Wales - Day 2

Before you panic and think you have missed Day 1 of my holiday in Wales, don't worry... I have excluded Day 1 as that was the day we travelled to Wales and visited my brother's house and moved into our accommodation... nothing majorly exciting other than spending time with family.

So, Day 2 started off with me and my folks going for a walk through the countryside near to our accommodation (which was at a farm). Here come the pictures...

After our walk we met up with the rest of the family and headed into Newtown to have a look around...

And to end off our touristy activities for the day, we headed into Montgomery to have a walk around and visited the church yard, and the even landed up being invited into the bell-tower to have a look while the curator changed the church's clock...

A good start to the month of March

March started off well, with a couple of celebrations. Firstly we had a party lunch for my mom who celebrated another birthday (won't divulge her age though but it was one of the big ones) and all had a wonderful time. The second joyous occasion was the fact that my friend J, from school days, had her first child... a little boy K, born naturally on his due date! I think that bodes well for his future! He is a gorgeous baby and I wish the parents, and baby K, all the best for the years to come.

Unfortunately the joy at the start of the month didn't last that long... work went down hill a couple of days later when we found out our grant application failed... this did not bode well for me, as my search for alternative work had to be increased rapidly and my stress levels increased exponentially... weekends were spent filling in job applications, some for jobs I didn't really want. Work itself also became busier in an attempt to finish all that needed to be done by the time my contract ran out. This was beneficial to me in some ways though, as I was learning new techniques, but I also found some of those moments rather stressful too. What a little wreck I felt, but looking back I feel I have (hopefully) grown from the experience... my favourite saying during all this time was "what does not kill me makes me stronger" in the hope that by saying this I would remain calm(ish) and I wouldn't actually land up seriously hurting someone!

Thankfully I have such a great family and great friends who provided me with support through all my little trials and tribulations. Again, my friends A and R stepped in to assist in keeping me in some form of sanity by inviting me around for meals and letting me rant and rave to them over the phone. B was also a major support by being at the other end of the computer and just reading through my rants about things in general. And my poor parents had a lot to deal with too, hearing pretty much the same rantings at least three times a week. I will take this moment to say thanks to my family and friends for being there for me and I am sorry I was such a wreck!

The nice thing about March is that it ended on a good note, with me actually being able to take some holiday to spend time with my family, including my niece and nephew who were visiting from SA. We spent a week in Wales doing various things, news of which I will post separately to this entry...

Trip to London

24 February saw me on a train to London to meet up with a Rhodes friend, and old digsmate, K who was over in the UK for a brief visit before heading to the US for a conference. I hadn't seen K for many years and I was excited to see her again and catch up on news that we had missed in our email correspondence. To be honest I was pretty nervous about travelling to and through London by myself (so many people... I am not a fan of crowds, especially when I am not 100% sure where I am going) but managed and met up with K and her friend S for a day of laughs, walking around and food. Sorry I didn't stick around for too long K, but I did enjoy our time together and it was great to meet S.


And just to prove I was in London, here is a pic...


Oh, and since that visit I have been back to London on my lonesome and was more confident about the journey and getting through the crowds. However this visit to London wasn't brilliant as I got annoyed with the Brits again for not labelling their streets properly... it really does help to have street names at the corners of every road instead of not there at all or half way down the road where they are unlikely to be useful!!! Oh, and it also helps if diversions are properly marked! Little rant over now and my conclusion is that it is always better to go to London with friends... must admit that London isn't really my cup-of-tea. Am willing to go there for special occasions, but doubt I would ever live there (sorry to friends living in London, I am sure you enjoy it but it just isn't for me!).

Anglesey Abbey

This was built in 1600 on the site of an Augustinian priory. It is full of treasures collected by the first Lord Fairhaven, who also created a fine garden (info taken from AA map book). It was this fine garden that my friends invited me along to walk through and what a lovely garden it was...

Some flower pictures first...

And now some pics of the birch grove...

And a pic of a "house" in the gardens (not the Abbey itself though)...
My friends AG and RG took some nice photos too and I seem to recall they are available for viewing on their blog: www.lifewithoutagogglebox.blogspot.com (hope you guys don't mind me including this link?).

All in all the afternoon turned out to be a pleasant one and I enjoyed the walk through the gardens. I will be sure to visit the gardens again and hopefully will be in a better frame of mind when I do so :).

