Took a different path through the woods up by Caerphilly today and came across a well laid out mountain bike track, including this wooden bridge. Pip is doing her “none shall pass” impression
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Magical entrance
New carvings up Forest Fawr
Unthankful merchandise
Went to see orchestral folk group The Unthanks tonight. It wasn’t exactly a rocking gig, more a gently swaying side to side affair, but their new album is lovely stuff. Unfortunately St Davids Hall is one of those ‘no photography allowed’ venues (why would you want £1000s worth of free publicity eh?), so I only snapped them afterwards. The band wre on the merchanise stall, selling CDs, t-shirts and, erm, tea towels, which my fried Simon Horrocks, purchased. You don’t get the Foo Fighters selling your merch afterwards do you?
We’re all going to Sheffield
Returned form Liverpool today, and went straight to the Cardiff Devils game. It was the second leg of the Challenge Cup semi-final against Coventry. We won the first leg 4-1, but went one behind after about 30 seconds of this game. The team pulled through eventually winning 5-3. This means we are going to the final of the Challenge Cup in Sheffield on march 9th. We will play… Sheffield. Yes, it’s a bit like hosting the FA Cup at Old Trafford, it’s not a neutral venue, so will be tough.
But last year we finished 9th out 10, and were awful, so getting to the final really signifies the turn around under the new owners. Here Todd Kelman, the manager and Bowns, the netminder, do the crowd celebration thing after the final buzzer.
The locals
Left Heerlen today to go to Liverpool for an exam board tomorrow. Had a chat with this local woman in the castle grounds. She was a good listener.
Clean the moat
During the MP’s expenses scandal a few years ago, that someone had claimed for moat cleaning came to represent all that was wrong with our representatives. I wonder how much this moat would cost to clean?
Castle writing
I am in Heerlen in the Netherlands for a couple of days, for a writing session for an EU project I’m working on. It is in a [url=http://www.terworm.nl/nl/]castle turned into a hote[/url]l. Flew to Amsterdam, and got the train down, it’s quite lovely and had a nice meal with the other partners, which ended with a 1000 day old cheese. Tangy!
It is almost impossible for anyone from Britain of a certain age to see a European castle and not think “escape from Colditz”. Fact.
Out of the pit
Was a lovely sunny day today. As I mentioned yesterday, daughter is not with me this weekend, so had the day to myself. I’ve been a bit down over the past month or so, probably just winter blues, so today was a real fillip. I went for a run (which I haven’t done for a while), walked the dogs up the Warren (where this was taken, looking into a quarry), did some gardening (preparing a veg plot), packed for a trip tomorrow, cooked kedgeree and went to the cinema. Roll on the spring, getting out in the sun makes all the difference.
Sofa buddy
Daughter wasn’t with me this weekend, so unusually had a Friday evening free. Having spent ALL the money on the trip to Scotland and Coventry this week, I couldn’t afford to go out. Instead I watched three films and relaxed on the sofa. Pip curled up next to me and at one point spoiled my viewing pleasure by snoring loudly.
Porter
I used to like drinking bottled Guinness as a student. It is very distinct from draught Guinness, and then they brought in those cans that were meant to replicate the draught drink, and you didn’t see much of the bottled stuff. So was pleased to see Guinness are doing a range of bottled drinks now.
