A Simple Life of Luxury

As part of our couple of days away, after a day at the Blue Planet we stayed in the Premier Inn Wrexham. Although close to Wrexham it is a little way out of the town and felt nice. It was never going to be a luxury night away but it was perfect for us. Cheaper than a Youth Hostel despite having YHA membership, clean, quiet and comfortable and therefore everything we needed for a night.

The room was plenty big enough we had a bath and a shower and confortable beds and a friendly enough greeting.Of course, having a proper flush toilet is always a luxury for us!

There was a pub / restaurant next door called The Beeches which is co-owned by Premier Inn so this is where we went for our evening meal and where we were to go for breakfast in the morning. Once again we have no complaints. The restaurant was nicely laid out, the food was good and the service was excellent. We therefore had a nice relaxing meal, even Morgan ate OK and the waitresses were friendly and helpful. Breakfast in the morning was good too… Eat as much as you like which is something I always like and in addition to the full cooked breakfast there was plenty of cereals, toast, croissants, yoghurts, fruit, juices and coffeee etc. Just what I needed before a day out mountain-biking at Llandegla.

Certainly recommended.

We’ve just got back from a busy weekend. We drove to my parents house in South Gloucestershire on Friday evening. Saturday was then spent first taking my car to a garage in Dursley. Mitsubishi had recalled all cars like mine to have a part exchanged so as they were doing it for free in it went and we found a playground for Morgan to play on.

Next stop was a trip to Ikea for Anna. It isn’t often that we get to go to ‘big’ shops. We had breakfast in Ikea although I think I was cheated out of a sausage and a hash brown! We then bought a few bits and pieces before heading off to the Early Learning Centre where Morgan bought a new toy! Next was lunch in the Pizza Hut Another treat whilst in the big smoke!

We then drove out of Bristol and back to South Gloucestershire, up onto the Cotswolds and visited the National Trust property of Newark House. Morgan fell asleep on the way there so we sat in the car park for a while. Anna had a sleep too so I sat there twiddling my thumbs waiting for them both to wake up. By the time we were ready it was getting late so we didn’t have much time but we did manage a quick look around the house and a quick stroll through the woodland garden.

Newark House is situated high on Cotswold Hills so has some really nice views over the rolling Gloucestershire countryside. Many of the views are completely devoid of anything from the 20th Century. The house itself started life as a hunting lodge in 1550 and is now owned by the Clutterbuck family who bought it in 1790. The Clutterbuck Family still own it and live in it although some parts are open to the public.

Morgan quite enjoyed his quick look around the house as there was a little teddy-bear hunt with bears hidden in each room for the little-ones to find.

After wandering around the house we had an ice cream and then took a stroll through the woodland and down to the lake before heading back to my parents for dinner.

As with many National Trust properties, the admission price is quite steep unless you have an annual membership or are particularly interested in the history. We like stopping off at these places and with a membership it doesn’t matter if you don’t spend too long there or visit often for a nice little walk. To be honest we aren’t that interested in the history. I do like the gardens and we do like to have a quick nose around the property. The advantage of the membership though is that it doesn’t matter if you don’t spend too long there as you don’t feel as though you need to get your moneys-worth on that one visit.

Newark Park Gardens

Morgan with ice-cream on his nose!

Anna and Morgan at Newark Park

Newark Park

Sunlit garden building at Newark Park

Summer Foliage at Newark Park

Newark Park House

A tired 3yr old!

As regular readers will know we have been having a pragmatic approach to saving some electricity recently. We’re still using the electricity monitor and have been keeping the usage down which is good. It is summer of course so we shouldn’t be using much anyway, but hopefully come winter we’ll be careful with our energy consumption too.

Despite living in a brand new, energy efficient house though quite a few of our windows have large gaps around them which let in draughts and sand and obviously let out heat in the winter so I’ve started sealing these off which will hopefully help the energy consumption too.

