New Home: Aberystwyth, Wales, UK

Right, so I moved to Aberystwyth in May this year, four months ago. Yes, I've been slack. But anyway, Aber, as it is known locally, is located half-way up the West coast of Wales. Essentially a University town these days, it had its hay-day in the 1800s when it was a favoured sea-side resort for the upper class. The Georgian promenade is still an attraction but it is the Welsh who come here for their holidays now.

It is at the end of the train line and with roughly 12,000 inhabitants, not including the annual influx of 8000 uni students, it is a rather small place. The smallest I've lived so far in actual fact.

For all that, living here has been lovely. It's a very relaxed place. The weather has so far been great (I'm told to expect endless rain in Winter, but Summer was brilliant!), it's very easy to get around, with lots of interesting independent shops to browse and walking along the sea of an evening has been just perfect. Very easy to lose track of time in a place like this.

Really, how could I not love a country whose flag sports a dragon?!? And it is oh-so-easy to imagine that 'There be Dragons' in them thar hills!

Anyway, some pics for show and tell: 1. The view from my Attic, 2. Along the Bay, 3. The ruined Castle, 4. The Foreshore, 5. View of the town from the top of Constitution Hill.

Powis Castle

Ok, as promised, a start to the backlog. Well, this actually only occurred last weekend, so not so much backlog but at least it's keeping abreast of things!

So, this last weekend, I visited Powis Castle with R & H & A. Powis is located just outside the town of Welshpool, in Wales, near the English border. It dates from the Medieval period and has the most beautiful gardens I have ever been in. Absolutely humongous! Some 26 acres or so they say. I couldn't take any photos inside the castle itself, so you'll just have to be awed by the gardens. I was!

Finishing the Book...

Something else rather major I did in May was finish the final draft of my 2009 NaNoWriMo book. And sent it off, to get a real-life, hard copy thereof.

So damn exciting, and I'm so damn proud of myself! And I'm swearing too much again... shall stop now!

But WHOHOOOOO!!!!

... of course, the very first sentence I read contained a typo. My dragons don't die, they debate the philosophy of right and wrong. But them's the breaks! :D

Yoiks!

Time got away from me. It is now the end of August which means I've been in Aberystwyth, Wales for four months and haven't blogged about it once. I shall remedy that very shortly - I promise! Really!

It has been a very timeless four months actually and I can't process the fact that I've been here that long. The job is so endless - I do pretty much the exact same thing every day of the week - that it is really difficult to pin-point any markers that actually distinguish one week from another. Time is diffuse and relaxed and kinda endless. Nice really, but not very productive!

I have done stuff though.

I visited Nottingham and saw R & H on the weekend of the 29th of May. We went to Nottingham castle and saw jousting there, and I visited the caves under the city.

I went to see Shrewsbury and the Iron Bridge World Heritage Site with Pat and Alan on the 28th of June. We wandered around a few places, got lost and saw a Victorian era town.

And last weekend - the 21-22 August - I went to Birmingham and visited the Festival of Quilts, and had a major shopping spree.

I have also completed blocks 4 through 7 of Aunt Millies Garden, started knitting a winter shawl for myself, took up Mandala drawing again and will hopefully soon be singing with the local choir - the start again in September.

I will write further about all of these soon. I just wanted to make sure I wrote now, so I wouldn't forget again.

Sorry to have been so lax guys! I'll pick up the pace again asap.
Kat

A moment of levity...

Yes I know I haven't blogged for ages, but I've been busy. I'll get back to it soon.

In the meanwhile...

Huma's Hymn

Oh mighty Arkleseizure, thou gazed from high above.
And sneezed from out thy nostrils, a gift of bounteous love.
The universe around us emerged from thy nose.
Now we await with eager expectation, thy handkerchief, to bring us back to thee.

From The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy soundtrack, by Joby Talbot.

Oxford

R & H took me up to Oxford on the 17th. It was lovely, if rather imposing. I found it actually quite intimidating. Not sure I'd really like to study there, although I imagine if I did, I'd love it. It's another light and airy town like Bath but with a lot more gravitas somehow. There were some truly beautiful buildings and the attention to detail is amazing - the gargoyles themselves are a damn hoot! I enjoyed it, but perhaps would go back when we didn't have a little person around who had to be entertained. Any hoo, pics are of Christ College x 2, a replica of a Venetian bridge, inside the college of physicians and the library!

