Eurovision 2018!

Rhods and I went to a fancy dress Eurovision party at Leigh and Stuart's house tonight.
The kids had a sleepover with Sophie and Oscar, so all good!

Israel won with the crazy 'chicken song'... I was hoping she would win because how fabulous is this?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CziHrYYSyPc

Art exhibition

Tonight was our friend (& neighbor) Mary Grant's exhibition opening at a gallery in Forest Row. Emma picked me up and we went together to join a whole bunch of other familiar faces!

It was a rather sophisticated evening actually, quite exotic for a Thursday night!

Special visit

Aunt Mary and Uncle Harvey stopped by this afternoon. I happened to be working from home today, so I was able to take an hour out to have tea and cakes with them on the back deck. It was a really nice visit and we are grateful that they were able to make time to stop by with us.

Bluebells and baby lambs

It has been so gorgeous the past couple weeks. From about April 20th through May 10th or so, the bluebells are out and the trees are this beautiful light green color and the fields are filled with ewes and their baby lambs.  So anyone who is reading this, I recommend this time of year to come visit! 

Rugby boys

While Rhiannon and I were in London and hanging around home, the boys were in Devon playing loads of rugby and doing other manly rugby-related things. By all accounts, they had a great time and also played really well in their matches against other clubs.

They arrived back home tonight and we had a happy reunion exchanging stories!

Girls weekend in London

We have been planning for this weekend for awhile, and finally its here!
Rhodri and Tryfan are off to the big rugby tour weekend in Devon so Rhiannon and I are free to do whatever. We threw around a few ideas and settled on the notion of going into London to stay the night. We took the train on Saturday late morning and came back on Sunday afternoon. Perfect!

 Once we checked into our lodging near Kensington Park around noon, we went to the Kyoto Gardens inside Holland Park which was slightly east of our place. It was a gorgeous and hot day - so rare!

 Then we took the bus over to Oxford Street and did some shopping until we were too tired and hungry, and then Google maps helped us find a little sushi restaurant with conveyor belt sushi. It was so delicious and wonderful.

 Then we walked to through Piccadilly Circus to Covent Garden, and by that time we were really tired so we jumped on a bus (didn't care which direction it was going!) and had such fantastic seats at the front and top of the bus that we just enjoyed the ride. Eventually we discovered that it was going approximately the right direction back to our lodging, so we stayed on and then walked across Kensington Park from south to north just as it was closing at dusk (9pm).

We relaxed in our room and watched telly, then slept and awoke very early due to all the light in our room (no black out curtains).

The good news about that was we were able to beat the rush to the nearby bakery and get the most delicious almond croissants and coffee to have a breakfast picnic in the park.

We got back to our lodging, checked out, and made our way to the Thames Clipper pier at Millbank so we could take the boat down the Thames river to the Bankside pier provides the best access to the Globe theatre.

We had so much fun on this boat ride even though it was a mere 20 minutes. We were pretty much the only people on board, and with the best of London sights en route (London Eye, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament), it was really spectacular.

 Since we were 'a bit' early (like 3 hours early!), we explored around this part of town and actually headed to Borough Market since we were getting peckish and ready for lunch before our 1pm show time. Turns out Borough Market is closed on Sunday, so we called in at Bill's for some brunch and had choice seats outside on the patio.

 Finally it was time for the play to start, and so we joined the fun at Shakespeare's Globe for a matinee performance of "As You Like It".

When it was finished we headed for the tube to take us back to Victoria Station to catch the train which would then turn to bus to get us back to East Grinstead and then finally home. But what a trip! It was fabulous and very special.
This morning we had a leisurely breakfast out on the deck and enjoyed the colors of the spring flowers in our garden. Absolute bliss

IKEA!

Since the kids are switching rooms, we actually need to go get a few items to help the furnishing, and so we decided to go to... IKEA! It has been years since I've been and that has been fine with me because it can be a bit overwhelming. But its a fun place to go and be inspired, ideally without any time constraint. Today was the opportunity and Rhiannon and I made a day of it.

 We got there at 10:45am and were allowed in to browse although they didn't formally open until 11, then we took a very civilized lunch break at a prime table by the window before completing our experience to get home before 4pm.

We were pretty shattered by the end, but we got some good stuff: a shelving/ storage solution for Tryfan and his Lego, a bedside table for Rhiannon, a bedside light and desk light for Rhiannon, some little handy shelvy things for our mug cupboard, and of course some tea lights.

Ollie's party

Tryfan was the only Year 5 boy to be invited to Ollie DF's birthday party and he was soooo excited about this. The party involved: going to see "Avengers: Infinity Wars" at Uckfield cinema, having dinner at Pizza Express and then all sleeping over at Ollie's house. Bliss!

Here is Tryfan with Fin, Harry, Rory, Oliver and Ollie.

Rugby festival

Rhiannon and I decided to go watch Tryfan play rugby today for the first time this season.
We got a lift with Anne Marie, Gordon's dad and William. It was another gorgeous day and actually we both really enjoyed watching the Haywards Heath team play rugby. I especially loved watching Tryfan's tackling - he is so fierce and consistent. Pretty much nobody can get past him and he does really clean tackles, then pops up and runs to a new spot to await the next attack.