When things go wrong...

This seems a bit silly to write up about but at the time I found this experience slightly traumatic; now looking back I find it rather amusing. Anyhoo, February didn't seem to be a friendly month for me (other than the snow which was fun) as a lot of things seemed to be going wrong... my tv started to break down and the colours became rather odd... green sky, blue people, and other odd combinations of colour. Now people who know me will realise that I spend a fair amount of time in front of my tv (hey I don't have a life!) and having the colour go was just not funny (at the time). Along with dealing with my tv, I also had MAJOR TOOTHACHE as my wisdom teeth decided to play havoc in my mouth. FLIP FLIP FLIP!!! That was really sore and I actually landed up going to the emergency dentist hoping that the tooth (mainly one killing me) could be ripped out. Alas, in typical me-style, things were not that easy and I couldn't have the tooth taken out there and then as it is going to be a difficult extraction. I was however provided with painkillers and spent the next week in a daze (powerful painkillers), which in some ways was a good thing, but not for driving around. The good news is that my teeth are okay at present and I am due to have three wisdom teeth removed in August. Other things that seemed to be going wrong included my microwave door playing up (not opening) and my central heating making funny noises. As I said, looking back these seem piddly little things but I was stressed and in pain and at the time these things were just so HUGE!!! Thankfully now all seem to be working well. Thanks to my friends though for attempting to take my mind off things at the time and for putting up with me, especially on a specific Sunday when they invited ONE GRUMPY buddy to join them at Anglesey Abbey...

Let's play catchup...

Oops, didn't realise that the last time I blogged was over a month ago... but a lot has happened in that time (I think), including me having employment again, starting tomorrow. YAY! So now I don't have to search for work, nor do I have to run around doing various job-search related things and I can take some time today to play catchup with my news. Will just rattle my brain for a few moments and will then carry on with my postings...

Quiet!

So I know I have been VERY quiet for a long time and I keep thinking I should blog! Then I get going with all sorts of other things and never quite get around to the blogging. Sorry! I promise there are stories I want to pass on including my holiday in Wales, a hedge-laying day and some other general stories. But I ask for a bit more patience as I have other more pressing things to do at present, including finding a job! My current post is coming to an end and so far I haven't got another position to go to yet (holding thumbs and hoping for some positive news). So while I am in this pickle I have to spend time searching for that desirable employment!

Until then, keep popping into my blog and hopefully soon I will play catchup and get my news onto the pages!

C

Snow Day!!

After many warnings that it was going to snow heavily today, the forecasters have managed to get things correct! I must admit I was a little sad when I woke up this morning and saw that no snow had settled on the ground. However it looked like it had just started snowing and quite heavily too. I proceeded to get myself ready for work and watched the news and weather items to see what was happening and by the time I was ready to leave for work there was a fair covering of snow.


These first two photos were taken at about 7:30am, after approximately 2 hrs of snowing... and it was still snowing!

It was at this point that I decided that I was not going to brave the traffic (aka I wimped out!). Why bother going into bad driving conditions when I could work comfortably from home. Probably a good choice too, as I have since heard that there were about 4 minor accidents this morning, on the road I travel along to get to work.

While working, I did take the opportunity to keep an eye on what was going on outside to determine when to actually head into the office. And it was fun to see what the neighbours were doing... I saw some inventive parents who didn't have a sled for their child, so hooked up a rope to the recycling tubs and sat their kid in the tub and dragged him around...

And I saw a group of parents and kids making a snowman, the following pictures showing the process from giving him a lower body....

... an upper body (note the ladder in the background and that these people are average height)...

... and a head, complete with a nose adjustment and a pretty big smile!!

I also noted that driving conditions were pretty bad, with one car getting stuck... I commend the driver though for trying to go out in the snow... after getting stuck in the driveway, he abandoned his vehicle on the side of the road and moved onto his sled!

Later, during an eye-break and after taking some more photos of the snow in my garden....

I decided to see how deep the snow actually was outside my back door... it was about 3.5cm deep and very cold... got cold feet. Lesson to learn: even if you are going outside for a very short time, wear shoes (ha ha ha)...

