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Monday 31 December 2007

Snapsots now available!

I've added snapshots to my blog! Still in its infancy and needs quite a bit of refining, but could be useful to see where a link will take you before you actually chose to go there!

Thursday 27 December 2007

Back from South West Wales!

Wales! Seems to be a favourite destination of mine! Just got back from visitng South West Wales! Stopped off in Abergavenny on the way, to see relatives, and then tootled down to Llanteg, a regular haunt of mine, to stay in a wooden house ( http://www.llanteglos-estate.com/ ). Over the years have seen all sorts of weathers, but this year was the coldest time ever!

While there, visited Tenby and Saundersfoot, stopped briefly at Amroth, and spent a day at Folly Farm ( http://www.folly-farm.co.uk/ ). Don't worry, there are plenty of things for adults to do there, like the adventure playground, the go-karts, the funfair, and of course, looking at the animals!

On the way back, called in at the shopping centre in Bridgend ( http://www.bridgenddesigneroutlet.com/consumer.asp ) and went to see the Golden Compass at the cinema. Quite a treat!

Spent a night in Hereford before heading back home! Am now contemplating what 2008 might hold in store, and am determined to uphold those resolutions I'll be making on 1st Jan!

Have a gr8 2008, folks!

Thursday 1 November 2007

North Wales

Well, have just returned from a week in North Wales. The most glorious weather we've ever had on a late October holiday, and not a spot of rain until the very last evening, so raincoats and wellies remained clean and dry!



This was a very busy, and very exciting holiday, going to places I'd heard of, but never been to before and visiting as many tourist attractions as we could fit into a week! Stopped off in Oswestrey on the way down - a lovely little Shropshire town - and found a fantastic secondhand bookshop with loads of sheet music. Needless to say, I couldn't resist buying some of it, and trying it out as soon as I got home; some of it is just so beautiful, but not too taxing on small fingers like mine - just the way I like it!



Used the sat-nav to get to Wales, and was getting a bit worried when we were sent down some very steep and narrow lanes, but we did eventually get to our destination - via the beautiful Lake Bala. Found our holiday cottage quite easily, all things considered, and while it was still light we were able to gasp at the view over the Glaswyn estuary.



The cottage we stayed in was of particular interest to me as Bertrand Russell lived there from 1955 until his death in 1970, my interest in him being partly because he was born in Trellech, the same village as some of my great-great grandparents. The cottage was also a very short walk away from Portmeirion, which we visited the next day. Such a beautiful, relaxing place, especially on the walk down to, and across the beach. Couldn't resist buying lots of postcards (despite taking loads of photographs) and managed to get one of another hero of mine, Frank LLoyd Wright, meeting with Clough Williams-Ellis, the creator of Portmeirion.



The following day saw us travel to Barmouth, via the toll road to Harlech. Harlech castle was quite stunning and the village was quiet and quaint, although I suspect in the summer it would be rather bustling with visitors. The land surrounding the castle was flat and covered with loads of green, static caravans!



We had a lovely walk along the beach at Barmouth, before visiting the local library (such a helpful lady there, from whom I should learn a lesson!) and looking in the shops. No identikit high street shops here, all small local traders with interesting stock! Had a lovely meal in a Chinese restaurant, before heading home.



Llechwedd slate mine was our destination for the next day. I confess, I was somewhat bothered by this as, having agreed to go down the tin mine at Geevor in Cornwall, and then rushing out on discovering that the tunnels were so small and claustrophobic, I knew I would fret about being underground! Fortunately, this mine was rather like King Arthur's Labyrinth at Corris, although I do appreciate how awful the conditions were for the miners who worked underground. We did the deep mine tour and the surface tour and really had a very enjoyable time. When we'd finished at the mine we drove to Blaenau Ffestiniog and had a quick look at the railway and the town.



The middle of the week saw us travel to Snowdon. We stopped on several occasions on the way there, to admire the view, like lots of the other travellers! We arrived at about 11 o'clock and headed off to the train station to get tickets to go up on the train, but were put off by the price (63 pounds for all of us), the fact that the train only went 3/4s of the way up, and that the next available train was 3.30 in the afternoon! Obviously, all the other holiday-makers wanted to see from the top of Snowdon on such a beautiful day! So, we walked up! We agreed that wherever we had got to by 3pm (bearing in mind it was about noon by the time we started out, and from quite some way down the road, too, as all the car parks were full) we would then turn around and come back down, as it being autumn, the weather could turn at any time. Well, it was incredibly beautiful, all around, the sky, the lakes, the rocks, the other mountains ... A good time was had by all.



On the way back we called in at Beddgelert, and found Gelert's grave, before heading off to the Union Inn in Tremadog for a super evening supper!



On our penultimate day we visited Criccieth Castle. This is one of the most beautiful castles I've been to; I was stunned by the 360 degree views around the castle, across the beaches and sea! We sat here for a while and absorbed the glorious atmosphere, before moving on to the LLoyd George museum, in Llanystumdwy. A strange coincidence, but on the morning news I heard that a statue of Lloyd George was being unveiled in Parliament Square, London! This was a lovely little museum, with knowledgable staff and an interesting display of fact boards and artefacts. Fascinating, also, to be able to visit the little house in which Lloyd George was brought up.



From here we drove on to Pwllhelli where we walked along the beach and stopped off in a coffee shop in the town.



Our last day saw us ride the Ffestiniog steam train! With about 7 different steam lines to chose from, we couldn't resist taking a ride on one! We walked from the cottage down to the train station in Porthmadog, across the cob and passed a peaceful, but spectacular 3 hours riding through the Welsh countryside. We got off at our local station, Minffordd, and walked home for a late lunch, before setting off for a quick visit to Dolgellau. This was one of those places I'd heard of but never been to, and really I had no idea what to expect! Bought some Welsh gold cufflinks and visited the Quaker museum, upstairs in the tourist informaiton centre. Coming back, we stopped in Porthmadog for tea in an extremely busy little Indian restaurant, before arriving home to pack.



