Actually Leaving the House

It seems such a simple thing, leaving the house.  Mornings now are a little slow to say the least, after waking every hour or two during the night to nurse.  This is very alien to me as pre-baby I was a morning person and bounded out of bed and out the front door, ticking off 10 things from my to-do list by 9am.  In the mornings now you'll find me groggily sat still in pyjamas, cuddling Otis and not getting to drink the tea I made.  It's taken me days to find the time to write this blog post, in snatched moments in between feeds, nappies and cuddles.  Newborn days skip by quickly, so I'm embracing this precious time.

We all need a bit of sunshine and fresh air though, so with the weekend's fine weather we thought it was about time we took Otis for his first visit to a National Trust property.  We headed to local house, Dyffryn.  It was a chance to put the pram's off-road capabilities to the test in the gardens.

Expect to see me in this red coat for the forseeable future, nothing bloomin' fits anymore!

Babymoon

A 'babymoon' is a newfangled term for a relaxed getaway for expectant parents before the baby arrives.  I am not sure our trip to Pembrokeshire last weekend entirely counts, as it was based around Chris's work, but it probably was the last time that we'll be away before the baby arrives.  Some of it was relaxing, for me at least, but Chris may need another weekend to recover!

Our destination on the Friday was the pretty coastal town of St David's, home of a cathedral, and a decent live music scene thanks to some passionate locals.  Chris was playing that night at the local RAFA club, so we arrived early enough for him to do sound-check, while I had a power nap at the B&B (I have got to the stage where I do need a nap if I'm expected to stay up past 9pm).  We then had dinner with our lovely hosts Steve and Orla - who not only run the fabulous Ty Boia B&B but also put on the music nights - and headed off to the venue.  The main act was Nashville singer-songwriter Erin Rae, who I hadn't listened to beforehand, but was very impressed with.  Gorgeous voice!  It was spellbinding in such a small venue.  The evening was a success for everyone involved.

The next day, we took a short drive to Whitesands Bay.  Don't be fooled by these pictures, it was blowing a gale and very cold.

The Party House

I'm sure all of us at some point have thought about how nice it might be to have a holiday home.  Maybe if we win the lottery.  Back in 1952, the newly married Lord and Lady Iliffe bought Basildon Park, a Georgian mansion that none of us could dream of today as our main home, let alone a weekend party pad!

Sun's Out, Suede's Out

This week I started a new job!  This is quite a change, after nearly 8 years in my old one.  I am still working for the university, but in a different building, with a different team, working on some new projects alongside continuing some of the old.  My new role is in a mental health research unit, famous for its brain research. You might have seen the documentary a few years ago with singer Charlotte Church, "Inside my brain", which featured some of the work done there.  I am very excited.

Of course, change comes with upheaval.  In my last job I was lucky to have had a huge office all to myself for a few years, and that meant I accumulated quite a bit of stuff.  It was quite a mission clearing it out, wandering around the building with plastic jugs, teacup and saucer sets, uplighters, old books and unopened packets of green tea in undesirable flavours, seeing if my colleagues wanted them before I made a trip to the charity shop.  My new office is open-plan, shared with colleagues, and there isn't as much space, so the clear-out really was necessary!  I am still making trips between my old and new buildings, ferrying folders and such across.

Anyway, the change in jobs has meant that I've been making the most of my precious free time and spending it 'offline' as much as possible, either gardening, meeting friends, or seizing fine weather days to go for countryside walks.  Today was the most gorgeous day, so Chris and I headed out to a favourite local spot to stretch our legs.  The October light really was beautiful, there's a softness to it at this time of year.

Adventures & Misadventures

Firstly, a pictorial whistle-stop tour of what we got up to on the rest of our trip to West Wales at the start of the month.  We stayed again at our friend's caravan (the one we were in for Storm Brian).

Capture the Castle

Where did the summer go?  September always seems to arrive sooner that I anticipate.  I've had a few weeks (well-deserved) time off work, and Chris and I headed to the coast of West Wales for a few days.  On the list of things to do was a trip to Cilgerran Castle.  It wasn't too far from our friend's caravan where we were staying, so we headed there armed only with a small picnic rather than medieval weaponry.

