A Simple Life of Luxury

Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means

Author: Alan Cole

Harlech Castle 0

General / Technology / Wales

Driving through an Advert

Our first proper drive in our new car yesterday was like driving through an advert. Winding Welsh roads, leaves blowing in the wind, driving rain, splashing through pools of standing water and stunning welsh countryside. There was even a medieval castle. Meanwhile we were warm and comfortable as we glided along almost silently in our...

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General / Technology

New Car Day

Yeah, New Car Day finally arrived! To be fair it was only a few days after the originally planned date and I think the car itself did land with Shukers Hyundai in Aberystwyth last week. They then had to do some checks and register it etc so we were able to collect it yesterday. New...

Kona - Dark Knight 0

General / Technology

Going all in on Electric

We’ve been ‘all electric’ at home since we built the house almost 20 years ago. There’s no mains gas and we didn’t have an oil tank so our energy has been all-electric. It’s worked well, but we’ve always wanted to be generating our own electricity really. We did look into have photo-voltaic tiles on the...

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Hiking / Wales

Moel y Llyn

Moel y Llyn isn’t the most exciting of hills. It is one of the nearest to our house, it does have a little lake on the top and it does have nice views too. You can even see our house from the top! I hadn’t been out in the hills since a little jaunt up...

10km Run 2

Running

Beating my Age

I promise I will soon write a blog post that doesn’t mention my heart attack, but this isn’t the one! Pre heart attack I always did a 10km run just after my birthday. This was to make sure I could do it in a time that was under my age in minutes. I did it...

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Community / Family / Lifestyle

A Home Defib

Defibs in Borth and Ynyslas Borth and Ynyslas doesn’t have many publicly available defibrillators really. The nearest one to us is at the Visitor Centre in the dunes. There is now another in Ynyslas at the Cambrian Coast Caravan park. This one is available to the public if needed but is really for the caravan...

Party! 1

Family

Anniversary Party

We’ve just got back from a quick trip to Bristol for my parents 51st Wedding Anniversary. Detours on the way to Bristol We had a few errands to run as well whilst away from West Wales First of these was a stop off near Llandeilo to collect some syrup to feed our bees. We’d missed...

Llangollen 1

Lifestyle / Wales

A Day out in Llangollen

After a day out in Bala followed by a luxurious night and large breakfast at Palé Hall Hotel, it was time for a day out in Llangollen. We hadn’t rally been to Llangollen or anywhere in this part of Wales before. I had ran nearby whilst running along the Offa’s Dyke though so recognised some...

Palé Hall from the lower lawn 2

Lifestyle / Wales

Palé Hall Hotel

Time for a Treat Anna and I decided it was time to treat ourselves with a trip to Palé Hall. We haven’t had the best of years thanks to a sudden and very unexpected heart attack. This has meant I haven’t quite been myself for a while. The various Coronavirus disruptions have meant that we...

Bala Lake 0

General

A Walk Overlooking Bala Lake

Anna and I had a couple of days away as a treat. I’ll tell you more about why and where in the next post. If it’s possible to ‘start with a stop’ then that’s what we did. We started our treat with a stop at Bala Lake en route to our accommodation. We parked on...