Rugby under the floodlights

Tonight Tryfan had a rugby festival that started at 6pm at a rugby pitch about an hour away. This was new since they got to play at night under the big floodlights, so it was pretty exciting.

Tryfan is in the red skullcap going in for the tackle in the middle

 It was also right around freezing, so Rhiannon and I had a challenge to stay warm while standing around watching. We made a few trips into the clubhouse for warm drinks, and that was nice.

 

The team played 4 games and did pretty well. They sure played hard! It was a bit difficult to watch sometimes since they were really crashing into each other. All good, though, and we got home around 10pm. 

Thanksgiving in Paris

This week I had to go to Paris for a meeting, so I traveled on Thursday morning and then back home tonight. A quick trip, and I didn't organize anything ahead of time with dear Flo because she moved to the outskirts of Paris and I knew that I wouldn't have time to get out there. But actually, it turned out that she was available to come visit me! We met for dinner and a really great catch up, and as it happened it was also Thanksgiving so that made it extra special.

The rest of the trip was not that great for me actually, and I was really glad to get home. Seeing Flo on this occasion was such a wonderful gift.

Beautiful day for a birthday

Today Rhodri and Tryfan were at a rugby thing all day, from about 8:30am until 3! That meant I got to celebrate my special day with my girl. We had a lovely relaxing morning and then decided to go to our friends' art exhibition. Mary and Julian are both artists - she does oil painting and he does metal sculpture. They were doing a winter exhibition at a beautiful property in the neighboring village.

 

We reunited with Rhodri and Tryfs in the late afternoon and then went for an earlyish dinner at Smith & Western where we got to listen to some great country western music and have a good feed.

It was a great day all around! Thanks for making it special, family.

Birthday girls night out

On Saturday night, a few of my best girlfriends and I went out for dinner to the Hop Yard in Forest Row. It was relatively civilized, at least at our table... there was a fight that broke out at the pool table behind us which led to some pushing and shoving and various people being escorted off the premises. Exciting! The last time I saw a bit of a fight was.... the last time that I went to the Hop Yard in Forest Row which was about 3 years ago with Rhodri.

Anyway, it was nice to get out. Here are Anne Marie, Cat, me, Emma and Corinne.

Visitors back for a fun filled day

Rhiannon and I met Will & Rebecca in Haywards Heath at the train station and we did a bit of grocery shopping before going home. Again, we had a biiig breakfast with loads of nice things and then we headed out for an adventure!

Our destination was Urban Jump, which is 30 minutes drive from our house. We piled into the car and arrived in time to get our safety briefing. Nearly every sentence of the safety briefing ended with "...and could result in injury including broken bones". Anyway, then we were set free to play in this awesome place!

It was soooooo fun and the hour flew by! We were all quite tired and sweaty by the end. And even now, some days later, my muscles are still aching from playing dodgeball on the dedicated dodgeball court where there were 9x9 individual trampolines with padded edges and 3 or 4 balls in circulation. Uncle Woo was throwing "quite hard" and one brave little fellow came up to him and asked him to please not throw quite so hard. Some of the other kids seemed to really enjoy the ferocity of the game though. Anyway, it was great. All too soon the fun came to an end and we had to go home in time to watch the rugby game and then have fish & chips for dinner.

Special visitors

We were delighted to learn that my brother Will and his wife Rebecca were planning to visit us for a few days! It was a semi-spontaneous trip but just enough notice to sort the back room out and get excited about their arrival. I was able to take the day off and pick them up at the airport, bring them home in time to surprise Tryfan and Rhiannon before they left for school, and then we had such a great day together.  What a treat to have beloved family members come and stay with us during this semi-bleak month of November.

First we had a biiiig breakfast with all the fixings and a couple rounds of coffee. Then we sat around chatting for a little bit while Rhods did some work, and then we headed off on a long walk in the hood.

On a stretch of the walk with wide sweeping views of the countryside

 We called into our favorite local pub, the Coach and Horses, for a warming and delicious lunch and then we continued back home in time for a cup of tea before heading out to pick up Rhiannon from school! After gathering her up, the 4 of us (Will, Rebecca, Rhiannon and me) stopped through the high street in Uckfield and did some thrift store (charity shop) shopping. Then we called in to Waitrose to get a few items for dinner.

Approaching the Coach and Horses pub (in the background)

After dinner we chatted a bit more and soon they headed to bed in preparation for their next few days where they would be visiting (and staying in) London. But we will get to see them on Saturday so we are already planning how to make the most of that day!

Tryfan's belated birthday dinner

We didn't have a chance to go to Tryfan's favorite restaurant on or even near his birthday, so we finally made a trip there this Sunday afternoon. He chose Five Guys in Brighton.  We were all very happy. We love Five Guys!