A Seaside Stay in Croyde

At the start of August some friends from London invited us to stay with them in Devon for the weekend at an Airbnb they'd rented.  I know - Devon again!  It was my third trip this year.  It was a different area of Devon again though, this time the North Devon coast.  Our base was the beautiful bay of Croyde.  Our journey was slow thanks to Friday motorway traffic, but nothing compared to what our London friends had to endure, it took them the best part of 8 hours, and they have a 4 month old baby and a dog...  Still, this is the beautiful sight that greeted us all when we eventually arrived.

Forest Escape

A day after my graduation, Chris and I packed up his car (I am still car-less) and we drove west into the Brechfa forest area of West Wales.  I had booked a stay in a cottage on a textile farm, with no Wi-Fi, and only accessible by a very long and very bumpy farm track.  Something different!

  

The Fervors of July

This year is really hurtling along for me.  In the past three weeks I've been to Devon on a hen weekend, to London on a work trip - oh, and I graduated from my PhD!

The trip to Devon was fun.  I'd never been on a full 'hen weekend' before and was slightly nervous about whether I would survive the pace of activity and also survive being with nine other people for an entire weekend.  We stayed at Berridon Farm, in two of their cabins.  It is in a beautiful countryside spot, with five cabins in total spaced out in a large field.  The first evening we made use of the farm's outside pizza oven, which was fun.  We were lucky to have dry and warm weather, though in the evenings the temperature plummeted pretty quickly so my vintage dresses were swapped for thermals, jumpers and as many blankets as I could find.  As it's a working farm, the field has pens of animals at the far side.  We had fresh eggs for our breakfast the next morning, a real treat. 

Working Tourist

The last month has been very busy work-wise, which is why I was so behind in posting about my Devon adventures.  I've traveled a little bit for work, and the bonus has been squeezing in a bit of tourism!  First up, there was a National Trust double whammy.  I was speaking at a conference in Brighton, and staying with one of my sisters.  It made sense for me to drive (she's out in the Sussex countryside) so I thought that I'd make use of the National Trust membership to have some interesting stop-offs both there and on the way back.

On the way down, it was a decently warm and sunny day, so I stopped to see the gardens at Hinton Ampner.  Even though it was a Thursday, it was rather busy.  Lots of older couples, and families with young babies.  The gardens are big enough that you can find a quiet spot away from the masses, and I'd brought a picnic lunch to enjoy.

Overbeck's Gardens

I promise this is the last installment of the Devon trip!  We didn't end up leaving Burgh Island until a little later than anticipated, due to the tides.  Once we were back on the mainland, I'd set my heart on a visit further down the coast to Overbeck's sub-tropical gardens.  Salcombe is a lovely area of Devon.  It's alongside the Kingsbridge Estuary, that's dotted with little sandy bays.  We were lucky to have a sunny (but not that warm) day to explore the gardens and the surrounding area.  The view that you're greeted with as you step down onto the terrace of Overbeck's takes your breath away.

The Last Day of Glorious 39

More time travel again today, as I try and catch up with writing about adventures that occurred a whole month ago!  The day before my 40th birthday, and our arrival on Burgh Island, we had travelled down to Devon to break up the journey.  After our stop at the Killerton Estate, we headed to our accommodation for the night, Beyond Escapes.  I quite often pick up cheap deals on luxury self-catering because people tend to want to stay for at least a long weekend.  When there's the odd night going spare, I swoop in and get a greatly reduced deal.

It was very modern (not my usual thing), but it was exceptionally spacious (two bedrooms, three bathrooms!), well equipped, and on a quiet site in the pretty countryside from which you could just about glimpse the sea.  The rain moved in that evening, so we stayed in and stayed cosy.  The bath had coloured lights around the bottom, which was quite fun, and Chris cooked a lovely birthday-eve dinner for me.

Burgh Island

As promised, here are more photos from my Burgh Island Birthday Bonanza experience!  Better late than never.  The weather forecast was shocking, but miraculously as we drove ever closer to the village of Bigbury on Sea, the sky started to brighten.  As befits an island steeped in mystery, even arriving feels a little mysterious - there's poor mobile signal in Bigbury, so they ask you to phone from a village up the road to get the code to the gated garage.  We stopped to do so, and also did a classy getting-changed-in-a-car-park maneuver into our especially chosen "arrival outfits".  I rang the hotel and carefully noted the gate code in my Art Deco notebook, before we got back in the car and carried on our way.  As we turned the corner of the winding country lanes and saw the island for the first time, the view took my breath away.

