It's day four of our holiday out of the city, and we're sitting in the Hawk and Buckle Inn reading historical fiction, sketching architecture and writing weblog posts. It's been incredibly relaxing.
The town we are staying in, Llannefydd, is too small for even a general store. Apart from a handful of houses, there is the Hawk And Buckle Inn (where we are staying), a church and a primary school -- such a cute wee school it is too! Strangely enough, the Inn gets busy of an evening! I think everyone in town drops in at some point during the night, although the combination of enormous amounts of good food, a bar that has Australian wine (especially after we spoke to Stuart, the owner's son and wine-buff) and the peace and quiet means we've been toddling off to bed any time from 9pm ... and never later than 10:30!
Our room is nice: cosy, comfortable, tastefully decorated and with a large double-jacuzzi. The owners are lovely, quirky and friendly, and the chef seems gruff but creates delicious meals: sausages, potato and leek soup, chicken with Welsh cheese and bacon, lamb burgers with just a hint of mint. Good, honest food -- and today we might have a Sunday roast! Breakfast has been similarly delicious-and-epic. On our first morning here we opted for the Full Welsh breakfast which included sausages, eggs, tomato, mushrooms ... I even suspended any analytical-thought long enough to try black-pudding (it's yummy, just don't think about
what goes into it -- kind of like
haggis in that way then!).
The GPS has had inestimable value, although we suspect it has a dark sense of humour with some of
the roads it's taken us down -- tiny winding lanes which look more like someone's drive-way than a main thoroughfare but go on for miles at a time. With "navi"'s help we visited the castle at Conwy (Conway) on the bay, explored the local streets and sat on the shore for a spell. It's incredible just how much effort went into building an enormous stone citadel that once housed lords and ladies, only for it to become a giant birdhouse for pidgeons and gulls...
After Conwy we drove to Caernarfon (seems to be pronounced "Carnarvon" -- like the Aussie one!). Caernarfon would be beautiful -- the centre of town is entirely within the castle walls -- but inexplicably it is more "bogan" than touristy, complete with dodgy little shops filled with the cheapest of plastic tat, pubs that a sailor would be wary of entering and pregnant teens arguing loudly and in Welsh in the street. I'm exaggerating a little there, but it's still hard to understand why such a place is not filled with tiny cottage cafes and tearooms, hand-stitched red dragons, tea-towels, tiny wrapped soaps and the friendly bustle of tourists, loud Americans, timid English-folk.
On the following day we saw Llannerwst, a beautiful little town with an brilliant tea-house accessible over an ancient stone bridge and all covered in green vines. We ate (and ate and ate) lunch there: a ploughman's lunch of ham and turkey and salad, and Welsh rarebit (toasted cheese and mustard), washed down with strong, rich tea. (The water tastes better out here, even when we filter the London water.) Then more: scones with jam and cream and too many slices of bara brith -- a fruitcake with butter that I'm sure Nanna has made before! We waddled out of the cottage and prayed that the stone bridge would hold us, then walked at least some of it off around the town.
Today we're staying "home" -- Dee gets a rest from driving, I can
upload the photos (see the Cymru set on Flickr) and we can both read, write, draw, play chess, argue, plan, laugh, doze. I think we're both recharging nicely, so are feeling much more positive about the rest of the year and living (and working) in London for just a little while longer. Chris (Dee's brother) is visiting shortly, so we'll be off to
Istanbul and who-knows-where (last-minute travel plans are great!), and in the meantime we can hopefully find some fun things on weekends and public holidays. Before too long we'll be winging our way (er, railing our way?) back home to see you all!
y birthday!) and if they could have held my weight I would have been up there in no time as well! ;) Some of the little girls ended up putting hair clips into the pony's mane and leading it around the yard. Next was farm equipment time. I think Os enjoyed the tractor ride the most :) Then all of the kids went inside for some morning tea and cake. Oscar had his milk and then sat next to his little friend while he played with a serviette. It was a very cute party and it tired the little guy out. He fell asleep on the way home, so instead of trying to get him into the house without waking him we drove to the local shopping centre and Damien and I took turns going in to get lunch and eating in the car while Oscar slept (sneaky! :) We took heaps of photos, of course :)
We saw eight of the creatures. They're a strange combination of Leonardo Da Vinci's mechanical creations and Jules Verne's imagination - my favourite is the squid, but I think Bruce's favourite is the crab (because he got to control it for a bit). The combination of wood and metal looks really cool and there's so much articulation in the moving bits via pulleys and levers - what a good use of physics!