On our drive back home, we were treated to spectacular fire works displays coming from all directions since today is Guy Fawkes. It was a gorgeous clear night and we were all oooh-ing and ahhh-ing as we made the journey back home.

Halloween

This year Halloween was on a Tuesday and a bit less fun than in previous years.
We normally spend it with Oscar and Sophie, but this year they had other plans so we ended up gathering a few neighbors and going trick-or-treating ourselves.  Rhiannon was a cat (actually it was more of an excuse to wear makeup and black clothes) and Tryfan was his 'normal' grim reaper.

Rhodri stayed home and did his absolute best to make sure that nobody would think that our house was open for business - all the lights off and locked himself into his office. Rhods isn't much of a Halloweener. And even for these guys, it is really just an excuse to get their hands on as much candy as possible. So I can't really say it was an enjoyable occasion, but we survived.

The next adventure

We zoomed off from Surf Snowdonia over across the Conwy valley to a place called Zipworld Fforest to go on the new "Fforest Coaster" which is a toboggan-style roller coaster that goes through the forested hillside.
https://www.zipworld.co.uk/adventure/detail/fforest-coaster

We spent a good hour there to do our 3 rides and we were all grinning ear to ear! Then we drove into Betws-y-coed to have tea and cakes before saying goodbye to Gaz and Josh. It was really fun to be with them.
Here is a little video from their website since we didn't take any photos or videos of our own on this little adventure:

 It was gorgeous sunlight as we made our way back to Nain and Taid's house. We were all quite tired when we arrived but I took the in-between-events opportunity to scamper up to the Vardre to watch the sunset.

This is one of my favorite spots in the world. 

Surf Snowdonia!

Today we had a big surprise for the kids: a surfing lesson at Surf Snowdonia. This is a wave lagoon built on a derelict industrial site that used to be an aluminum factory.
Check it out:
https://www.surfsnowdonia.com/about/

They had a 30 min land-based lesson which Rhodri and I could observe from our spot in the cafe, and then they headed out to the water.

It was the most gorgeous day ever, with bright green fields and gold sunshine

We had lunch in the cafe and then headed for our next adventure....

Reunion in Betws-y-coed

Today we met up with Gaz and Josh in Betws-y-coed for a walk through the woods. It was a decent day if a little drizzly at first.

It was a really nice afternoon, very easy to be with Gaz and Josh. Too bad Rachel couldn't be there as well, but she had to stay back at home this week. 

Cousins

When we got home from our hike, we were greeted by some young cousins who live here in Llandudno. We all had dinner together and it was a bit more boisterous and messy than we are used to, but it was really funny to get to know these cousins a bit more.

 Leusa, Rhyddid and Brython all speak mainly Welsh, but they can speak a bit of English as well. Their favorite things to say in English seem to be "knock-knock" jokes:

• Knock knock
• who's there?
• Jimmy
• Jimmy who? 
• WSHKJTMXFOIDKL .. SECRET FORMULA!! [followed by hysterical laughter]

We weren't at all sure what the heck they were trying to say but they sure loved shouting it at the top of their lungs! Nain wasn't too impressed..

In the hills

Today Rhodri, Tryfan and I set out for a walk in the hills of Snowdonia. It was a pretty mild day and the route Rhodri had chosen (up Afon Caseg to try and get up to Cwm Caseg) ended up being kind of a boggy slog, but it was enjoyable nonetheless

 We didn't make it all the way up to Cwm Caseg, so we will need to go back another time, but it was a full and enjoyable day. As is the tradition, we called in at a pub on our way home. However, we couldn't find a suitable one close to Bethesda so we detoured through Conwy Marina and had a swift pint at the Mulberry Arms.

We had fun watching the people sit below us taking photos of their drinks.

A couple of good days

We spent Monday sleeping in, shopping, and generally relaxing around the place.
Tuesday morning we did a bit more shopping (including getting Rhiannon fitted for her first bra at M&S), then went on a bit of an adventure in Conwy. I went a little happy with the black & white setting on the camera today.. In the morning, Bentley and I walked to the beach and it was reaaaaalllly windy!

After our brief shopping trip and a spot of lunch, we went into Conwy and visited Plas Mawr (which none of us had been to before, but which was very good).

 Then we walked along the city walls over to Conwy Castle and visited the inside of that. It's been a long time since we last visited inside the castle, and it was great. Along the way I captured Tryfan pretending to draw an arrow out of his back pouch and shoot it at an invisible invader! After I took this photo he got embarrassed and wouldn't let me take anymore.

 And then as a grand finale, we got to go out to dinner with Nain and Taid to the Queen's Head pub in Glanwyddan

It was a great day. Tomorrow we are going on a hike somewhere in the mountains...