Welsh rarebit

Today we headed to Plas yn Rhiw a national trust maintained Manor House and garden. Located on the hillside is that spectacular views out to the sea. Its a bit out of the way down some narrow siding roads I was a bit sceptical however it turned out to be a really lovely visit. While small by national trust standards is perfectly formed, the grand was a joy to walk round and the views were well worth the trip. The cafe is particularly stand out too we enjoyed a coffee and cake there. 

There is also a free EV charger in the accessible parking section.

After the house we headed to Aberdaron for lunch. Eating at a cafe inside a building which dates to 1300 we then had a stroll around the beach. The tide was coming in and Thom enjoyed running from the waves. I skipped stones into the water and enjoyed the views.

It was sunny while we were on the beach but then the weather changed quickly so we headed home early with rain lashing down! This evening we decided to have a quite one and got ourselves a chippy tea from a place in Pwllheli

Aviation museum

 

Yesterday we visited the Airworld Aviation Museum

Thom loved it!It is one of the very few museums where you can actually get into the exhibits. We sat in a Vampire and a helicopter, Thom wanted to 'blast off' and advised us to 'hold on tight!'. 

There are both aircraft and memorabilia there, with a bits from both world wars, and a section about the royal observer corps. Plus some search and rescue as that is based next door.

The place hasn't really changed since the last time we were there (2010), the modern simulator is powered by sun Sparc station 40, I used to run a second hand Sun ultras-arc 50 in 2008! Nevertheless I would recommend it! It is a really interesting place right next door to Caernarfon airfield where the air ambulance and mountain rescue are based.

In the afternoon, as the weather was very changeable,  we headed for a walk around the beach Morfa and Nant Bach beach. This was a new one for me, the beach was small and stony. It mostly serves as a harbour. There used to be a massive granite quarry nearby and there are signs of this with the remnants of large excavations visible. We saw a lot of half eaten crabs so the seagulls must have been busy. There were also plenty of boats anchored. There was a lovely view from the end of pier, took a panoramic photo. Thom wanted to be a tall giraffe and be carried around on my shoulders all way back to the car!

Sea Zoo

 

Today we visited Anglesey sea zoo. It’s got a decent range of fish, crustaceans and other ocean creatures from around the British Isles. Thom was a big fan of the lobsters and the small sharks. They even have a breeding program for sharks and you could see the fledgling sharks inside the eggs (video below).

My favourite bit though is near the end of the zoo, where there is an elevated platform over a large tank housing sharks and rays. You walk above them on a grated walkway as they swim around the tank.

Last time I visited the sea zoo was for Kath's birthday back in 2010. Quite a different energy visiting with a toddler. 

If you buy a ticket it gives open entry for 6 days, so we are hoping to get in a return visit. There is also a free EV charger outside unfortunately it was out of action while we were there.

We have headed to North Wales for a break away. Kath found a lovely converted barn about 10 minutes from Pwllheli on Airbnb. The views are the farmers fields complete with grazing sheep, Thom loved watching them and was admiring all the farm machinery too.

The place is done out to a really high specification with an open kitchen dining, and living area. With an outside area for warmer days. There are two bedrooms one of which is ensuite and a bathroom at the back. It's scrupulously clean and very well thought through space.

This was the out longest trip in the Polestar 2 since we bought it. The Airbnb has a charger we can use and on arrival we had used 60% of the charge so it worked well. Had we have gone to south Wales it would have required a stop to charge on route but so would we so far electric is proving no problem to live with.

Fun times rum times

Enjoying the first tonight in Wales with dead mans fingers rum

Stadia is dead

Yesterday was the closedown for Google Stadia. I bought one a couple of years ago to play Cyberpunk. I hoped it would be a cool way to avoid paying big for the new Xbox (though I ended up getting a PS5). They promised that you could game anywhere with an internet connection. to be honest it never really lived up to my expectations.  There was too much lag on my ADSL 60MB. I could never use ultra mode so it wasn't worth paying a subscription for and the games library was woeful. The writing was on the wall when they fired the in house game developers, so I wasn't surprised when they announced the service would be closing.

