The Godfather

This weekend Tryfan's Godfather Michel came to stay. We have been waiting and looking forward to this weekend for a long time. This morning the 3 of them (Rhodri, Tryfan and Michel) went to Tryfan's football match in Crawley, then got dropped off at K2 climbing center for a few hours of climbing. 

In the afternoon, we rode bikes down to Latchett's Farm for ice cream

 And then in the evening we went for dinner at the Peacock, and all the while Rhiannon was having a good time sleeping over at Aggie's house.

First game of the season

I went to watch Tryfan's game today, and left Rhiannon doing homework. Here are the boys heading out the door.

 I followed and was able to watch nearly the whole game. It was pretty rough to watch! One little guy got a bloody nose, several others had to be taken off due to injuries. All of us parents on the sidelines were really grimacing. Our team (Haywards Heath) lost in the end, but it was a good game.

Afterwards, the entire club gathered to watch the England - Samoa game of the Rugby World Cup, and actually 2 of the players (1 from each side) were former players at Haywards Heath Rugby Club, so that was a little claim to fame.

Big T

In the late afternoon, Rhiannon took T out for a ride in the forest.
She looked regal riding him.

He doesn't like standing still to get his photo taken, though!

The gentleman's game

Now is a new era of rugby for Tryfan.
He got his club tie today in a ceremony at the Haywards Heath Rugby Club.

This is now the beginning of proper rugby culture, where all the players arrive to each match looking very smart by wearing their white shirts, black trousers and club ties. They all get changed into their team uniforms, play their match, and then shower and change afterwards back into their smart clothes to then have a sit-down meal with the other team. 

Rhodri is again one of the coaches, and we look forward to a great rugby season which will last from now until mid-May!

D of E

Rhiannon is going to work towards the Duke of Edinburgh (" D of E") Bronze award, and today was the first expedition.  I am still learning about what exactly this is and will involve, but this is a good starting point: https://www.dofe.org/do/

Rhodri has been involved with this organization, and when he was invited to Buckingham Palace earlier this year it was to recognize the work he has done with D of E Gold award students. So its great that Rhiannon wants to do it! Sounds like a lot of work, though, so let's hope she stays with it.

Today was a stunning day that I ended up having completely to myself after dropping Rhiannon, so I filled it up with fun things. I started by going to the beach and putting my feet in the water, then walking really fast with big swinging arm movements along the beach. It just felt good to move fast and big, even though I got a few strange looks!

Then I went to Uckfield to poke into some charity shops, buy some groceries, and then call by my friend Leigh's house to pick berries. By the time all that was done, it was time to collect Rhiannon back in Glynde again and take her home to meet up with Rhodri and Tryfan!

Rhodri's birthday

Today was Rhodri's birthday although we all had to be at work and school, so couldn't really give him the special treatment he deserves. We brought him presents and coffee/ toast first thing in the morning though. And then at the end of the day, he wanted to have curry takeaway dinner and to watch a movie, so we did that! I think we will go and celebrate properly next weekend though.

Happy Birthday Rhods!

Deck maintenance

This deck is beautiful but it does require quite a bit of maintenance! Rhods and I didn't really see eye-to-eye on what exact maintenance to do here this weekend, but it was nice weather and the deck needed some loving, so we ended up just washing it. In April we will do a proper sanding and re-oiling job, but for now just a quick wash.

Goodbye little Winnie

Today was the final day of our stewardship with sweet little Winnie.
Yesterday Auntie Sions returned to Britain after her year in Washington DC yesterday and was happily reunited with dear Wins. Nain and Taid picked Sions up from the airport and we all got to be together for a night before saying goodbye this morning.

We are certainly going to miss Winnie. She is truly a joyful and sweet companion, and she is welcome back here anytime! I think she will miss us too - we gave her a lot of love and took her on a lot of outings to the forest.

Bye Winnieeeeee

Latchetts

Latchetts Farm Ice cream parlour is a new addition to our community, just opened up at Heaven Farm down the road this summer.  Tryfan has been there so many times now on his bike that he has his own loyalty card!

