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...