Extreme picnicking

This morning we woke up as frozen as icicles. Our heaters were turned off during the night. It was SO cold. I ate some vegemite on toast with milo while I waited for the girls to get ready (that’s right, the hostel catered for the Australians). We drove in to town to find somewhere nice for breakfast and ended up at the most kitsch little place ever. It was thoroughly adorned with christmas decorations, but not gaudily. There was mistletoe, christmas tree offcuts, holly, christmas bush… And home made gingerbread decorations – the works. It was everywhere. The staff were the kids of the chef and they were so friendly! We chatted while we ate scrummy scrambled eggs and ham on toast NOT TO SHARE because it was just THAT delicious.

Below: A motte & bailey castle on the way; a typical out-the-window view

Then we drove north. North north north. We made a detour by the ocean for no other reason than because Sally thought the ocean would make a nice stop. We went out of our way to get there but it was totally worth it! The Irish sea is a crazy mash of terrible weather, choppy & muddy water and lots of rocky shorelines. It was extremely windy but it was just awesome. Driving in to the harbour (by accident) we saw more castle ruins (driving around you see a lot). This one was awesome though. Right on the most exposed point of a cliff stands an enormous castle with all the bells and whistles. It’s mostly gone but it’s still great – mainly because of your appreciation for someone actually living there in those conditions. Lots of inside time I’d say.

		Aberystwyth Castle VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We stopped for lunch at the Olive Branch cafe, in town (Aberystwyth). It’s a little Greek restaurant that deserves a lot of credit. Out our window was the ocean. Our food – a selection of home made, delicious dips & some soup was amazing. On the way to lunch we drove past four youngsters eating fish and chips at the castle. The paper was blowing everywhere. The wind was strong enough to literally push you up the hill. Similar to extreme sports, they were practicing extreme picniking.

Heading North again we drove and drove until it was dark and we drove some more. The roads got skinnier and the hills got hillier. Lakes were more common and the trees were thicker. Fat sheep graze on hillsides in paddocks marked with thicket fences (is that a word? The fences are hedges). The sheep are so white in comparison to the landscape and they look just like sheep do in fairy tales. I always thought those sheep looked that way just because it was a cartoon version of a normal sheep – but nope. Our sheep are just different, that’s all.

After a long drive in lots of windy roads we arrived to Anglesey Isle at the very North of Wales. We’re staying in a town called Almwch in a hotel that is particularly lovely. We weren’t hungry for dinner after our late and epic lunch. Upon reading the menu for the restaurant downstairs we changed our minds. There’s nothing like food that’s actually from the area it’s grown in. The restaurant of our hotel is locally famous and uses all local ingredients. As soon as I read that, I was sold. Such a sucker for fresh/local things. Save those food miles!

I had two courses .Totally unnecessary. Totally delicious. Fig and duck terrine followed by stilton blue cheese and rocket tortellini. Delicious!

Now I’m full, showered, ready for bed. I’ve got some sleeping tablets to put me to sleep tonight and we’ve got a big local breakfast to wake up to – included in the price of our room (which is a bargain. Thanks Tegan!). Tomorrow’s a big day. We want to see a bit of the area, then we’re off to Manchester to pick up a friend and then up to Edinburgh ready for New Years Eve. We’re there for 3 nights which will be another nice rest!!!!!

From Cotswolds to Cardiff to Cwmbran

Boxing Day was a day of rest. We ate left overs. I went for a walk to the village nearby. I found a recently dead snake of the grey/dead variety. It was muddy and crisp but such a nice walk through the village. It was SO CUTE. A church, beautiful houses, a pub……