There is no 'R' in 'Bath'

Whence I went today. And a brilliant day it turned out to be. Beautiful weather, beautiful city, beautiful... well you get the picture.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself even after being woken up yet again by the ass of a person in the bed next door snoring like a train... anyway.

Bath is full of 'Bath Stone' which is white to begin with, hence the city is mostly a light yellowish colour. Very bright and airy.

I went on one of those bus sight-seeing tours before getting out and trotting around on foot. I saw the Royal Crescent and Royal Circus, went for a tour around the Jane Austen Centre and through the Roman Bath's (Acqua Sulis?) and went inside the Bath Cathedral.

I bought and ate some fudge which was remarkably light. It was ancient and amazing and beautiful and pretty and yes, I enjoyed it immensely.

Images in order of appearance are: The Upper Assembly Rooms, The Royal Crescent, Bath Cathedral, Inside the Roman Baths, and the outside of the Roman Baths and Pump Room

You'll think I'm crazy...

But I really enjoyed driving around England. Everyone has told me horror stories and say it's blood awful, but I think I have inherited dad's love of driving, 'cause I found it fun. It was certainly very zen.

Yesterday saw me driving from Exeter to London and back to drop off some stuff at my storage thing and I found the trip really easy. The roads are good, the services are fabulous (at least five different shops, always including a cafe. Mmmmm... coffee...), the other drivers are polite, the speed limits are not limiting and with a GPS unit, there was so little stress the nine hour trip was a breeze! I actually found driving through London easier than driving through Sydney because of the GPS taking all the stress out of navigating.

I took the M5/M4 route through Bristol and stopped off at Reading for a job interview on the way back (don't get your hopes up, I'm not too confident about that part), and I didn't get caught in a single traffic jam. I was hellishly lucky about that last bit I know, but all the same, the drive was a lot more pleasant than I was led to expect. Admittedly I have probably done a lot more driving than most of my friends here, what with all the countless trips between Melbourne-Adelaide and Canberra-Bendigo I've done, but still...

So, having spent a lot of time on the motorways yesterday, today I took to the back routes. I drove down to Torquay (Lovely, pretty little town that trades heavily on it's Agatha Christie connection, with a gorgeous Abbey) and spent a relaxing morning wandering around and having tea on the terrace by the water! :) I also went to Cockington, a model village nearby, and spent a lovely time wandering around the grounds there.

And then I wound my way up through Devon to the edge of Dartmoor, and somehow managed to find Castle Drogo.

That was fun.

I really didn't believe that there were as many narrow lanes around the place as I had been told, but I found, and spent hours driving on, a whole heap of them today. So narrow you can't open your car doors if you stopped and passing another car is an adventure. I had to do that several times and it was damn hairy! You can only do it at certain spots on the road, so I actually spent a fair amount of time going backwards so that I could reach said spot and let another car pass me. I'm so glad I spent so long driving a manual when I was younger, otherwise today would have been impossible!

Castle Drogo was interesting. The last real castle built in England, it was constructed between 1911 and 1930 I think, with a break for the war. Very stylised. An Englishman's ideal of what a castle should be I think. Luxury and comfort and central heating and grandeur and opulence (three, count them, 3 kitchens!). Not sure it was really worth the 8 quid entry price though. But I found and went and had an actual Devonshire tea, in Devonshire (my first in eight months of living here would you believe?) at the cafe there, so not a wasted trip by any means.

Now, I'm knackered. But yeah, I enjoyed driving in England. Go figure.

Freedom

I have almost left the building. I mean, Plymouth. Well, I've almost left the building in Plymouth.

What am I waffling about? Well, I am about to be homeless. My job contract ended last week and now my rental contract is up, so I am about to take off into the wide world and explore. I have a rental car, I have too much stuff as always, and I have nowhere I have to be and no one I have to please, so I'm going to float. Zen traveling. Well, almost. I have a date with a hostel in Exeter and a desire to see Bath before I might have to leave this country, so some time in the next week, I'll see those places.

But other than that - life is wide open. Scary. Fun.

ARHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I don't want to go back to Australia. But no-one here wants to employ me. This sucks!