 Here is one of Tryfan's tackles in action:

He came away from this one a bit sore but quickly recovered after about 30 seconds on the sideline. He is a tough little guy!

Casper reunion

This weekend Casper and his family returned to the neighborhood for a visit after moving back to Denmark at Christmas time. Casper was back at school on Friday afternoon with his old classmates and this was by all accounts SUCH a happy reunion! Today we all had a bit of a reunion event over at the Denslow's house. A big herd of boys played football and more football, and then splashed around in the jacuzzi. As it was such a sunny day, there was much concern about getting sunburnt, but I think everyone survived intact.

Boys pictured are: Sam, Joe, Nathan, Carter, Ellis, Oscar, Tryfan and Casper.

Switching rooms

We've been gearing up for the kids to switch rooms. It's a good opportunity to sort out the plaster patchwork on the ceiling and paint, and paint and repaint...

We were trying to get it done before the nice weather appeared, but alas, today is Saturday and it is SUCH a gorgeous day and we are inside painting. At least when we finish the job, we can go outside and enjoy.

Trendy gal

Sub Woofer Joe

Poor Joe.  We ended up having such a laugh at his expense this afternoon.

You see, our sub-woofer died a few weeks ago and Rhodri went to a shop in Royal Tunbridge Wells to replace it. The enthusiastic sales agent sold him a sub woofer which received glowing reports and apparently was everyone's new 'favorite' sub woofer! However, when Rhodri got home and plugged it in, it didn't make much of a woof so he called the shop and did some troubleshooting over the phone and concluded that he had bought a dud woofer. So Rhodri carefully put it back into the box with the original packaging and set it to the side to return.
Today was the day we returned it, and Joe was the unlucky sod who was assigned to help us. It started out well as we carried not only the apparently dud woofer but also our own receiver and cables brought from home up the stairs of the shop to the 'demo room'. The Commonwealth Games are on this week and the demo room was showing it on TV with a nice comfy leather sofa for me and the kids to sit on. So far so good!

It started to go wrong when Joe realized that none of the equipment in the demo room had inputs for sub woofers (in a stereo shop!), so he trotted off to find a receiver to plug the sub woofer into. It went downhill from there..  The long and the short of it was that Joe was not adequately prepared to demo sub-woofers and kept trying to convince us that nothing was wrong with the one we had bought (though clearly it didn't make much of a woof even when the dial was turned all the way up).  The clincher came when Rhodri announced that we would need to return it and get a full refund, and Joe awkwardly said that in order to do that we would need to pay 15% of the value of the item just for the privilege of returning it - even though it was hardly touched and the original packaging was intact. That's when I unleashed my meanest scowl right into Joe's eyes and didn't back down, saying how ridiculous this was, how we would never buy anything from this shop again, how upset that I had taken a day off work in order to waste time here, etc. The kids were so embarrassed by me, and then we marched out of the shop and left Rhodri to deal with the fallout. He ended up paying only 10% and returning it, and now we still need to get another sub woofer! But on our way back from Tunbridge Wells, we were laughing so much in the car about poor Joe, how red he got when I was giving him the evils, making up stories about how we thought his life was (didn't have a car, still lived with his Mum, etc). Anyway, it was one of those family moments that we will look back on and laugh about, ol' Sub Woofer Joe!

Dog sitting Winnie

We returned home Wednesday night and Sioned arrived soon after with her gorgeous dog Winnie! Since she was going into London for the weekend, we offered to babysit little Winnie. We sure loved being with her, and with Sioned too! We went for a beautiful walk on Thursday eve and picked up Cat along the way, then called in at the Coach & Horses pub for a round of drinks and some snacks.

 Rhiannon and Sions made an Easter cake for Sunday dinner this eve, and Tryfan has been dressing up as "Captain Obvious" wearing these 3D glasses and a single fingerless glove to complete the outfit.

 We busted out the puzzle that Auntie Sions had given us for Christmas and these 3 sat on the floor working hard at it to the background of funky music while Winnie slept on the couch in the background.

Sions and Winnie are leaving tomorrow, but it sure has been great to have them here.

Friday afternoon walk

As we have been taking Winnie for long walks everyday, we invited the Painter family along with us one muddy afternoon at the start of the weekend.

We called in at the Red Lion pub on the way home.

19 years

Today was our 19 year anniversary and we celebrated by going on a hike in Snowdonia again, this time we did a nice big loop. It was raining as we set out but eventually cleared as we crested the ridgeline. However, it was really, really windy!

Here is a panorama view across the valley from the top of the ridge.

We called in at the pub in Conwy marina on our way back, then after cleaning up we went out to a lovely dinner with Rhodri's parents and the kids

It was a great day and I'm glad that we made an event out of it. These 19 years have been hard won.

Flossing

The kids have been doing a lot of 'flossing' lately. In fact, all kids in our neck of the woods seem to be doing a lot of flossing. Here are a couple of flossing examples: