Eurovision 2022!

Tonight was a bit spontaneous and turned out really fun, as we busted out our dressing up box of surprises.  Orin happened to be over spending the night with Tryfs and so Rhiannon invited Evie round, I had my daffodil headpiece, and it was all really appropriate for watching the crazy Eurovision song contest!

Celsius Energy

I went on a little business trip this week to visit my company cousins over in France.  Now that I'm working in the geothermal sector, my parent company has actually two smaller companies inside of it - I'm on the deep geothermal side and then there is a new start up company in France called Celsius Energy which does shallow geothermal stuff.  I invited myself over there to find out more about what they do!

I took the Eurostar on Tuesday morning, then headed to the the HQ to meet some colleagues for a chat, then met up with a former colleague Fatma for an early dinner, and finally made it down to Clamart to my hotel for the night. It was a gorgeous spring day in Paris and I felt so lucky to be there.

Wednesday I met my new geothermal 'cousins' over at Celsius and then had dinner with my old friend Guy, who is one of my favorite people anywhere. It was so great to see him, and I felt really honored that he traveled from the south of France up to Paris just to meet me for dinner!

Thursday I continued my visit through the morning and then traveled back home in the afternoon. It was a good week, but I was struck by how uncomfortable I felt being out meeting colleagues in person.  It wasn't anything to do with Covid, it was more a feeling of insecurity, mainly because I'm new to the geothermal sector and I don't know much! In these moments, I cling to the adage from my Dad: I am who I am, I know what I know, and I'm happy to be here.  Anyway, I was really glad to get home tonight.

More Cardiff photos

It was fun staying with Nia and Cris and family, too. The cousins all got to hang out together, and it was great to hear them laughing out of control at their own inside jokes.

Meeting Gwydion Tendai

We set off Saturday morning to drive to Cardiff so we can finally meet our new cousin/ nephew named Gwydion Tendai!  He was born on April 25th to Sioned and JJ, and we've been really excited to meet him in person.

Although we stayed with Nia, Cris, Gabs and Val, we did get to meet up with Sions, JJ and baby Gwyds for lunch the next day before driving back home.

Seis de Mayo

 We have American neighbors here in our village, and they have been here longer than we have! Their son Kelton used to babysit for us but we've never really gotten to know them.  After going to their house for dinner a few months ago, we had them over to ours for a belated Cinco de Mayo themed dinner.

Sara and Duane are so much fun to be with! We did a lot of laughing and story telling, and it was just really easy and enjoyable to be in their company.

Extreme supplements

Poor Rhods has been going through a difficult time the past couple of years now with his belly. He all of a sudden stopped feeling hungry and has been struggling to get to the bottom of it for awhile.  Then back in Nov 2021 he started working with a Functional Medicine doctor who has put him on a course of supplements. Here he is about to stock his week of 3x / day medley of tablets.

Rugby Tour 2022

Finally the long awaited Rugby Tour weekend is here! Tryfs has his mullet and we've booked a caravan at the Haven Littlesea Holiday Park near Weymouth.  We called in with the McArraghers and then the Denslows came over to ours.

We drove to the Isle of Portland before the festival really kicked off, and we enjoyed the view from up high. The rest of the weekend will be taking place up in Dorchester on the sideline of the rugby pitch.

And so the games begin...

They actually did go on to win the entire festival for their age group. They had a few really tough games, and there was a lot of standing around between games. It rained quite a bit on the 2nd day of the tournament, but today was ok. It turned out just fine.

Here are Tryfan and Sam with the team trophy after it all finished and we were cleaning up the pitch.  

At night we went into the lounge restaurant and the boys were hilarious to watch. They travelled around in a pack and strutted through the crowds with their mullets on display!

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.