Prom at Principia

Tonight was Prom for Rhiannon and the rest of the seniors at Principia.  Looks like they had a photo session at Queeny Park before their event started.

 

The other girls are Wylie, Melissa, and Quinna.

The garden in late April

Its been a very long, wet winter and a pretty chilly spring so far.  I put a few plants in the ground although its probably too early to do so!  

I'm hoping to get the peas and beans to climb up and make a little cave around this archway. 

End of the football season

 Tonight was Tryfan's last football game with Forest Row football team. It was a big game under the lights at the Horsham stadium.  They played really well and ended up winning 4-1.

I was so glad that I could be here to see him play. Since Rhodri has been coaching him all these years, I haven't had a lot of chances to see the boy play, and I was really impressed.  Anne Marie and her parents and Terry (Gordon's Dad) and his nephew and other people were there and we all watched together.

Senior games

 

There is some game called "Assassin" that the Senior class are playing which involves squirt guns and sneaking up on people who you are meant to hit, but if you are wearing goggles then you are safe.  

Here are Rhi and Drew ready to play.

Swing out at Prin

There is a tradition called "Swing out" at Principia, which is when each graduating Senior girl teams up with a younger girl and they have a formal lunch together.  Here is a photo of Rhi at this event with some of her friends:

Ibiza Day 4: a rainy finish

The rain started just as we checked out of the azuLine apartment, and none of us had brought any rain gear so we bought some ponchos along the way in a cool shop.

We took a bus from Santa Eularia into Ibiza Town and spent the day walking around since our flight was not until the evening.

We got really wet throughout the day, but we had saved clean(ish) dry clothes to change into once we got to the airport, and that worked really well.  So after our day of exploring in the rain and pretty fierce wind, we got the bus to the airport and flew home. Phew!  Long day! But what a fabulous trip.  Only thing was that we missed having Christiane with us.  Next year, hopefully!

Ibiza Day 3: Portinatx to Santa Eularia

Another epic day, this time purely on foot as we crossed the island from north to the south. It was nice to see the inland area with these massive houses, farms, agricultural areas, and finally the south coast of the island.

This was a sweet scene... about 10 young chickens resting on the back of a sheep.  Everyone was enjoying their siesta as we tiptoed past the yard, but then as we were about to walk on, we must have made a noise and they all jumped up and scattered!  Sorry guys!

Here is where we popped out onto the beach at Cala Pada

There was a band playing and loads of people hanging out at the beach.  The water didn't look quite as tantalizing as the other bits of coastline we had encountered, but it was still beautiful. 

We had a beer and then carried on around to find our accommodation, which was the azuLine Apartamentos Can Sansó.  We had a nice simple room overlooking the pool.  

We left our stuff and walked into town to find a place for dinner, which we did. We were surprised how busy Santa Eularia was for a Sunday.

Anyway, all good. 

Ibiza Day 2: Sant Antoni to Portinatx

We started the day with breakfast and then took a taxi to Port de Sant Miquel where we set out on foot to Portinatx.  This was a spectacular day

Studying the map, ready to walk up and around behind the hotel under construction in the right side of the photo.

We went out to this beach called Benirràs and walked along the rocky shoreline, then all 3 of us sat on a big rock and just enjoyed the peace and tranquility.

Then we carried on around the coastline through some kind of protected area that was just a desolate feeling dirt road along the cliff top.

We found a spot for lunch and had been hoping to also go for a swim along the way, but the water was pretty rough and windy on that section so we kept going around towards Platja de Cala Xarraca.

This is where we went down to the water and had a big gorgeous swim!

After this little blissful moment when we were ready to move on we stopped for a beer and snacks at this gorgeous chiringuito (beach bar selling drinks and snacks).  This was heaven to me!

We walked on and soon made it to the village of Portinatx, where we had booked to stay at the Grupotel Ibiza Resort.  However, when we checked in we learned that they had put us in different buildings so invited us to relax with a glass of bubbly while they sorted things out. 

So they sorted things and we got adjacent rooms in the main hotel overlooking the pool and the beach.  We were so, so stoked!  We used the sauna and steam room and pool before heading out to dinner.

We didn't need to go far for dinner, and we loved this beachside place with our waiter who looked like a pirate (in a nice way).

We had a brilliant night and hung out on our balcony after dinner to enjoy the live music below and just chat away the eve.

Ladies backpacking trip to Ibiza - the beginning

This is our 5th year of the Ladies backpacking trip, and we thought of a real corker this year: Ibiza!  

We had a good early start and everything went to plan with leaving the car, taking the train to Gatwick airport, and had a pleasant flight.

We landed at 12 noon and took a taxi to Cala Conte on the west-northwest coast, then started our walk to Sant Antoni along the coastline.  It was sooo beautiful, with perfect sunny breezy warm-but-not-hot weather and gorgeous water.  Here is a map showing our full route for the next few days: red is for taxi or bus, blue is our walking route.

We met a Lithuanian-Irish girl called Inga and enjoyed a nice cocktail at the beach with her.

We had booked to stay in an apartment but ended up getting upgraded into a half-board hotel nearby on a sister property Florencio, and we were SO stoked about this! And the place had a swimming pool that we were able to jump into before they closed it for the night. And we got free dinner!  After dinner we ventured out for a wander through town. We had been thinking about going to Cafe del Mar since it is so famous, but we when we got there we found it was pretty quiet although the place next door, Cafe Mambo, was having their season opening party!

It was pretty fun watching people and enjoying the scene, and eventually we got back to the room and called it a night!