Killerton Estate

I am playing catch-up with my blog posts, but it's always better to start at the beginning.  Before our visit to Burgh Island I booked another night in Devon, to extend the trip.  I wanted to renew our National Trust membership as a birthday present to myself, so on the drive down from Wales we broke the journey with a stop at Killerton.  This 18th century property, that was given to the National Trust by the Acland family in 1944, offers a little more than your standard grand house and garden experience, as it houses a fashion exhibition.  Far better than a motorway service station!

The Mermaid Pool

Last week I turned 40 years old in style, by spending my birthday with my husband at the incredible Art Deco extravaganza that is Burgh Island hotel.  Originally a resort for the rich and famous, the iconic hotel is situated on its own private island.  It certainly was a decadent beginning to my next decade  - start as you mean to go on!  I will be sharing my experience in full detail but before I can do that, I have hundreds of photos to wade through.

In the meantime then, I wanted to share my first outfit on the island.  This was my "arrival outfit", which also included a jacket, hat and bag, that I removed for our first stroll around the island.  I'm glad I took the hat off.  The wind was quite strong uphill and Chris nearly lost his hat a few times!

We retreated therefore to this charming, secretive little cove, reached by a wooden staircase (I was pleased it's not reached by a rickety 'Jacob's ladder' as described in Christie's novel, 'Evil Under the Sun').  At the bottom is the 'Mermaid Pool', a natural pool filled with seawater and surrounded by high rocks.  There's a pontoon moored in the middle that you can swim out to.  I would have loved to, but sea temperatures in May are decidedly chilly, so I thought I'd avert pneumonia and give it a miss.

By Full Tilt River and Switchback Sea

It was a drizzly, misty Monday morning at the estuary in Laugharne, West Wales.  There's a short walk from the sleepy town that loops past the castle, along the estuary to Dylan Thomas's writing shed, and then his former residence, The Boathouse.  It's the same route we take on every visit, sometimes reversing it for variety.  We stopped at the writing shed first.  It always amuses me how the first line of the text displayed on the information panel outside is "This is not the Boathouse", because tourists were getting confused.  There are also lots of signs along the narrow winding lane warning "Go back now!" and "No turning space ahead" because a few people had tried to drive along it and ended up getting their cars stuck.

Birthdays: Beechenhurst and Barry Island

It's all about the birthdays!  I've just begun a whole 11 days off work.  Yesterday was Chris's birthday, and I am turning 40 years old next week.  Two of my oldest friends have already reached this milestone in the last six months, and we've been having a few little celebrations.  Our last meet up was a boozy one, so we felt we should try something wholesome and outdoorsy next.  We ended up having a treetop adventure!

My friend Victoria lives ion the edge of the Forest of Dean, so Kelly and I drove across to meet her at Beechenhurst visitor centre.  There's a lovely 'sculpture trail' through the forest that I remember going to frequently as a child with my parents and younger brother.  However, we were after something a bit more strenuous, and had booked onto a treetop 'high ropes' adventure.  We've never done anything like this before, and booked onto the smaller course, as a taster.  On arrival, the others queuing for the 'junior' adventure seemed to be aged about seven years old.  Victoria was a little embarrassed and in a move to try and save face, told the assistant that she'd originally booked on with her children, but that they were ill and couldn't come.  The assistant cheerfully replied "Oh, do you want me to see if there's space for you on the adult course?  It's only down the road!".  There was space, and to Victoria's dismay, Kelly and I enthusiastically said 'yes' and we headed down the road to the full-on 'Go Ape!' adventure.  I didn't quite know what to expect, but it turned out to be immense fun, absolutely amazing, and well worth every penny.  The staff were fantastic, the forest-setting was enchanting, and the hours flew by.  It was a bit nerve-wracking at times, but by the end even Victoria was flinging herself down zip-wires with zeal.  Sometimes you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone.  It was a bonding experience too, and our new collective mantra is "40 and fearless!".  We really needed the big pub meal we had afterwards, what an appetite we'd worked up!

There I go, down the zip wire!

Afternoon Tea at Dyffryn Gardens

This year I celebrated Valentine's Day with afternoon tea with my mum, and sister Louise at a beautiful country house run by the National Trust.  I previously shared some photographs from Dyffryn back in January 2017, on a particularly murky and misty day.  There couldn't have been more contrast!  Our visit was in glorious sunshine, with a riot of Spring flowers.