Of course living at the end of the line means that we get plenty of power cuts too. A quick search through this blog and there are quite a few reports of loss of power and such like so this can on occasion help is save electricity too! We had a quick power cut on Friday afternoon with the power going off for a minute or so… Still enough to shut down all of the computers too abrubtly for my liking and of course reset all of the clocks etc. And then it went off for about an hour around dinner time. According to the electricity company a bird flew into the line earlier in the day when the power first went off and then they switched it off at dinner time to repair it… I’m not sure how a bird manages to cause such disruption but it did!

It did mean that our energy consumption for the day was a little lower than normal though, just 4Kwh

Continuing our anniversary day out we headed off to Llanerchaeron House near Aberaeron. This is a National Trust property so it isn’t cheap to get in but we decided that it was our anniversary so we may as well treat ourselves and have a look round, especially seeing as I’m into gardens at the moment anyway.

We wandered around the gardens and the lake and then had a look round the house. The house itself isn’t huge but it was interesting. We were actually more interested in the service areas out the back of the house rather than the luxurious living areas.

The gardens were nice too, if only we had a little more protection from the wind here. Of course, being a National Trust property they did try to get us to join. We would if there were more National Trust properties in the area, but a family membership is quite expensive and with nothing else to visit around here it just wouldn’t be worth it for us.

At least I remembered to take some photos for a change!

All in all a nice day out together.

Llanerchaeron Walled Gardens

Lake at Llanerchaeron

Formal Rose Garden

It was our wedding anniversary on Thursday so although we felt a little guilty about it we sent Morgan off to nursery as usual and had a day out together.

Typically I had come down with the dreaded lurgy the night before so wasn’t feeling great and the weather didn’t look too good to start with either. First we drove to Aberaeron but as it was pouring with rain decided to continue down the coast towards New Quay. We stopped off at a little garden centre in Llanart and had a wander round then dodged the showers in New Quay before heading off to the nearby Honey Farm for some lunch.

We hadn’t been to the honey farm before and although small it was a pleasant place to stop. We had a cream tea here and a little look around. They have a nice little picnic area, a tea room, an exhibition and a meadery. I discovered that the term ‘Honeymoon’ comes from the fact that honey was considered an aphrodisiac and was given to newlyweds for a lunar month after their wedding, hence the term honeymoon… Quite an appropriate thing to learn on our anniversary.

The weather had brightened up by now and it was actually a lovely day. The wind had picked up too so had I been feeling well enough I would have been dying to get out for a windsurf but as it was we headed back towards Aberaeron and off to Llanerchaeron House.

After yesterdays successful work-life balance day I couldn’t let it slip today so managed yet another good day. I didn’t get up quite so early today, in fact for a change I managed to stay in bed until about 7am. I think yesterdays epic cycle ride must have tired me out! So, after some housework I settled down to work, went through my e-mails and then had a meeting with a client. By 11am he sun was blazing and the wind had picked up so I headed over to the beach and had a lovely windsurf session with just the right amount of wind and plenty of sunshine.

Back home and another hour or so of work and then off into town to buy a few toys for Morgan (An inflatable canoe, wetsuit and float coat). Collected Morgan from nursery and then headed back to the beach to take him ’surfing’.

OK, so maybe the balance was more towards life than work today but I’m not complaining about that and I am doing a little bit of work this evening as well!

We have recently been having a clear out and plan to finally get around to sorting out Morgan’s bedroom. He’s getting too big for his toddler bed and needs some proper storage where he can put all of his toys, and believe me there are lots that need a proper home.

I have been a member of the Aberystwyth Freecycle Group for about a year now and have done some good transactions through this group in both directions. It has been really useful as a way of getting rid of bits and pieceswe no longer use without just throwing things away. It works both ways though and I keep an eye on the offered ads to see if there is anything we need. The good items do get snapped up quickly but we’ve had a couple of pairs of sandals for Morgan, some left over pull-up nappies which is always useful and a booster seat for the car to use when we visit my mum. Someone even gave us their entire Mr Men books collection when I posted a wanted add for the free Mr Men that were available in washing powder at the time.