They make their own ice cream with their own fresh milk from their own dairy cows, and the ice cream is sooooooooooo good. What a luxury to have this place a short bicycle ride from home!  I especially like that they have the flavors displayed as signs hanging from the ceiling, so you can be in the back of the line and yet still see what flavors they have on offer.  This way you can crane your neck to catch a glimpse of the corresponding bucket and make some decisions before you get to the front. Anyway, in these final days of summer and first days of the school year, Latchetts has been a big part of life.

Burning stuff

Today the wind was finally blowing the right direction so that we could have a bonfire without upsetting any neighbors. We got a lot of work done in the back garden and it felt really great!

 Cat and Bruno came over in the early evening and we had a BBQ and sat round the campfire until late in the night. Such a luxury to be outside in the evening under the stars and warmed by a campfire in the waning nights of summer.

First day of school

Today was the first day of the school year: Rhiannon is now in Year 9 at Uckfield, and Tryfan is in Year 7 at Chailey.  They look so smart in their new school uniforms!

 After school we met the Mills family at the Red Lion pub for celebratory drinks and dinner. Great way to kick off the year!

Via Ferrata 2 - Bocchtte

After our stunning day of opera yesterday, we took to the hills once again for our 2nd via ferrata of the trip. This was a much more satisfying outing even though it was still a bit easy. Anyway, it was a great and full day in these spectacular mountains.

We started with the gondola once again, and walked about 45 min to the start of the route. There were quite a few other people doing the same thing but it wasn't crowded - just not much solitude. It was a beautiful day with sort of a scary afternoon forecast. In the map below, we were doing 'Day 1' of the multi-day Bocchette ferrata tour. Doesn't look like much on the map, but it was spectacular!

We got a good early start and left some options open for the afternoon.

 

The descent was kind of hard work since the glacier was really slushy and slippery, even though we had crampons.

You can just see the refuge in the distance on this photo on the left, and then once we got to the refuge we had a good view looking back up to the bocce. 

We decided to traverse back to the gondola and take that back down the hill rather than hiking down the valley floor. By now the clouds were closing in and the sky was really dark! It rained on us a little bit, but not as heavy as we had expected.

Anyway, it was a great day out in the hills and we were both really stoked, a great start to the month of September.

The best opera performance ever!

We had a bit of an adventure today! Left the hotel at 7:45 am to drive around to the other side of the mountain where this alleged opera was going to be held: at the Pian della Nana.

I had seen the above photo on the Sounds of the Dolomites website after reading an article about the festival itself, and this place just looked too stunning to be real. So when it turned out that the Barber of Seville opera was going to be performed in this natural amphitheater on Sat Aug 31st at 12 noon, that is when the trip got formulated. Finally today was the day!

We found out last night that actually the start time was being moved 1 hr earlier to now start at 11 am. Good thing we found out! Anyway, we drove and followed the pink signs and eventually got to the place where cars were being parked. We had just over an hours hike from the car to get to the venue at Pian della Nana. There were plenty of other people doing exactly the same (~95% were Italian), so we all hiked along a path up and around into the place shown above. The farm buildings that are shown turned out to be used for bathrooms and a pop-up restaurant serving food and drinks, and the actual opera was being performed on a patch of grass out in the middle of the photo.

The 4 piece orchestra was setting up as we approached: 1 piano, 1 cello and 2 violins. We heard the cast members practicing as we approached, but we didn't really see them.  It turns out that we were not supposed to see them because they were totally camouflaged to look like normal audience members dressed in hiking clothes the same as everyone else! But after the orchestra played their overture for a few minutes, the 4 cast members stood up amongst the crowd and started peeling off their hiking clothes to then put on their costumes which were in bags and backpacks next to them! 

The Barber of Seville got underway, and it was just fabulous. The clouds and the light and the echo against the rocky cliffs behind us (which the cast had cleverly woven into the script itself) was just spectacular. Here is a little clip of Figaro singing his famous song.

The clouds looked very threatening and at one point it was clearly raining in the head of the valley in front of us, but the big drops magically passed us by!

 Here is a little glimpse at the crowd behind us. We had pretty choice seats, and we had brought actual chairs to sit in rather than blankets on the ground. We were super stoked!

 

Here is a little (poor quality) video of the encore performance of the group aria..

Rhods and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this performance and we even went up to the director at the end to say so. It seemed like not very many people had traveled from abroad to attend this, but we were so glad that we did. In fact, it would have been fun to attend more of the musical events in the festival - maybe next year...