Holiday in North Wales

After the Jubilee celebration, we got into the car and drove 6 hours up to Llandudno to see Nain and Taid since Monday and Tuesday were both public holidays. It was pouring rain and really terrible driving conditions on Sunday night, but then Monday morning was clear and gorgeous. We went for a walk up on the Great Orme on Monday morning and it was wonderful.

View from the Great Orme looking back up the Conwy river valley.

Tryfan and Rhiannon ran and ran. Tryfan is the little blue dot in the distance on this photo.

The troops next to a stone wall on the Orme

We had to walk up a really steep hill and by this time the kids were complaining big time, so Bentley helped pull Tryfs up the hill

Nearly up to the top of the Great Orme on the north side now

After coming back to the house, we had a relaxing afternoon with cups of tea and reading the newspaper, then had a delicious dinner out in the back garden.

Tryfan got hold of the camera and made everyone put this hat on so he could take their picture. Here is the collage of his efforts.

Diamond Jubilee

This weekend was finally the Queen’s Jubilee Celebration, which has been in the works for months and months. Sometime last year, when the date was set for the celebration and the days for public holidays were chosen, the Queen’s request was for everyone to lunch together in their communities. Actually, I don’t know if she literally used the word “lunch” or if it was something more refined like “dine” or less specific like “gather”, but anyway the interpretation was that all of the neighbourhoods in the UK were supposed to get together and eat.

In our neighbourhood, this turned out to be a grand picnic at the village Recreation Ground. Actually it was an entire weekend of festivities, but we only attended the Sunday afternoon Jubilee Picnic. In the brochure that was sent to all the houses in the village, it was advertised that there would be prizes for Best Fancy Dress, Best Looking Cake and Best Laid Table. Well, the competition was on! My friend Macha was keen to get involved, and it didn’t take much to twist my rubber arm into a little competition. We gathered our families together on a sunny Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago to start our project.

Painting and cutting and preparing the castle walls in late May

Our idea was to have a Windsor Castle replica that would stand a few feet tall above the ground and encircle our dining/picnic area.  So, on Sunday morning we packed up a picnic and got dressed into our best duds, then headed over to the Recreation Ground to set up. There was a giant marquee tent with tables and chairs inside, but we really needed to be outside so we could take up a good-sized footprint and not feel too crowded. The forecast was very grim, but we were committed. We set up with a tarp on the ground and our Windsor Castle walls around it, then laid picnic blankets inside and set up a throne and a food table behind the tarp. It looked amazing! 

View of our real estate outside the marquee.

In fact, Helene really put her heart into this project and had several late nights spent drawing, painting and cutting out the Castle Guards, each one having his own expression and personality. The whole project was so lovingly worked on by her and the detail was truly incredible as you can see from the photos!

 

Here are most of our 3 families: us, Macha's family, and Danni/ Bryn's family

Leonie on the throne

Macha and me looking regal

Inside the castle walls, mid-cucumber sandwich

Tryfan and his homemade crown and showing me a little cake he wanted to eat

As we were eating, the rain started to really pour down in buckets so we quickly set up a 2^nd tarp as a little roof over at least part of the castle so that some of us could sit underneath and eat without getting too wet. Other Jubilee picnickers were not so lucky! 

 

The cardboard castle didn't like the rain :-(

I love how people just put their umbrellas up and kept picnicking!

I took this video and share it here because it is just so British to be committed to seeing something like a community picnic through despite pouring rain. Although having lived here 2 years now, I’m sure that it was at least partially so that they could complain about the event later....

Anyway, it was a very memorable event and around 3pm we packed up and left to drive up to Wales for a few days...

The last day of Scilliness

Peeking through the bell tower hole

 We went on a final exploration after formally checking out and leaving our bags at the hotel for our afternoon flight. We had a mission to go visit the "Scilly Socks" art studio. These socks just seemed too fantastic to miss seeing in person!

Here is the artist Susan, who makes the Scilly Socks

 It started raining while we were inspecting socks, and we still had some exploring to do so we carried on walking around St. Mary's island and then bought some souvenirs before going back to the hotel to get a lift from Spider back to the airport. We had the flight to ourselves except for 1 fellow, and for the most part we flew under the cloud so had some fantastic views of the mainland Cornish coastline.