Recently however, and as a way to help Morgan understand that stuff costs money, I decided to try and sell a few things in the paper to help pay for Morgan’s new bedroom furniture. So far we’ve managed to sell a number of items and have made about a third of the cost towards the new furniture. I didn’t think people would be interested in some of it but so far so good and every advert I’ve put in has had some response. The adverts are free so it’s always worth a try and of course I’ve always got freecycle to fall back on if I can’t sell something before making a trip to the tip. Morgan has been very good about it as well. He wasn’t too impressed that his toybox was in the car one morning going to a new home with another little boy but once I explained that we were selling it to buy his new bed he seemed happier about the situation (he hasn’t missed it either since it’s been gone!).

There are down sides as well to both systems. Because we live about 10 miles out of town I have to take a lot of stuff into town and arrange to meet people there rather than them coming out to us but that is more to do with where we live than anything else. I also find our local freecycle moderator to be a bit of a control freak but again I’m sure she does a valuable job keeping out the junk posts from the group and ensures everything runs smoothly.

I had a clear out at the weekend and found lots more things we no longer need. I think I’ll try my luck in the paper again before offering them for free.

I thought I’d give my Dad (who is something of a master carpenter) something to inspect, and no doubt laugh at, next time he visits us in Wales. So, yesterday afternoon was spent building a pergola in the garden.

We had plenty of wood left over from the construction of our timber deck so out came the tools and with no real plan I started chopping it up and fixing it together. It actually went fairly well and although it looks a little out of place at the moment once I’ve built another flower border on the other side of it and have some climbing plants on it it should be a nice garden feature and effectively divide the garden into two.

I’m sure I’ve built it wrong, no doubt it isn’t perfectly square and I’ve used the wrong joints, but it was supposed to be fairly rustic and it seems fairly secure… Of course with the winds we get here it needs to be and we shall have to see how well it fares once it has a proper battering.

Now I have to find some plants that will cope with the wind, the salty air and the sandy soil and ones that will climb as most plants don’t dare tick their heads much higher than a couple feet around here.

We thought we’d treat ourselves to dinner out last night and as the Wild Fowler is no longer doing the 2 for 1 offer we thought we’dgive the Rhydypennau Inn a go. We hadn’t been there fore a while and yet again it had changed hands since we were last there (or at least it appeared that way).

We waited a bit to order, but not too long and then ate our food which was nice. Nothing special, but there was nothing wrong with it either. We then sat there waiting for our plates to be cleared and to order pudding, but it took ages for anyone to come to us. We waited some more and eventually after an hour of waiting decided to give up and by some ice cream from the Spar instead!!

We therefore got up and went to the bar to pay, but were told to wait a second whilst they got the bill. 5 minutes and we were still waiting to pay. Another 5 minutes went by and we asked again, and eventually after standing at the bar for 15 minutes trying to pay we were served and able to give them some money… I’m sure most people would have walked out by now without paying!

To make matters worse when we paid, there was no change in the till so they had to go off searching for some and when they did give us our change they actually short-changed us as well… Only by 4p it has to be said and therefore I couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss as we would have looked pretty silly making a fuss over 4p, but after waiting for over an hour to be served and 15 minutes just to pay it was all a bit of a joke…

At least we saved some money on pudding as we got a vienetta and some ice cream from the Spar for the less than the price of one pudding in the Rhydypennau Inn.

Don’t think we’ll be going to the Rhydypennau Inn again too soon.

As a new YHA member I was looking at the location of Youth Hostels last night and dreaming about the idea of walking around the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path stopping off at the Youth Hostels on the way. I’m not sure if it is possible yet to do this, but I’ve always wanted to walk the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and maybe when Morgan is a little older we’ll do it.

However, Pembrokeshire is just a start, according the CCW work has started on a 6 year project that will eventually lead to an all-Wales coastal path. Walkers will be able go all around the Welsh coastline on a continuous path by 2012, says the Countryside Council for Wales.

Sixty per cent of the coastline is already accessible, but the plan is to create new sections of path and upgrade others to improve access to horse riders and cyclists as well as walkers. Now that gives me some ideas!