At lunchtime the snow was starting to melt and I actually headed into work for a short period of time. Commute in and back home were fine despite it being slushy in areas. Sadly the snow is continuing to melt, but I for one have enjoyed seeing it and the effects it has on people - most were happy to play in it and take the time to enjoy the outdoors. Driving home I noted various other little snowmen and could imagine the fun the kids/adults had had putting these together... unfortunately I didn't get to make my snowman family...

And on that note, best I go check my supper!!! Bye.

Update

Life feels like it has been pretty busy lately. Not sure why but that is the case. So thanks to you for persisting in coming back to check if my blog has been updated at all! I have done a quick update this morning, adding the ghost-dog photos (realise that old post read ghost-ogs, sorry about lack of editing) to the entry "and on the right", about two postings before this one. I still think these are really cool pics.

Otherwise, I don't really have much news at present. Winter has hit the UK at long last, not good timing really as all the bulbs are appearing (confused little plants) and some trees have blossoms on their branches. But we had snow this Wednesday (have taken a photo but will only put this on at a later stage - now added, 08/2/07) and it was nice to wake up to white fluffy snow.

Was a bit sad to see that it had all melted by the afternoon but I did manage to make three small snowballs to throw at a work colleague. Unfortunately I have not had much practice with throwing snowballs and I missed on each attempt! Silly me.

Not much else is happening in my life at present, other than the usual... work and relaxing. Did have another lovely meal at my friends' house this Wednesday night and enjoyed the company. The evening was a success and I left very relaxed. Other "exciting" news is I went on a cross-country trip a couple of weeks back to collect some "work consumables" from Oxford. What a drive... 2 and a bit hours there and then back again. Was a nice morning out of the office though and I got to see a bit more of the British countryside (once I got off the main roads). Discovered again that the Brits do not like using proper roadsigns especially in major towns and had to go around to different roundabouts twice before I got into the right lane for departing the roundabout! Coming back I was much wiser and managed to find the correct lane first time round. Didn't take my camera with me though (again, silly me) but believe me when I say the countryside by Oxford is just beautiful. Did help that the sun was shining that day.

And that is about it. I need to go now: Saturday chores are a-calling!

2007

Happy New Year!!!

And thank goodness 2006 is over. May this year be a better one...

So far so good I suppose, work is quiet and mostly stress free at present. Proposed work looks promising.

So looking back over the Christmas season, I don't really have much to report. I had a pretty good time. Was glad to be on holiday and managed to catch up with the family, travelling between Cheshire and Yorkshire on occasion. Got some nice presents for Christmas too including a sheep footstool (see left picture), a sheep and border-collie noughts and crosses game (see right picture), a book, clothing, stationery, biscuits, chocolates, mugs and a tray (and I am now praying I haven't forgotten anything...).


















New Years itself was alright. Did the same as every other day really - quiet night in and to bed as usual at 10pm-ish. Difference being I was woken up by the fireworks going off in the neighbourhood. Nothing spectacular, but then again I prefer the quiet life really.

Not much else to say really. So here is wishing all a HAPPY NEW YEAR, and best wishes for 2007! Thanks to all who sent me messages over the festive season, appreciate hearing from you. And now I am off to do housy things...

And on the right we have...

The weekend of the 4/5 November, my folks were kind enough to allow me to decend on them with my Cambridge friends. I decided that since neither of them (my friends) had seen much (or any) of Cheshire that it would be nice to treat them to a weekend away. So, on the Saturday morning we headed north… all was going well until we reached the M6, a couple of miles before the junction where I usually come off. It was at this point that there was a pretty large accident involving about 5 cars and a minivan all in the fast lane. It had just happened and the emergency services were arriving on the scene to deal with the situation. Most of the cars in front of me managed to get passed the scene before a road-block was set up (I landed up at the front of the roadblock, giving us a view of what was going on around the accident scene). We were amazed how no-one (except one driver who had by the looks of things twisted his ankle) was seriously hurt. Based on the damage to some of the cars I am amazed no-one was killed! There was a lotus (had passed us early) which was pretty much crumpled junk in the middle of everything and then another car where the boot was now part of the backseat! And people were walking away from the scene… wow. We had the opportunity to see how an accident scene is assessed and then cleared up rapidly to get the flow of traffic going again. It is amazing (I know I am using this word a lot, but hey) how much these MAINTENANCE vehicles can store in the back – cones galore, little signs, barriers, brooms, jackets, and those were just the things that were taken out!