  

 Then upon landing, we got back into my car and drove 6 hours back up to Sussex.

Annie had to get back to London a bit quicker than expected so we dropped her at a train station along the way. It was sad saying goodbye and ending the adventure

 Judy and I got back to Chalfonts around 11pm on Saturday night and pretty much went straight to sleep. We got up early the next morning so that Judy could catch the right bus to get to Heathrow in time for her flight.

Scilly Day 2 - St. Martins exploration

Today we had a fantastic breakfast and during our meal, the hotel concierge came to our table and asked if we were all set for our day on the island. As we hadn't any clue what we were going to do or what the options even were, he helped us decide to take a boat to the nearby island of St. Martins to do some exploring. So, at 11:45am we boarded this little red boat.

Here are Judy and Annie, excited to start the adventure

From our boat, we could see the Star Castle hotel and we could even see our very room (shown in red arrow pointing to the bay window)!

I should note that it was a very gray day at this point. Not bad gray, just gray in that special way when the water merges with the fog on the horizon.

Judy and I ready to start exploring

There were some beautiful graceful foxgloves growing wild on this island

After we visited a sweet little art galley and bought a Cornish pasty from the adjoining bakery, we explored the far side of the island and decided to climb up the rocks that were sticking out on the left side of the photo. Once there, the sun was starting to come out and we were a bit sweaty after climbing up the rocks, so we decided to go for a skinny dip. We found a lovely little spot just where the red arrow is pointing in the photo above.

Annie and I both went dipping and it was COLD. I had already been for a swim around and was sunning on the rock when I took this photo.

We found our way across to the one hotel on the island and by now the sun was fully out and it was downright warm! We sat in this spot and had Strawberry Pimms and lemonade. Yum.

All over the island there were these giant purple flowers that I thought looked like gnomes.

Here are Annie and Judy on the boat ride back to St. Marys

 We had a bit of a rest, then Annie and I went for a little run together around the barracks on the Star Castle peninsula, then we all showered and rested some more before having aperitifs followed by a fantastic supper in the Conservatory. 

This is the Conservatory, which had the most incredible grapevine growing throughout it! The actual roots and stalk were outside in the fresh wild island air, but then the 10cm diameter vine stalk had been sort of built into the Conservatory via a pipe. Amazing!

We closed the place down by being the last ones there well into the night and it was the end of a fantastic day and start to this new month.

Super Scilly trip (part 1)

Aunt Judy, Cousin Annie and I went on a 3-day trip to the Isles of Scilly (pronounced "Silly") and it was rather magical. 

On Wednesday 30 May, Aunt Judy met me at work and came home to see the family and then we picked up Annie from the train station later that night. On Thursday morning we were on the road by 7:20am and drove 6 hours down to Newquay, Cornwall to catch our 4:15pm flight to St. Mary's, Scilly.

Aunt Judy, Annie and I at the Newquay airport having just finished watching the safety video and about to get on board the 20-passenger light aircraft.

We had a good and short flight (although Judy's phone nearly got stolen!) and then were met at the airport and driven to our hotel by a guy called "Spider".  He had to pull in the wing mirrors when we drove through the castle gate!

The man Spider entering the awesome Star Castle Hotel where we stayed

 After moving into our room, we went exploring! From the Castle it was only 100m or something into the town. Such a great location! This place was such a find...http://star-castle.co.uk/ ... and they are normally fully booked throughout the year but I emailed them out of the blue on the off chance that they had something that could fit the 3 of us ladies and they DID just for the 2 nights!

Here is the view walking down into the main part of St. Mary's Isle. The airport is on the cliff across town and the main harbor is in between.

Residency

This was a busy week, after having been camping last weekend and then scooting off to Milan for work for a few days. I flew back Wed night and then had a semi-normal Thursday -- Forest School with Rhiannon's class and working hard to catch up on my real job. Then on Friday I spent the whole morning and some of the afternoon at the Home Office in Croyden (suburb of London) applying for permanent residency. When we moved here 2 years ago, I had a temporary "Spouse Settlement" visa which is only good for 27 months at which point one needs a different visa.

