Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Alan, Anna & Morgan live in West Wales and attempt to make the most out of life. Alan is a freelance website designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband. Anna works at Aberystwyth University and is a full time Mum & wife.
It isn’t very often that there is any showbiz news emanating from the Aberystwyth area. We do have a few famous people living around here, but most have come here to get away from the limelight and therefore tend not to generate any news stories. However, the front page of yesterdays Cambrian News ran with...
Read more »As Al mentioned the other day we have been living in Mid Wales for a few years now and do see ourselves as locals, especially now we have someone Welsh in the family (Morgan!). It can be difficult to integrate into close-knit rural societies and often the advice is ‘get a dog’ (especially where we...
Read more »If there’s one thing that everyone knows about Wales, it is that we get more than our fair share of weather. Indeed, today we have had gorgeous sunshine, torrential downpours, light winds, gales force winds and probably a few other bits and pieces of weather too. This may well explain our fascination for the weather,...
Read more »Since moving to this area of West Wales, Anna and I have always tried (without trying too hard) to integrate with the locals. It has to be said that it isn’t a difficult thing to do as many of the ‘locals’ are actually well established incomers. However, even as students at Aberystwyth University we tended...
Read more »Well, this website and its blog may only be a week or so old, but I have been meaning to ‘play’ with the blogging software WordPress for a while now. So before this site had too many posts I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to give it a go. So far I have...
Read more »I was chatting to someone yesterday (who shall remain anonymous) who had recently moved to this area after having lived in London, Bristol, Stroud and a few small places. It seemed to me (and to her) that she had yet to find her true ‘home’ and in her words she is ‘never happy’. From what...
Read more »……no matter how much you try and downshift! Alan has mentioned that I have the ‘proper’ job in the family. This does seem to suit us all very well allowing us some security (although given recent events at work nothing is guaranteed but I’ll save that story for another day) but also flexibility and quality...
Read more »As Promised a photo of Jack Alan Cole… He makes Morgan look big now!
Read more »I know many people think we are un-conformists living out here on the edge of Wales. We don’t think so, we think we are fairly normal, but whether we confrom or not at least I can say our weblog does. So, what does it conform to and why is it important? Well, without getting too...
Read more »As Alan has mentioned, he wants his untrained wife to have a go at this blogging thing so here goes. It’s actually quite difficult to think of things to write, afterall, who is actually interested in our little life! Anyway since most of our life seems to revolve around Morgan at the moment (and quite...
Read more »I’m on Dad duties today as the creche that Morgan goes to in Aberystwyth only has 6 places and they don’t have a place for him on a Tuesday. As Anna has a proper job at the university it is therefore my task to look after him on a Tuesday. I am in charge all...
Read more »Ok, I know it should be sick-bed but as we took delivery of two brand-spanking new sofas today I thought I’d spend the afternoon on one feeling sorry for myself whilst nursing a horrible cold. I may have felt terrible but the sofa felt good – quite a relief considering that they were £400 each....
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