Boxing Day then turned in to a messy day. Whilst out for a walk, Tegan&co decided they needed to finish the alcohol. As we were departing the next day and car space is limited, it was a justifiable reason. We certainly polished off a vast majority of the alcohol but it wasn’t without event. I would post photos on here but they are rather incriminating and not so flattering. We had such a fun time. The iPod dock was turned up to blasting. We started with Christmas music (although it was wearing thin) and moved to some more recent songs. Once the grog started to kick in a bit more the music turned to country. And when Gretchen Wilson blasted out ‘Redneck Women’ there wouldn’t have been a soul in the Cotswolds that didn’t hear. The boys were introduced to country music and its drunken listeners. We just danced. And sang (okay, yelled). People got super duper drunk, started dancing with chairs above their head, patting swans and throwing chocolates. We did a test of gin: between Hendricks’ and Bombay. Hendricks’ won with the majority of votes. (it was done as properly as possible, in clean shot glasses with equal amounts of gin/tonic/cucumber, with the testers not knowing the identity of the gin)

Once the music tuned down and we began to calm down, I ate a chunk of leftover pork, others had a bit of a spew and we went to bed.

There’s nothing more fun than running around the house with your friends, drinking, laughing and dancing for no apparent reason.

Needless to say the day after Boxing Day was slower than usual. I survived my very first international driving experience. We had to drop people at the train station. Tegan was in no state so off I toddled to Kemble train station. The music was off and everyone was very quiet but we made it and I’m much more confident now. I even drove in Wales today!

We spent a long time packing up the house. Food, bags etc. I am very proud to say that we spend a total of 208 pounds on groceries over Christmas for 7 people. Add a bit extra for things we bought beforehand: some alcohol, decorations, tree, presents – and you’ve got yourself a pretty awesome Christmas for not too much! The food we ate was epic, if I do say so myself. We had SO much food but ended with relatively very little left over. There was some non-perishables that were inevitable, but all in all, not a bad bloody effort!

From the Cotswolds we drove to Cardiff in Wales. It wasn’t even a 2 hour journey. The hostel we stayed in was not amazing but we slept (mind you, I’m having lots of trouble sleeping lately……. it’s tres annoying). We’d packed some leftovers for lunch and ate in the park in Cardiff and spent the rest of the evening resting. Phew.

Today we headed back in to Cardiff to check out the Cardiff Castle. It was 11 pounds so we decided not to – instead we opted for a second breakfast. While eating my eggs eleven with bacon and mushrooms, I decided that I wanted to go in anyway, despite the crazy entry fee. So we paid and entered – which was totally in our favour because the sun actually came out!

And for the record, it was totally worth 11 pounds. It’s expensive, but it’s so cool. The curatorship, if that’s how you describe the awesome amount of information and ease of following the history is described, was awesome. It’s the same quality as the memorial at Sachsenhausen near Berlin. Of course, that was free –which was one of the more impressive features of it (meaning: it’s an amazing centre of history and memorial and curatorship and it’s free, when I would have paid $20 to see it). Nevertheless, Cardiff Castle was great. There’s not all that much left which is understandable. But the most notable of the entire area is the castle on the motte (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey). It’s awesome. And old.

 

Perhaps the stupidest moment of the day was when I realised the answer to something I’ve been pondering since we went to William the Conqueror’s wall in Caen. How does the water get in to the moats? I was thinking that maybe fancy aqueducts were built to divert river water, or that maybe a spring was underneath all moats, or that a well was dug to supply the water. But no. The answer (well, my answer anyway) is the water table. Simple. I feel so stupid. When it rains as much as it does in the UK (and it DOES), of course the water table would sit practically below the topsoil (actually, it probably sits IN the topsoil because the soil’s probably fairly deep?!). Which means, when you dig a moat, you’re just digging deeper than the water table and allowing the water to sit at its natural level (or slightly risen as it’s a point of weakness per se).

Anyway. If I’m wrong, tell me. It makes sense to me though. It certainly wouldn’t happen much in Australia.

From Cardiff we decided to drive north for no reason other than it’d be cool to go to Northern Wales. We drove towards Cwmbran because it has a funny name and then on to Ebbw Vale, because it’s a place in Brisbane with an absolutely ridiculous name that now make sense. I still don’t know how to pronounce it BUT at least we know where it’s from…..

