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
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!
Open range - Wales style.
When you move, everything is new, which is part of what makes it exciting! But sometimes, finding something familiar can help easy the transition and lessen the feeling of home sickness that will come on from time to time.
Since I am over in Wales off and on until our formal move, I thought it might be good to find some 'familiar things' in advance. Today I took a trip to the Cardiff Costco! Yes - they now have Costco's here - 22 of them in fact across the UK! And your membership card works just like it does in North America.
Walking in, I found it amazingly similar. Obviously there are local/regional products in clothing and food, but when you walk in and show your card, it feels like Costco...The one nice thing is that since its a new concept here, its quieter - not the typical mad-house you see in the US, but things like the layout, the taste testing and the food court are all there.