On our final day we stopped off in Porthmadog to buy some postcards and treats for work and to visit the outdoor clothing centre which we'd spotted on one of our trips out. Then, we made our way to Llangollen where we spent ages driving around looking for somewhere to park before watching the canoeing while eating our lunch by the riverside, and watching the Thomas the Tank Engine steam train trundle back and forth. Found an absolutely fantastic bookshop in which we spent hours, before driving the 3 miles to see the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, along which we walked. Pretty scary being so high up, but again, spectacular.

Roll on the next holiday - going to do the last leg of Wales and stay in LLandudno! Can't wait!



Saturday 6 October 2007

Oh my goodness! This is a hopeless case! It's now been over a month since I last visited! Life seems just so hectic, and there never seems gto be any let-up. Well, I guess I'd have a lot to complain about if I never did anything, never got out and never read, did crosswords, sewed, played the piano or any of those other things I like to do, over and above scribbling in a blog!



One of the most exciting things I've done recently is a visit to Whitby, in North Yorks.. Never been before but had heard it was a lovely little place to visit! I should have know really, shouldn't I, when I tried to book a hotel months in advance and they were all full! I should have guessed how busy it would be! Busy? I nearly got trampled upon! Eventually managed to book into a haunted hotel http://www.bagdale.co.uk/ and had a lovely four-poster bed, and a fabulous meal in the dining room!



We parked at the Abbey http://www.whitbyabbey.co.uk/ and spent some time looking round there before heading off into the town and from there onto the beach, before taking the lift to go up the cliff and walking back down to the hotel. On the way home we stopped off at Sandsend, a pretty little place, Robin Hood's Bay, a quaint little place, and Scarborough, a big, busy place!

Now gearing up to the next holiday when we're off to Minffordd! Can't wait for that!

See you round!

Thursday 30 August 2007

Goodbye summer - hello autumn!

The schools starting back after the long summer break really signals to me the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, but this year it seems that that mother nature agrees with me, with tree leaves turning red, conkers falling and the blackberries nearly over!

Summer holidays invariably reduce my stress levels enormously (despite the stress of packing!) and the ensuing four weeks, with less hours at work, really make me relax and go with the flow. Notwithstanding the need to go slow, I managed to pack in rather a lot this summer, with a visit from a nephew, numberous trips to the cinema, several museum trips, a number of visits to swimming pools, a couple of concerts a few meals out etc..

Now I find myself home alone (sob!) I've managed to have a spring clean, learned how to create a customised search engine using Google and added it to my iGoogle page (thanks to my ten-year old for help with customising my Google page) and added another book to my librarything catalogue! Wow! Cataloguing, blogging and now using Google creatively - whatever next! Better get on and update that wiki next!

See you round!

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Eventually ...

Well, the holiday has long since been over, and life has returned to normal for the time of year! While it seems the rest of the country were suffering heavy rains and flooding, I enjoyed a fantastic time with quite reasonable weather in Cornwall. Did the usual things like swim in the sea, walk and read, and also did some differnet things!

Went to the cinema three times; the Harry Potter film was a hit with the whole family, Shrek 3 was quite amusing, and everyone seemed to enjoy the Simpsons. Talking of Harry Potter, we also queued up at midnight outside the local bookshop, with a lot of other people, to get the new book as soon as possible. Not somehting I would normally do, but we were on holiday and there was no pressure to get up early the next day!

We finally made it to see a production at the Minack Theatre, http://www.minack.com/ . On the most blisteringly hot day of our holiday we went to the matinee performance of Fanny Burney's play "A very busy day"; really quite funny and fabulous costumes! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Burney

We also went to two productions by the fabulous Kidz R Us company: "A slice of Saturday night", which was absolutely fantastic (and surprisingly we could remember what it was like to be teenagers!) and "Oliver". Kidz R Us is a fantastic organisation which encourages children to sing and act. http://www.kidzrus.net/

Coming back home and going off to work was a real shock to the system after such a good break, but, as they say, life goes on!

Tuesday 10 July 2007

And counting ...

Holidays are looming! Looming only in the sense that there is the stressful act of packing to go through first before the relaxation of the holiday. And, all that work to do so that one can disappear off for a couple of weeks with a clear enough conscience that everything that needed to be done has been done and that nothing, but nothing can possibly go wrong while you're away!

I'm hoping when I get back that I will have a bit more time to catalogue my book collection on www.librarything.com . So far I have only managed to list 3 books from my vast collection, but finding the time to do it isn't easy. Also, I'm hoping to develop the work wiki a bit more. Strangely, that only has 3 pages on it at the moment. I say strangely, as 3 seems to be cropping up rather a lot at but I'm sure I have no idea if that's significant or not!

Still not quite decided about the purpose of this blog, but I'm sure I'll get there in the end.

stjerome

Wednesday 4 July 2007

I can't believe I'm doing this!

Well, I can't believe I've just gone and created a blog! Three reasons really:

i) technically - call me a technophobe if you will, I would probably agree with you!

ii) why? It's just not like me to jump on a bandwagon and just what exactly do I think I have to contribute to the internet that is going to interest anyone other than myself?

iii) just when exactly do I think I'm going to have time to scribble about my innermost thoughts, my daily life, my working life - see also ii) above (once a cataloguer, always a cataloguer!)

So, I suppose that's it. My five minutes of fun is now over, as I trudge back to work, minimising this screen and maximising the office one!! Not sure when I get my five minutes of fame though; not even sure I would want it anyway!

See you soon,

stjerome