After our short stop, we were back on our way and got to my folks within another half hour. We had a chat, a cup of tea, lunch and then headed to Chester! I think we all had a good time in Chester and enjoyed wandering around and even had the opportunity to listen to a choir practice in the chapel. The conductor was a very enthusiastic chap and a perfectionist too… some of the singers didn’t seem to appreciate the interruptions though, while others didn’t even seem to care and decided that having a nap was the better option!

After Chester, we headed to my folks’ via Dellamere forest to watch some husky racing in the dark. This was fun as we couldn’t quite see where we were going (no torch, but thankfully a full moon to provide us with some light) and weren’t quite sure where we were going. We arrived at a barrier and stopped to listen. For about half an hour we stood by the barrier, listening and waiting… at all times we could hear lots of dogs barking in the distance and then occasionally we would hear barking approaching… then see an eerie light appearing over the hill and then a "sled" team would come zooming by. A "sled" team would consist of three dogs in harness, attached to a large tricycle type contraption, on which stood the driver yelling his/her instructions. Each "sled" needed a light, so they could see where they were going, and fast reactions as there were a lot of trees around and also uneven ground. It was fun to see and there was even an incident where two teams came passed us very close to each other and as they headed away from us we could hear the two drivers conversing "are your dogs all female"… "yes they are, are your dogs male?"… "yes they are!"… "argh" (as the male dogs all leapt onto the female dogs and there was a tangling of harness lines). (Photos added below of the races …can’t really see much … look like ghost-dogs,). The evening was spent a my folks’ eating, drinking and chatting…

Sunday morning we headed back to Dellamere forest to see it in the light! We had a nice walk around (got a bit lost but found our way to the car again) and then headed through Northwich to visit the Anderton boat lift, with a quick gallop through Northwich town centre too. After lunch, it was time to say cheerio to my folks and head back south. However, our goodbyes were short lived. Within about 10 mins of driving, I had a puncture… I somehow drove over a screw while overtaking an idiot rolling backwards down a hill in the village between my folks’ and the motorway. The tyre went down pretty quick and we had to pull over to change the wheel. What a mission – my folks came out to assist us and after a half-hour delay we were back on the road. The rest of the journey was uneventful (thankfully) and we arrived back in Cambridge at around 6pm. Overall I had a good weekend and hopefully managed to be a good tour-guide. Thanks Mom for all the good food and thanks Dad for driving us around!

Tea for three...

Lunch-time on the 31 October saw me ducking out of work (with permission) to join friends who I know from Rhodes days, visiting/working in Cambridge, for lunch. After exchanging some insults over the mobile (cell) phone and finally finding each other, we popped into Autie’s Kitchen (a tea-house) for lunch and a good catch-up chat. The food was good and, despite the insults (ha ha), so was the company. So thanks guys for the lunch, not sure if you made it to Europe (have just completely forgotten where you were going to go, Poland?) but if you did, I hope you had a brilliant time.

Green fingers...

Before winter hit (we are still waiting!) I decided to take the opportunity to do some gardening on the weekend of 28/29 October when the weather proved to be marvellous for such a task. I did a good clean up removing weeds and dead leaves in inconvenient places (tend to leave some leaves under bushes just in case another toad appears or even a hedgehog - if it can fit under my gate). I also dug proper borders for my beds, planted some winter pansies and banished a couple of my indoor cyclamens to the garden pots. At the end of the weekend I was really proud of my garden and of the work I had managed to do. Only problem now is that since winter has sort of hit I can’t really see my garden during the week (I leave home in the dark and return in the dark) and on the weekends I haven’t really bothered to venture outside much, so I am suspecting that my garden needs another clearing! Any volunteers? I must let you know though, that my banished cyclamens are doing really well and are still growing and flowering and looking all pretty. Clearly they like cool, wet weather and don’t mind all the winds we have been having. At least I still have some colour in the garden other than green!

Departmental talk...