To be fair to google they did it the right way, I got a refund for the games I bought and they have released an update to allow the controller to be used over bluetooth. Still its yet another service killed by google, must be hard for 3rd parties to trust anything new they do in case the plug is pulled later on.

Mis shapes

I'm sat listening to music from the 1990's, specifically at the moment Pulp. Why is this significant? When I was a child it seemed like all the adults were locked into the music from the 1960's. Maybe we relate most to the way the things from our youth made us feel, or its just hard to try new things. I guess when Thom is my age he will be listening to music from 2030 whatever that will be.

Fireworks at Wilmslow bonfire

Kath, Thom and Kath's friend Kate took Thomas to see the fireworks at Wilmslow community bonfire this evening. The fireworks were really spectacular the crowd was large. Possibly too large for the amount of refreshments sands. We didn't manage to get a drink as the queue was so long. 

We did however catch our neighbours Julies and Emily there was lively to see them.

Thom really seemed to enjoy the fireworks though it was a bit of a late night for him and he was a bit teary on the way home. 

Wilmslow was heaving and it showed how nice the town is when lots of people are walking about. Pity about the rogue parking going on ruining it for others blocking curbs, I wish the traffic officers had been out. 

High voltage

Yesterday was Karolina's  (Kath's sister) Wedding day. At 4pm we headed to the Church to watch the ceremony. It was all in Polish and took around an hour. She and Artur looked amazing and very happy together. 

I had to take Thom out for a walk part way through so Kath could watch the ceremony without an impatient toddler. Unfortunately I missed the "I do" moment. Apparently the priest was a bit of a misogynist, spouting such snippets of wisdom as "Karolina, you must make sure that you husband goes for a drink with the boys, Artur you need to give Karolina money for the hairdresser". This apart it was a lovely ceremony and Artur and Karolina seemed very proud and in love.

After the ceremony we got on the bus to Folwark Nadawki. The last time I was here, it was my wedding to Kath so brought back some lovely memories. We were seated with Kath cousins and brother. We ate, drank, laughed and watched the first dance. The dance was absolutely amazing like something from Strictly! 

Thom looked great in his H&M "suit" and he really enjoyed meeting everybody, especially his Polish Grandad - Marek. He even had a boogie on the dance floor. He got spoilt rotten with cuddles, kisses and presents from many of the family and friends.

There was an InstaMax camera to capture photo memories as modern Polaroids which could be taken away and also stuck into the guestbook as little mementoes the day. We got a pictures of ourselves with Thom and put one into the guestbook. 

Unfortunately having a small child meant that we had to leave very early (the party went on until 5am). We did manage to catch up with plenty of people, which meant a lot, given some of them we have not seen since the day we said "I do".   

Cycling in Bialystok

We are currently on holiday here in Bialystok for Kath’s sisters wedding. I am really impressed with how much the cycling infrastructure has improved since I was last here.

Bialystok is a small city but its been made good for active travel thanks to the large weirder streets and cycling provision. With Covid and other life things we haven’t been here for years, in which time there has been a lot of improvements. Bike hire and scooter hire is all over the city. Most impressively some of the hire bikes had seats for children so I could ride with Thom. They have also built out a lot of segregated cycle lanes including a nice one that follows the path of the river.

It’s not a panacea though as unfortunately there are draconian rules on crossing the streets as a pedestrian complete with on the spot fines for jaywalking. The light timing are also pretty poor, often you have to wait minutes in order to cross the streets. Fortunately unlike in Britain most of the crossings are straight over without the dog leg double beg button push.

It’s working though we have both remarked how visible it is people cycling around the city. It’s common to see both young and old riders in the city centre. I also noticed that stand outside the shopping mall had a lot of bikes present (even though it was a terrible wheel bender stand they have them here too). Our rental apartment also has a lot of bikes parked up. This is quite a big change Kath remarked how she hadn’t seen so many older people cycling previously.

Noticeable too is that the bus infra has had improvements with new stands and large bendy busses.