London Embassy visit

Today Rhiannon and I went into town to get Rhiannon's US passport renewed. We booked to go for lunch afterwards and we did a bit of shopping in between. A good day!

One of the cool things we saw was the apartment building that has a swimming pool way up high on the 10th floor or something, and spanning between 2 buildings! Here is a photo of it below.

The Mullet part 2

 

The Mullet

Tryfan is getting fired up to go on Rugby Tour in a couple of weeks, and part of the his plan is to get a mullet. The rest of his team is doing that too.  Here are the before and after shots:

Cozy quarters

I found Rhiannon today cozy in her bed doing some studying for her upcoming exams. She is so organized and disciplined - its really amazing to observe.

Special visitor, making plans

 Our friend Chris is over here for Easter holiday and so we all got together at the Stand Up Inn to have dinner with the girls and plan for our Ladies Backpacking tour in the Alps in a couple of months.

We really miss having Chris and her family living in the area, and it was super nice to spend time with her.

Easter Rug 2022

We did our annual thing of pouring egg dye on the dining room rug after dying the Easter Eggs. The only thing that went wrong this year was that Rhodri didn't dilute the red dye before pouring, and it took ages to dry!

Teenagers on a steamy ride

Get your mind out of the gutter!  It's not that kind of steamy ride, its only three teenage girls who are literally going for a ride in the back of a steam engine. I wish I had seen them in real life, because the account of this afternoon was hysterical. Can you imagine anything worse than being a 16 year old girl sitting on a lawn chair in a trailer towed by a steam engine going 5 mph through the town where you go to school, holding up traffic and all sorts?!

Here they are in front of the steam engine - you can just about see the green lawn chairs that they will sit on in the next photo.

This was actually a birthday present from one of the girl's parents, and they got to wear coveralls over their nice outfits if they wanted to. I think the ride eventually ended, but it was officially a Cringey Event that has now scarred Rhiannon for life!

Easter 2022

We had the Mills' over for Easter today, and actually this year they all came! Even Rob!

It was a fun afternoon and actually it was a beautiful day! First the kids went for an Easter Egg hunt and then they coloured eggs while the rest of us sat around chatting.

Silver DoE practice

 Our girl Rhiannon had her Duke of Edinburgh Silver practice expedition this weekend. It was cooooold for them but it looks like they survived!

The deck, 2 years on

 We haven't done a great job of maintaining the deck, so now that it is the Easter holiday period, we are going to spend some time washing, sanding and oiling our precious Ipe deck!

Girls on the town

Rhiannon and Sophie went for lunch in Brighton today and took these lovely photos

Porch work - updated

[This is from March 29th originally...]

We have a really nasty front porch area, and finally we are doing something about it! Ok, we are outsourcing the "doing" to some professionals, but its gonna be great when its finished.

Here are some "before" photos:

 

Let us hope that the work is swift and impactful!

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Post script on Saturday April 9th

Porch is pretty much done and it is looking good!

Here are the official before and after photos:

 

 

Aggie and Rio

 Today Aggie came over to hang out with Rhiannon and do vision boards. It always cheers Rhiannon up when Aggie is around! They laugh so much together.

Goodbye Gatwick

For the past 12 years I have been working (at least partially) from the SLB Gatwick office, and now the era has come to an end. I am still working for SLB, but we are all moving out of the Gatwick office and into another building at the end of 2022. So today there was an official event to say goodbye. It was actually pretty nice, and felt appropriate to share memories and stuff.

Here I am in front of the entrance. I won't really miss this building, I'll be honest! But I had some good times here - especially playing football/soccer in the car park. Apparently the new building we are moving into is going to have a football pitch as well, so that is good news.

Salt glasses

While Cat and I were shopping at Lidl yesterday (after Macky D's and after swimming), I discovered these Himalayan salt shot glasses. So Rhodri and I tested them out today with some lovely Don Julio Reposado ahead of our anniversary weekend.

It turns out that you actually need to "down" these shots rather than sip (which is what I do with Don Julio). Otherwise you end up with Very Salty liquid in the salt glass. Next time!

Macky Ds

I went swimming with my homie Cat today, and we decided to go to McDonalds for a breakfast sandwick afterwards. Oh. My. Gosh. Sooooo good.

Its pretty awesome to go for a nice freezing cold swim in the sea, then get dry and cozy and head to McD's for coffee and a warm savory cheesy thingy. 

For once

How many years have I tried to trick the kids on April Fool's Day to say that it is snowing outside first thing in the morning in hopes that they will pop out of bed to run and check!?!

And now that the joke for sure will no longer catch them, it actually snowed!

I almost got Tryfan this year but in the end he wasn't tricked. And I should have been able to trick Rhods if I had thought to claim that the mousetraps actually caught something, but I didn't think of it in time. Boo