Dyffryn Gardens surround a beautiful late Victorian (1892) mansion.  Throughout the year, visitors are able to wander around the grounds, and also tour part of the house.  There are ongoing renovations to the building itself, as the house was acquired after a failed attempt to turn it into a luxury hotel (in which many original features were destroyed, leaving the house an empty shell).

There is a magnificent large glass house in the gardens, that was filled with pots and pots of cheery Spring flowers, from crocus to cyclamen.  Outside, crocus carpeted the slopes of the garden.  If you've seen the new Mary Poppins film, it was like the end scene where everyone is singing and frollocking in the flowers.

For a limited number of special events throughout the year such as Valentine's Day, you can book an afternoon tea in the morning room of the house.  As a setting for afternoon tea, it couldn't be a more perfect setting.  It was served in the 'morning room', the centre room in the ground floor overlooking the gardens.  A sunny room with a gorgeous bird print wallpaper, and the tables laid out with vintage tablecloths and china.  It was an exceptional setting.  Our table was set back a little from the blinding sun in the window, so I think I had the best seat in the house.

The hat and shoe shops of London

Between Christmas and New Year's, I had a weekend in London visiting friends with my husband.  We had a day to ourselves on the Saturday, to allow our hosts some rest from our Friday night of talking and drinking late into the night.  First stop was St James's Park, to meet another friend (not pictured, she's blog-shy!).  We had a long overdue catch-up over coffee and then headed out for a walk to send her toddler to sleep.  We passed Buckingham Palace and stopped for the obligatory photo opportunity, amongst the throngs of people doing the same.  I don't remember seeing the palace up close before.

Westonbirt Arboretum

The Autumn colours have been particularly spectacular this year.  Here in the Rhondda, the landscape has looked more like North America in places than Wales.  We have ancient oak woods clinging to steep valley sides, and vast stretches of pines on the mountain tops.  In the valley bottoms are woodlands of ash, oak, sycamore, wych elm, alder and willow.  All of these trees have put on quite a show for us.  My favourite trees at Autumn have to be acers, also known as maples, which unfortunately for me don't grow in the wild here.  Luckily, we are within easy driving distance of Westonbirt Arboretum, with its world-renowned collection of Japanese maples.  A beautifully sunny but cold Autumn day dawned, so we hopped in the car headed across to Gloucestershire.  It was the day the clocks went back, so the extra hour was in our favour.

When we arrived it was already super busy - seems like a lot of people had the same idea as us.  Fortunately it's a very large site, of about 600 acres, with 17 miles of paths.  We headed off into the Old Arboretum area first, and enjoyed exploring the twisting pathways.  It wasn't long until we found the main attraction, a huge area of red Acers, casting a magical rose-hued light throughout the whole glade.  It was packed with people taking family portraits with dogs and children, Asian tourists doing selfies, and some serious photographers with big bits of kit.  We took a few snaps, but didn't linger too long as we knew there was still much to explore.  One of the other highlights was a raised wooden walkway that winds through part of the woodland, with little crow's nest lookout points.  It certainly gave a different perspective, being at squirrel-level up in the trees.

It was a cold day, but I was kept cosy in my new-to-me 1970s Eastex coat.  No, I don't need any more coats, but that doesn't stop me buying them - especially as this was just £3!  I also wore a 1970s hat, matching its navy colour with my tights and gloves.  As we were in an arboretum, I chose my horse-chestnut brooch to finish things off.  The Prada boots had an outing again, as they are a flat and sensible choice for walking around all day.  Even so, our legs were aching after walking solidly for about two and a half hours.  Back at the car, we had a welcome cuppa from the thermos we'd brought, and then decided it was time we headed back to Wales.  If the arboretum was closer, I would definitely be planning a return trip for their enchanted Christmas trail, as they deck out parts of the wood with lights.  I'm sure it would be spectacular.

I was left with one burning question - why have we had such a good display of Autumn colours this year?  I knew it was to do with the weather, but until I read this article, I wasn't sure of the science behind it.  Apparently, a warm summer is a contributing factor, as is not too many frosts early in the Autumn season.  If you don't like your news to be fake, I highly recommend The Conversation online news site.  It's written by contributing academics, so everything is fact-checked and presented in a non-sensationalised way.