Spring

The daffodils had the most amazing lines on them.

Things You Might See at the Seaside

Bournemouth is two hours from London by train and it felt like another world. A world mostly populated by teenagers and grannies. A world with a brightly shining sun - yes, it was raining in London when we left.




Things we saw in Bournemouth:

* Icecream trucks selling Flake 99s (soft serve icecream - see photo of Lauchlin above)
* Clans of grannies playing Bingo in a real proper bingo hall
* Teenagers drinking and forming relationships
* Young teenaged boys smoking *special* cigarettes
* Teenaged girls getting into the ocean and screaming with the cold
* Rowdy huddles of men wearing identical stag night tshirts and playing minigolf
* Most people wearing tshirts while I shivered away in my coat, jumper and thermal top

Honestly, I was glad to come back to London and leave the teenagers to their awkward experimentation. Bournemouth was beautiful though - the space seems bigger when you look off a clifftop and see nothing but blue.

The Great Australian Beer...?

We had a pint of Foster's in Bournemouth, since it was Anzac Day back in Australia. The strange thing being that I don't know anyone back home who drinks the stuff. It's everywhere here! How has that happened?
The beer itself was labelled "super chilled" and was served... COLD. It was pretty good actually on a sunny spring evening.

If You Were Here Now

An old friend from Tassie visited me yesterday. Walking through the red front door he said it felt like deja vu because he'd seen photos before.

I love having people visit because it makes things seem less two-dimensional... you know, you go from seeing photos to seeing all the ugly bits but it's a more real experience. You can look around corners and into cupboards.

If you were here now, you'd find me in the kitchen boiling eggs for a picnic lunch tomorrow. You'd smell something incredibly garlicky, that would be the risotto I'm making to use up the remains of last night's bottle of wine. How many cloves? Oh... maybe six.

(Excuse me while I stir the rice).

My friend left a thank you note anchored down by a jar of vegemite. Great style!

If you were here now, you'd find me stirring the risotto and I'd probably ask what you were having for dinner.

Colour, Shape

These are a few photos I took in Kew Gardens on the weekend. The colours, shapes and textures were amazing. It was all like a catalogue, you know, I'll take it in that deep purple, that inky black and that scale pattern thank you.

Oh Great and Mysterious Crema Plant (and Piranha)

Hot chocolate, Lantana; Orchid leaf, Kew

It was the most beautiful weekend. I spent Saturday lazing around in this great little Aussie cafe called Lantana with Olly & Frank & Andrew, then on Sunday spent the entire day in the gigantic Kew Gardens with Ken & Karina examining the plants... and the piranha. Did you know there's a piranha at Kew Gardens? Apparently it can bite off 3cm of flesh in one bite. And they like to flock together in schools of up to a MILLION. Chomp chomp chomp.

Making Plans

Lauch and I are going to Edinburgh! It will be more camping (hello, budget holidays), on the weekend of my birthday, somewhere near Ben Lomond but not Loch Ness. So I'm guessing we won't be seeing the Loch Ness Monster...

Where the Mountains Meet the Sea

I was sure Wales was going to be a grey, rainy place where I felt the cold seep through to my bones.

It wasn't.


The view from Mt Snowdon

Lauchlin and I sweated our way up Mt Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales. In hazy sunshine I stared down at rolling green hills and turquoise lakes. The sea lay somewhere in the distance.



In fact, the sea was closer than I had expected - we managed to drive to the beach in 20 minutes from the base of Mt Snowdon. Apparently you can see Ireland from this beach on a clear day.



On Easter morning we woke up to find more clear blue skies. Tromping through a small forest to the top of Mynyth Mawr (pronounced Minith More), a little man with a smooth bald head overtook us. I made a cheerful comment about the weather and he called back "It's always like this in Wales," as he zoomed up the hill.


The view from Mynyth Mawr

From the top of Mynyth Mawr we could see yesterday's beach - but not Ireland.



Several kilometres later, Lauch and I ended up in a pub with a nice refreshing pint of er... warm ale. It wasn't literally heated, it just wasn't ice cold. We decided to ride the steam train back to our campsite.




Our tent was located in the campgrounds of luxury. Free hot showers! Sinks to do our washing up in. And the sound of a real waterfall to fall asleep to. Lauch and I left Wales with sore calves, surprisingly rosy cheeks and the feeling of optimism that a full weekend of sunshine inspires.