Donaldson Crew Adventures

It was a sad day in the Donaldson house today. Lulu left to go home. We will miss her very much. She was such a big help to us while she was here. She helped to make the transition of moving overseas an easier one. Traveling with 4 children under 7 was great for that added hand. Unpacking was a little lighter, and that extra body in the car telling me to get over on the right side of the road made me all the braver to tackle the roads. Thank you Lulu, we love you. We won’t say good-bye...just see you soon.

Today with rain and sun alternating at about once every 30 minutes we decided to go visit a 'living history' medievil village not farm from our house on the way to Cardiff called Cosmeston.  The village as you see it today is resurected on the remains of the original village that dates back to the 12 century. 

As the websites suggested, we were hoping to find people dressed in period costume giving tours and re-enacting parts of history, but once there we spoke with one of the guys keeping the grounds up and he said that due to budget cuts all work on the project has ceased except maintaining the grounds.  He said that he would normally be in costume  giving tours.  He gave us a 10 minute talk and explained some really interesting history about the area, how houses of the time were constructed and all sorts of interesting facts.  Its really too bad that its currently non operational, but we still had a good time exploring anyhow. 

Also the pics of the kids by the water - tadpoles have just hatched and they are trying to catch one.

Date night at the local pub in Wick. - The Lamb and Flag.   It's about a mile and a half from our house just down the street from where the kids will go to school.  According to the (new) owner, this public house dates from the 16th century.  The beef and ale pie was excellent!

Our kids love the movie Tangled so this past weekend I thought it might be fun to visit Castle Coch just north of Cardiff.  It is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built on the remains of a genuine 13th-century fortification.  It rests up on a hillside overlooking the surrounding small village of Tongwynlais.  It is a beautiful fairytale style castle that was restored and reconstructed in the late 1800's, and is now maintained by CADW which maintains many of these historic sites in Wales.

The kids enjoyed exploring the towers and the surrounding grounds.  It was also fun for us as well - It was Kelly and Sue's first castle!  There was actually a wedding being held in the castle the day we were there. The little cathedral inside the castle holds about 30 people.  A few more pictures below.  Of note - Abbies secret door thats just her size. Also on the exterior shots see if you can notice the kids at the base of the wall.

Sure, of course it rains in Wales.  After all, there is a reason why things are green here, but there are also bright and sunny days as well!  Our first full week held some beautiful spring days for play and exploration.  Most of the shots are in and around our house, with a couple from a day trip to the town of Barry.  Notice that everyone now has their required Wellie footwear!

While Kelly and her mom were out running errands, I took the kids out to their first (of many) castle ruins today.  St. Quentin's Castle is very close to our house in the town of Cowbridge.  It is the remains of an early 14 century courtyard castle with a massive twin tower gate house that is still standing. Kids had a good time climbing around and exploring the ruins. 

Notice the white stains on the side?  Here's an interesting fact - While it may look like bird poop its actually not.  Its lime coming out of the walls.  In fact when we see castles in movies these days that look like standard stone walls - thats not how they would have looked - they actually would have been brilliantly white with their walls completely covered in their hey day due to the lime leaching out and down the walls.  Common houses would be stone, and because only the weathly could afford lime for the grout (holds together better), castles would have been white.

A few pictures from our travels this week:Tues Apr 2 - Fri April 6

1. Departing on the Super shuttle to LAX from Erin's appartment in Newport Coast, CA

2. Boys in the back of the Super Shuttle on the way to LAX

3. Enjoying pre-flight cocktails in the Air Canada lounge at LAX

4. Preston on his first ever flight (sitting in Abbies seat in this picture)

5. Crossing the Severn Bridge from England to Wales (crossing the Bristol channel)

6. Unloading the cars.... long day of travel (notice crutches are gone!.... also Range Rover is not ours:)

While we all arrived Wednesday, Red was scheduled to arrive today (friday) after a short quarantine in LA.  After a glorious sunny morning Kelly and did the 6 hour round trip back to Heathrow today to get him. 

7. First sunny morning at Churchfarm, Kelly, Sue and the kids

8.  Reds first sniff around at his arrival

9. Abbie waiting to see Red... and Mommy

A packed car as we leave Bend on our 2 day drive to California.

I put down a deposit on a new ride for Kelly today in the UK!  A used VW Touran 2.0L TDI 6 speed manual diesel.... and of course it will be a right hand drive:)

Still on my own on my trips to Wales for the time being so tonight I went with a few guys from work to a Cardiff Devils Ice Hockey game.  Growing up in Canada the word Ice in 'Ice Hockey' is superfluous - it's just 'Hockey'!  While the team has been around since 86, hockey in the UK is still a pretty minor sport far behind football (soccer) and rugby. 

Cardiff plays in the BIH - The British Ice Hockey League with other teams from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Cardiff is the only Welsh team, and the most southerly team in the league.  The players come from many countries.  There are about half dozen Canadians represented on the team.  It was a pretty exciting game with the winner finally being decided by a shootout after the score was tied up with 30 seconds in the game after pulling the goalie, and a scoreless sudden death overtime.  Good fun!