Neither of us have ever been to Swansea before so once we were dropped off we were quite excited to see what we could find … after making our first stop in a very nice cafe for breakfast.

Once we’d eaten, and had a quick wander round the shopping part of the city, we headed for the coastal part of town, which involved a bit of a circuitous route around an awful lot of redevelopment works. Once there it was more than worth it though ... the views in both directions were stunning ...


After a bit of a sit just taking it all in we had a really good walk along the prom ...
... before finally heading back in towards the docks ...
... where there was plenty to see ...
... and lots of places to eat if the fancy took ...
We were pretty much all walked out by now so decided to head back towards the city centre, where we parked ourselves in a Costa for a quick breather before making our way back to where we'd been dropped off for our 3pm pick up.

Our ride turned up bang on time, which was great, and we were soon on our way back to the dealer to pick up the car ... only to find they'd not really been able to find anything wrong at all, which was frustrating. Even more so when we got back in the car to drive off ... only to be faced by the same warning light, which had refused to appear whilst being inspected by the dealer's technicians.

They took it back into the workshop for another look but the findings were inconclusive so we left with recommendations to book it in for more diagnostics when we got home.

It was a bit of a rubbish ending to our holiday really and we opted to head for home a day early to try and get it booked in and sorted as soon as possible. Fortunately we got home safely, with no more incidents.

Once home we got the car booked in locally and paid again for it to have a good lookover, only to be told that they couldn't find anything wrong, so it must just have been one of those things. It's now January 2022 and there has been no further sign of the dreaded warning light so all must be fine ... but it was all so frustrating. I know these new fangled warning lights are there for a reason but this whole situation has made us trust them just a little bit less 😞

I'm so glad to finally have come to the end of this series of posts ... still plenty more to catch up with though ... I think it will be our day trip to Clevedon next 😀

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10 comments:

  1. I'm guessing the warning light wasn't a little lit up spanner? as that comes on annually on the anniversary of the car being produced/first service/something? But the dealership would have known that one.
    Hope you get whatever it is or isn't sorted out soon!

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    1. I can’t exactly remember what it was now but it was one of those that, when referring to the handbook, tells you to pretty much get straight to the dealer or something bad will happen. These things always feel worse when you are a long way from home … it was a very nervous drive back. It seems to be ok now though and hasn’t reappeared 😃

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  2. I loved all the photos of Swansea & maybe it was meant to be for you to go there and explore. Glad your car troubles amounted to being just a nuisance problem & you arrived home safely. Are those tables at the Costa cafe? Must admit to loving Costa coffee & we always head for one when in UK. Thanks for sharing the bevy of photos, take care & hugs.

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    1. Thank you. The tables aren’t at the Costa but a restaurant round the quay area. I think it may have been a Chinese but not sure. Apart from the car stress we did have a lovely day. 😃

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  3. You look to have made the most of an unexpected situation - lovely photos and good weather :) my car only ever has a warning light AFTER it has had it's MOT (third year running) so now I glance at it and ignore and then after about ten minutes it goes off for another year!?! how strange is that? I did panic the first time it happened, now I just roll my eyes hahah

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    1. I think we will react in a very similar manner if it happens again … so frustrating 🙈

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  4. We had a similar problem once on holiday in the Lakes, but it was as soon as we got there. Typical eh. At least you got to see Swansea which looks quite a nice place to visit. :)

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    1. Swansea was lovely and somewhere neither of us had visited before so we definitely made the most of it … the weather helped 😃

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  5. It's been a very long time since I've been to Swansea, it looks like you had a lovely surprise day being there.
    I hope your car doesn't give you any more trouble, unless it's near another new place so you can enjoy the day?!

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    1. Would you believe Astrid … the flippin’ light has made a reappearance today … I think we will ignore it for a while and see what happens 🤞🤞🤞

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