We drove on for a bit, not knowing where we were really going but hoping to find somewhere to stay. Of course everything’s full. Bah. We went in to about 8 different places to ask, called about 10 different places – to no avail. We ended up taking advice and driving near the railway. That’s all the instructions we got, but we totally stumbled upon the cheapest place in town that happened to have heaps of spare rooms. Sweet! It’s really comfortable too. Not nice, but nice vibe.

Tomorrow we’ll drive through the Brecon Beacon National Park on our way north to Anglesly. We’re staying at a cool farm stay (we think). Then we’ll head East to Manchester and north to Edinburgh for New Years Eve.

Christmas in the Cotswolds

So, I didn’t want to write this because I was worried that I’d forget all the cool details so I put it off longer and longer and that was just silly.

We arrived to much, much, much excitement to our house in the Cotswolds. It’s overcast a lot so it’s hard to appreciate long distance beauty, but the main beauty lies within staying in the one place for 4 nights and overlooking a lake. Our house is huge, comfortable and very homely!

 

 

 

 

 

Food shopping took hours – it was so busy. We had a list that we stuck to. I had to go back in for alcohol because one 3/5 of us had ID on us to buy it in the first checkout run. That was a bit annoying. But easy to remedy. And the girls went and sourced the coolest little Christmas tree.

Roast pork and stir fry was on the menu for dinner, which was absolutely delicious!!!!! Lots of talking and laughing too.

Yesterday I cooked all day. Potato bake, pancakes, and I can’t even remember the rest but it was a lot! The boys (my friends) arrived at around 3pm and we had a few drinks, ate our delicious spaghetti bolognaise, wrapped and organised presents, played board games, drank some more…….. Ebony make gingerbread men. The two resident white swans came knocking (literally) on our front door for a good hour or so. They’re so pretty! But also a little bit scary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then it was Christmas!

I was up early chopping and dicing breakfast goods. I’d snuck another couple of presents under the tree for Tegan and Ebony, and went through the stocking that mum organised for us. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, fried leeks, mushrooms, tomatoes and eggs benedict on the menu. It was a pretty freaking good breakfast.

Then it was present time. It was a lot of fun! We’d set up secret santa and there were some other random gifts as well. I opened my purple Doc Martens that I bought for myself (which I wore all day). Some other cool things including a leather bracelet that Pop made, a lamb to help a family from Nan, some of the cutest little sewing things from my secret santa……. The girls loved their Kindle (ebony) and iPod (tegan) that I got them. It was a bit naughty to spend that much, but I thought – well, I didn’t really think, I just did it. There were lots of fun other presents for everyone too.

Ebony and I had organised a lucky dip of mini alcohol bottles we’d bought from Germany of undisclosed nature. All different so we had no idea how they tasted. There was one spare and Tegan took it before she knew she had to drink it all. We all cheers’d and then drank our shot together.

It was pass the parcel now, that Ebony and I had also organised with a bunch of little (but great) presents we’d picked up along the way.

Then turkey preparation. Oh man. We had no idea. We tried to stuff the neck with stuffing but it wouldn’t fit. Turns out it’s a lot easier to stuff a turkey bum with stuffing. Ebony took some freaking hilarious photos of us trying to figure it all out! We got it in the oven and it cooked for a good 3 hours (which was too much. oops). While it was baking, we were drinking and talking and dancing around to Christmas music, playing with the swans outside, eating more, drinking more, laughing more. It was really really cool!

		Turkey time VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We played bingo as well with the contents of a massive bingo Christmas bon bon. And then it was time to eat the turkey! We ate breakfast at about 10:30am and lunch at about 4:30pm. Dessert at about 8pm.

The dinner spread was pretty amazing! Check it out:

Dinner lasted a while because we tried to fit in as much as possibly possible!

More board games, more laughing, more singing and dancing, more drinking…. a bit of cleaning up…. And now it’s midnight, I’m exhausted but still buzzing. I’m not drunk because I started drinking at breakfast and stopped at dinner. Everyone’s sober and civil and in bed. I feel a bit dodgy about that but I shouldn’t. We had the best, more amazing beautiful day. We drank and ate a lot, laughed a lot and now we’re going to bed to sleep well, so we can do it all again tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!!!

XOXOXOXOXOOXX