Sussex rugby champions

Today Tryfan's team from Sussex played the neighboring county Kent for the southern counties championship title. They beat them in a close game according to Rhods. Here is a team photo with Rhodri on the far right standing up and Tryfan on the far left in the front row. 

Mothering Saturday (& Sunday)

My sweet family had the forethought to organize something special for me yesterday rather than today. This is because today is a normal rugby morning with basically half the day written off with Rhods and Tryfan at rugby practice all morning and some of the afternoon.

So instead we went for a nice lunch at The Bull in Ditchling and then a hike up on the South Downs.

It was a slightly hazy day with a fresh wind, but still really nice to be up high and looking out over the Sussex countryside.

This morning I had a few nice presents and coffee with toast in bed, then I met up with Emma for a dog walk in the forest. 

The fam made a nice meal and got dressed into fancy clothes so we could have a lovely Sunday dinner together.

Johnny Piano

Tryfs has been taking piano lessons for a couple of years now. It has been going pretty well, and that is mainly because of his fabulous teacher Johnny! Now this week he is going for his Grade 2 exam, and today is the last day Tryfs will see Johnny before the exam.

Weekends apart

 This weekend Tryfan and Rhodri went to go play rugby on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel. It was a pretty cool experience by all accounts!

Meanwhile, Rhiannon had her friends Evie and Poppy over to hang out and hatch some exotic plans for the time after their GCSE exams are finished, and also Prom.

These kids are sure growing up quick!

Amazing week in the Bay Area

Yes, now the fun begins!  I am so chuffed with this hotel I'm staying at. Aiden by Best Western in Berkeley and they have so many great perks: Peet's coffee in the rooms, happy hour every day from 5pm, a roof terrace with lounge chairs, little workout area and amazing views both to the Berkeley hills and across the Bay to even the Golden Gate Bridge. Plus you can order breakfast burritos to be delivered to your room at any time! And you can borrow a bicycle to ride around the area for free. Love this place.

So anyway, I drove to the office in Richmond to meet the team. It is a fairly large space but full of interesting, smart and fun people.

Here is my new boss Ann with her family - she invited me to dinner at her house on Tuesday night. I feel so lucky to know her and to be invited to work with her. She is really smart and fun and vivacious, and her family is wonderful too.

Here is me with some old and re-found colleagues Mike and Ed. I was so happy to be able to see them again after about 20 years. We had a quick but great afternoon coffee and drive around together. 

All too soon it was time to fly back, and so I met up with Wheeler and Ali one more time to return the car and have dinner with them. We ordered a lot of food at Jupiter's in Berkeley. 

I caught my flight on Friday afternoon and got back home on Saturday. Perfect!

Aptos awesomeness

Wheeler and I drove to Aptos this morning around 10 am and spent the majority of the day just hanging out at their awesome place. It was amazing to reunite with Elizabeth after so many years (~20!) and also to meet Dwight, although apparently we met 20 years ago at the SEG conference in SF which was the last time I saw Elizabeth. Anyway, I had really been looking forward to seeing her again, and indeed she looks and acts exactly the same way I remember her.

They have a beautiful and eccentric spread here, with an exuberance of interesting artwork, beautiful plants and rocks, inviting spots around the house that entice one to lounge and read or nap. It is really cool.

Wheeler, Dwight and  at the Sand Point overlook on the Aptos Creek Fire Road trail. I haven't been on a bike for a long time and this ended up being a 30 km ride which was wonderful and a bit hard in places. Dwight knows so much about the history of this area and was generously pointing things out as we cycled up the long hill. Going down was a different story since we just zoomed down! So fun!

We had a fun, funny and delicious dinner altogether (Ali made it in time, which was perfect) - I was pretty blissed out just so grateful to be here with all these good people.

The clocks actually sprung forward in the night, so combined with the jet lag I didn't really know which way was up but I woke quite early and was so happy to have time surrounded by beauty and interesting people, and I got to write loads in my journal.  Here is Elizabeth sitting at one of the outdoor dining tables near the outdoor kitchen. Sounds like they had some amazing times here over lockdown in 2020.

All too soon it was time to head off. Wheeler kindly lent me his car so I could drive myself to Berkeley and at least then we had to make time to see each other later in the week.

Now it's time to get to work!

Kicking off a new chapter

Now that I get to start my new job in geothermal energy, I am spending a week in the Bay Area of California to get to know my new team members. I flew over today in order to acclimatize over the weekend and be in good shape for a Monday start.  Cousin Wheeler picked me up from the airport and drove me to his [new] house. It was a gorgeous day, really clear skies as we flew into San Francisco. 

I landed at about 1 pm, and was at Wheeler's house just before 3pm. Pretty good going! We actually walked down to the beach near his place in Sunset and played beach volleyball with Ali (Wheeler's fiance) and a bunch of their friends. So great!

We found a place for dinner and then walked to this awesome venue where we listened to a Afro-Cuban Jazz band play. It was so great!

The three of us just sat in a corner of this really quite small venue and enjoyed the great music! We each had an adult beverage and it was just perfect. 

I slept soooo well that night and woke up to greet the late morning sunshine with a view of the ocean from my room at their house! Today we are heading over to Aptos to stay at Elizabeth and Dwight's compound in the hills.

Handover

So I'm moving out of training & development and into geothermal energy and I'm sooooooooooooo happy!  I agreed to hand over a bunch of my previous position's work to Laura, who I've been working with for the past 7 years and who I consider a friend.  She flew over here on Monday and we did a few hours of work in the Gatwick office (where it all began, she reminded me!) before heading back to "The Gate" where she is staying at a B&B nearby. 

We worked together all day on Tuesday, went out to dinner Tuesday night to the Red Lion, and then worked all through Wednesday before I took her to the airport to fly back home Wed night.  It was really great to have her here and actually be together in person!

We went to Plaw Hatch farm to get a mid morning coffee and sit in the cosy barn

We took Annie on walks in the forest, and it felt really great to share my favorite spots and scenery with Laura. Hopefully one day I'll travel to her home near Madrid and meet her family!

Girls Night

Tonight was our swimmer friend Ali's 50th birthday and she had a do at a club in Brighton.  The last time we all got together was to do the Silent Disco Walking Tour in Brighton.

Cat, Emma B and I got dressed up and took the train in for the evening. We ended up missing the last train and had to take a taxi back to Cat's house, but it turned out fine and actually not too expensive.

They even had a dancer up on the stage who was a man dressed as a lady. So exotic!

It was a fun night although Cat and I left at a sensible time of 12:30 am while many others stayed on until 3 am (apparently).

This was a weird week because of the new month and all the changes happening right now (like my new job that just started on March 1st!), but its all good. I was supposed to go on a ski weekend with some other friends this weekend, but I needed to cancel that because of my new job and the handover that will be going on next week. Can't do everything, unfortunately.