Thursday we headed over to the Chateau des ducs de Bretagne (The Castle of the Dukes of Britanny). We'd walked to it on Tuesday, but decided to use the Bicloo rental bicycles (pay £1 for the day and the first half-hour of each rental is free). There are docking stations all around the city centre, so it's easy to keep your trips under half-an-hour. The Castle was amazing - it's only recently been restored. The Nantes History Museum is housed in the Castle, so we spent the day discovering the history of the Mermaid city (with strong ties to the land and to its port). We also wandered through the special exhibition - I found some hammocks. Dad, I'll join your pirate ship if I get to sleep in a hammock! ;-)
Friday we headed away from town and went to the Planetarium. The show went for about an hour and the graphics were fantastic. It started as a simple night-sky - what stars you can see at night. They then took us on a journey to each of the planets. It was a very entertaining show and it would have been even better if I understood French.
After lunch (and watching some French guys play boules in the park) we headed to the Musee Jules Verne. It was cool to learn more about him and to see some of his old manuscripts and sketches. Although one of my favourite bits were the moon-related toys from all over the world. Wish I knew where to get the TinTin game! It looked fun.
Anyhoo, it was his birthday last weekend so we headed out of our precious safety-zone ("the city") to a suburb. Turns out they've got sun, people, cafes, greenery! So we arrived at the beer garden and met some of Ken's friends, then I supped a wee dram of uisge whilst Dee enjoyed the red wine. We chatted, ate little nibbly things (calamari, salmon fish-fingers, lamb koftas) and generally enjoyed the sun -- although as the afternoon wore on it threatened rain.
It was a vaguely sunny Sunday, the middle of a long weekend - no better time to take a trip to the Zoo. Vicki, Steven, Bruce and I all jumped into Bruce's (mostly) shiny new car and off we went. About an hour later, we arrived and parked on the grass (?!) as directed.
It was fairly cold and windy for the first part of the day - but that didn't stop us enjoying watching the elephants! They were so funny! Initially they were messing about in a little pool. It had a small waterpipe and they were stepping on it to make the water spray everywhere (clever things). Next thing, two of the elephants ran into the pool by the waterfall. One moment they were there, the next they disappeared - they didn't teleport somewhere, it was just the pool was a LOT deeper than it looked! It was fantastic to watch them playing.
We didn't follow any particular plan - we just wandered around the zoo, watched random animals and took lots of photos. Well, I took photos until my batteries went flat. :-( My photoset is here. And since Vicki's batteries didn't go flat, her photoset is here. Sometimes it's sad to see animals in cages but it's obvious that Chester Zoo looks after the welfare of the animals - they have inside and outside spaces, there are toys to play with (even HUGE toys for the elephants) and at least some of the habitats are designed for the animals. It's been ages since I'd been to the zoo - think I might not wait so long until the next visit (probably to another zoo). :-)
I am very impressed with Dee's new netbook (the Samsung N110) and Ubuntu 9.04 "Netbook Remix"! And for an old GNU/Linux otaku like me, it takes a lot to impress.
In the meantime we're keeping out of trouble. Last weekend we got up earlier than usual to bus down to the London Eye for a speed-boat tour out to the Thames Barriers. Dee has always wanted to see them, and it was either than or a lunch tour -- and we both decided we always do foodie (or drinkie) things. Besides, "a lunch cruise on the Thames" sounds a little more ... mature ... than either of us are willing to act! So it was a speed-boat, travelling up to 45 knots (which I think is around 40mph) in the cold morning weather. They gave us warm rain-jackets along with the life-jackets, and we were glad they did! Frozen fingers from holding on (you have to -- we jumped over a few small waves and rounded corners dramatically) but at least nobody fell in.
After that we headed home for a nap. No kidding! We were on the speedboat at 9am, and had a long evening planned, so it was really just being practical. A couple of friends who have moved to London showed up at about 5pm (Martin -- he was in Jack The Ripper The Musical! with me; and Helen, his girl), so we headed in to China Town and had a delicious meal. (I tried "crispy shredded beef", and it just tasted like batter and sauce ... some of the more interesting items on the the menu included squid, braised eel and (I was so tempted) pigeon. The only thing that stopped me is the state of pigeons in London!)
Just a quick update from us.