Skipping ahead to the end of October, I had the joy of being asked to give a talk to my work colleagues about my PhD studies. Little did I know that just preparing it would take me TWO weekends and a lot of evening work. It was good to be working on stuff I understood though and going through my data again was fun because of all the memories that the work brought back… trips to Thomas Baines and seeing Tom; trips to Mountain Zebra Park; spending time out in the warm sun (or freezing weather) weighing little mice… I miss those days sometimes. Anyway, the talk went alright and most people seemed to enjoy hearing what I did. I even had the honour of speaking to some of my colleagues who don’t normally attend the seminars! I think (and hope) it will be a while before I have to prepare another talk though, still prefer poster presentations :) .

Canadian Thanksgiving...

I am bored at work and really don’t have the energy to read scientific papers, so am taking the sneaky opportunity to do some more blogging. Naughty naughty me… but seriously WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO!!!

So, I have been very quiet yet again and know this and apologise for this to those who have been wondering where I have been. Let me just say that life has not been brilliant at the moment and I have been pretty stressed out and hating computers/or too tired to do anything. That is the short and sweet side of things!

So back to my news... let us cast our minds back to the 9th of October, which for my friends was a very special day, as it was their Thanksgiving (they are Canadian!). And since they are such sweet people, they invited me around (plus others) for a Thanksgiving meal… another yummy meal it was too. I think I know one of the reasons why I have put some weight on (not much mind you but some) since I have moved to England… I have a friend who likes to cook and since her food is so good, I tend to eat a fair amount of it. A great evening was had by all and I won’t say "no" to another Canadian Thanksgiving invite! A belated "Thanks" for the good food and good company.

Celebrations

The weekend of the 24th September (yes, I know it is now the 12 of November and I am really behind in my news) was a fantastic weekend for me, despite it being the end of another year of my life (scary)! I had a full house, with my folks and my brother and his fiance visiting me for the weekend. They all arrived just before lunch, which was a mix of cold meats, pork-pies, salad, chips and... sushi!! I thought I would see if I could pass my new addiction on to my family members and was impressed that everyone tried at least one piece. Lunch was enjoyed and after clearing things up we did stuff. I say stuff because I can't actually remember what we did really other than chat, look at my bike, laughing at my brother riding around on a pink bike tinkling the bell, getting ideas as to how to "jazz" up my bike (cards in the spokes and streamers on the handle-bars) and then opening presents (me). I got some very nice things including money (always goes down well), an ornament of a wren (picture to right), a book (Power of One by Bryce Courtenay) and a very large, fluffy hedgehog.

Later in the day we were joined by my friends who brought me some lovely flowers and an ornamental hedgehog (I see a theme developing here but not sure why...). On introducing my new hedgehogs to each other (picture to left) we headed to the local pub to try out the food and drink. We had great meals and the "entertainment" (aka people watching) was amusing. Little did I know that there would be a toga party happening at the pub (many guys walking around with sheets around them), but it added to the amusement of the evening.

Sunday saw us catching up on "X-factor" and "Who wants to be a millionaire?" (sad lot us!), fixing a lock to my sliding door, more chatting and doing of stuff and then saying cheerios to the family both before and after lunch. Later that evening I was treated to a meal out by my friends to help wrap up the celebrations. Thanks to all involved in making the weekend a fantastic one! Really appreciate the visits and the laughs. And of course the presents!

I'm addicted!

Before you panic that I am addicted to something really bad... it isn't true! Rather, I am addicted to something good and healthy. I have recently (last couple of months) been introduced to Sushi and since this introduction I have enjoyed not only eating the stuff but preparing it myself... yummy. As a child I was never fed Sushi and probably because one straight away thinks that sushi means raw fish is involved (which is yuck). But my Canadian friends, who have a range of tastes due to the ethnic mix of people they have in Canada, have shown me that raw fish doesn't need to be involved in the making of sushi at all. So, it was on one of my visits to their house for a meal, when I was taught how to make sushi rolls (there is a special name for them but it is too early in the morning to recall this). We made vegetarian sushi rolls (mango, peppers, cucumber, carrot) and fish sushi rolls (same ingredients but with smoked salmon included), then cut them into bite-size bits and ate them. With chopsticks! Ha ha. And I didn't drop or flick any food across the room either (which I tend to do if trying to eat with chopsticks). A good experience and since then I have made sushi (using tuna and crabmeat as ingredients too - tuna good, crab meat not really) at home a number of times and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Remember though, if you try sushi, watch out for the Wasabi sauce... man that can blow your head off if you aren't careful. Definitely clears the sinuses too.