I had taken and passed the "Life in the UK" test on May 16th which is mandatory for the application process.  This is the test that everyone seeking citizenship or permanent residency has to pass and covers all sorts of knowledge questions about topics such as British history, ethnic statistics, governmental structure, differences between the 4 different nations that make up Great Britain, and so forth.  So yesterday I mostly just waited in the crowded and chaotic Home Office waiting room with my agent Mr Billy Speed. He was a real character and had many interesting stories to tell while we waited for our number to be called. Anyway, in the end I left before the decision had been made because I needed to get back to work and there was nothing more I could do but wait for the decision but found out before the day was over that my application for permanent residency in the UK was accepted. I haven't received my residency card yet but I will soon.

Beach party camping weekend

Our friends the Beach family had a giant camping weekend the past few days to celebrate their collective birthdays (such a good idea!!) and so the kids, Helene and I got to the farm where the camping was to take place on Friday night after work. Rhodri joined us on Saturday night when he got back from his travels. There were herds of children and it was wonderful to just let them go a bit feral for a couple of days while us adults got to relax and mingle in a gorgeous setting. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Partial herd of kids (including R & T) playing on the haybales with the cooking tents in the background

Watching the bouncy castle get inflated on Saturday morning, some still in their jammies.

Saturday afternoon roasting marshmallows

Tryfan and Oscar eating marshmallows

Playing chase on Saturday night. Our tipi (lavvo) is the greenish one in the background. The port-a-loos were amazing beach shack style buildings with electricity pumped in via generator and really nice insides!

Self take of me and Tryfs

Tryfan and Oscar in our tent looking at Transformer magazines

A motley crew on Sunday morning inside the lavvo - some sad faces because it was time to pack up and leave

The weather was pretty amazing actually... Friday night when we arrived it had just stopped raining and was cool and windy. Saturday was cloudy at first but then turned into the warmest, sunniest, most lovely day we've had in a long time! Then Saturday night it started raining around 11pm and then on and off through the night. Sunday morning was fairly heavy rain while we were making coffee in our tent (this was one of my favorite memories.. having my favorite people around me inside our messy lavvo tent and enjoying warm drinks while discussing the previous night). We left Sunday late morning and got home to bathe, dry out all our camping kit, and then I left for Milan on a business trip in the afternoon.

A special night in Goleta

My friend Karen sent me this photo that she took at a community school meeting that she hadn't planned on going to. I'm so glad that she did decide to go, because it turns out that my wonderful Mom was recognized for her valuable contributions to the children of Goleta by being an inspirational and amazing teacher. Karen said that she got "extra special hoots and a standing ovation" when she went up to the front of the room.

Karen and I have something a bit special in common which is that our Daddies passed away on the same day last August 2nd. So I'm grateful that Karen was there that night and could run up and give my Mom a big hug at a time when other retirees had their husbands beside them. I wish I could have been there, but I'm glad that I got to experience it vicariously through Karen. I'm so proud of you Mom.

Weekend with baby FloFlo, Joe and Polly

My long lost friend from Leeds University, Polly, drove herself and her two young children down to spend the weekend with us. I've had a few adventures with Polly over the years.. I spent 7 weeks with her in a very small tent in Val d'Isere, France during the summer of 1995 and then we ran the KIMM (now called OMM) 2 day orienteering event in 2003. The last time I saw her was Jan 2010 when her little boy Joe was just 6 months old or something. Now she has baby Florence, who Rhiannon was instantly wanting to hold, carry and generally look after. It was so nice to see her after many moons.

Rhiannon and Florence chilling on the floor.

Wearing the BabyBjorn while pulling Tryfan in the toy stroller.

We went for a walk into the forest, had a lovely dinner, and then bathtime. I love the kids' expressions -- totally glazed over and ready for sleep!

Group timer shot on Sunday when Polly and her team had to say goodbye

Orienteering!

Rhiannon getting ready to jump over a stream to reach the control and check in, about halfway through the race

I've been wanting to take the kids orienteering since before they were born.
Finally there was an event just down the road from us so we set out with our compass and map. The course we chose was only 1.6km and all the controls (orange/white thingies) were along the paths, so it was too easy for us. But the troops understood that it was a race and therefore required running! It was very muddy conditions but a lovely sunny day with bluebells twinkling beneath the sunlit raindrops on their petals. This time of year is just so beautiful.