Beach, Cardiff and back

So this was our last day of our Wales trip. After this fabulous day on the coast we were quite reluctant to leave and therefore decided to make a short stop on the beach before getting into the bussling capital of Wales: Cardiff.

Roads can get quite narrow and I expected a narrow road down to the castle at the coast, but to be honest, I never expected it to be THAT narrow! Well, the main problem, however, was not the road itself, but the oncoming traffic which turned out to be huge tractors with enormous hay wagons! I had only 10cm next to both outside mirrors and these tractors half shaved the bushes on the roads off. So there was no way off getting past them and therefore I had to go backwards for half a mile before we found some space to let it pass. My nerves were really strained after this encounter with the tractor and I just hoped that it was the last one. But it seemed that every single farmer in that area was going out to get the hay back that morning and we encountered 5 more of these monsters!!!! I do not even want to know what the underside of my car looked like after driving off in the woods to let another one pass!

Anyway, we finally made it to the beach and the gorgeous castle on the little hill. The beach was covered with shells and we enjoyed quite a long walk. Even though it was low tide and the water was quite far out (apart from the one in the river mouth) it was a beautiful spot and I really did not want to leave from there. However, Vanessa needed to be back in Cardiff by 5 to catch her coach back to London and so we had to leave! By the way, I look really tiny on this picture, I think I have shrunken....I guess that comes with turning 26!

I really enjoyed this 3-day-trip around the countryside, but I was also looking forward to see Cardiff of which I have heard so much. I was told that it is a lively young city and this turned out to be true.

I managed to find my way into Cardiff harbour which has been completely remodelled in the last 10 years. The architecture is just fantastic, old and new buildings (all unique outlines) mingle perfectly in this bussling part of the city. Many artists were invited to contribute to the great harbour and it has become one of Cardiffs most popular areas with lots of shops and fancy restaurants. There is also the old Welsh Assembly (red brick building) and the new Assembly (the snall "sail building" on the right hand side) to be found there. We had a look inside both of them and it looks quite nice, even though it is of course tiny in comparison to the German Bundestag. Nevertheless it has a great architecture inside and I absolutely loved it. The old Welsh assembly looks tiny and as it made out of Lego cubes - it is just so different to the buildings surrounding it.

Just as impressive as the Welsh Assembly is the Opera House next to it, which reads "In these stones horizons sing" on its big front. It has a huge golden dome which you can also see on the picture above.

From the harbour we headed into the city centre which took us some time and we even found the car park right next to the train station. When we got out, however, we found out that you could only get a day ticket which cost us £7. We thought that was way too much and decided to move to another car park in the city. But that was a big mistake, because for 2.59 hours we had to pay £9.70!!!!! This is unbelievable, I do not even want to know how much we would have had to pay if we stayed 3 hours!!!!

We took a stroll around the city and as we were all really hungry we treated ourselves with some delicious fish and chips - but it was way tooooo much. Unfortunately time had run out and Vanessa had to leave us after an hour in the city to catch her coach. Christoph and I walked through the great market hall and the various nice arcades. We also went to the Castle and the great park surrounding it. From there we had a look at the Court of Justice and the University which are also quite close to the city centre. The buildings in that part of the city are quite impressive and so is the National Museum.

We did not want to go back to London that night and therefore had booked a B&B in Bath. I had been to Bath before and I quite liked it back then so I agreed to the destination. When we finally arrived there we seemed to have booked us a very comfy and luxurous accomodation and as the sun was still shining we took a tour around the city and later on admired it by night. To round up that day we spent a most enjoyable evening in a traditional pub on the way back to the B&B. It got quite cold that night and our breath showed when we stepped out of the pub. Somehow this day must have been more demanding than the others (probably because of the traffic in the city) and even though I had only one pint of the most delicious Cider I ever had (from a small local brewery), I got really tipsy and Christoph had to steady me once in a while! But we got home savely!

Along the Coast or Wales the third

Believe it or not, over night the weather had changed dramatically and when we opened our curtains we just saw blue sky and the most gorgeous Welsh landscape.

So we hurried to get ourselves sorted out and headed for breakfast, which was as great as the day before. The good thing about the traditional English breakfast (I prefer the Irish by the way) is that after you had it, you won't need any food till 5 in the afternoon, because you feel like a stuffed turkey! A selection of Cereals with fresh milk from the farm, followed by rashers, homemade saussages, tomatoes, fried egs and mushrooms - all with toast and coffee, tea and orange juice - just delicious!

We really enjoyed our two nights at the farm, because everybody was soo friendly and we felt at home there. By the way, our room was the right one on the first floor!

This day was dedicated to explore the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and as the weather remained dry and quite warm, it was the best day of our trip by far. We drove south towards Cardigan, where we had a look around the bussling town. I got really stressed there because of the traffic and nearly got into a heated argument with Vanessa (she was the one reading the road map that day). But we finally made our way to the ruins of an abbey in St. Dogeneal's. Walking around there gave me enough time to cool down and I had also time to play with my camera!

After a short stop at Fishguard harbour, we went straight into the Pembrokeshire National Park. It is unique in Britain as the only National Park that is predominantly coastal. The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is one of Britain's smaller National Parks, covering approximately 240 square miles / 620 square km around the West Coast of Wales.

First we went inland to see the standing stones called Pentre Ifan. The weather was still great, but it was freezing!!!! The wind was soo strong and cold. So we did not spent too much time there and as it was in the middle of nowhere, the roads were not too good either and it took us quite some time to get back on the main road. We also encountered a huge herd of cows which delayed us even further!

We decided to take a short walk along the famous coastal path whiches stretches along the whole of southern Wales. The view and the landscape was breathtaking and the cliffs even though not as high as the cliffs of Moher quite spectacular. It was definitely one of the best things we did on our whole trip.

I really love Wales and it reminded me so much of Ireland which I really miss - just the colour of the grass is different, the Irish has a richer green, well more emerald as they say. After that we hardly wanted to leave the coast again, but our last stop for the day was supposed to be St. David's, one of the most lovely towns I have seen in the UK. It is quite small, but it is dominated by the archbishop's palace and the huge Cathedrale.

Unfortunately there was a concert that night and we were not able to have a look inside. We wandered along the streets and tried to find a fish and chips shop, but we could not really find one and decided to make our way to our B&B in Haverford West.

This B&B turned out to be more like hotel and it lacked all the charm of the farm. I did not really like it there (the landlord was really grumpy) and I missed the noise of our toilet (as they were not connected to some kind of sewage on the farm, they had a small "disposal unit" in each toilet!). But the shower was warm and that was all that counted that night. It was a pitty that Vanessa was too tired to have a walk around the town and so we stayed in that night and left straight after breakfast next morning to get to Cardiff as soon as possible.

North Wales

The next morning dawned a bit cloudy, but after a hearty English Breakfast we were ready for our tour through the North of Wales. As we had such problems to find accomodation the night before, we decided to stay at the farm another night and that was definitely a wise decission. But before we went into Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri), we went back to Machynlleth to book a B&B for the following night further south. It did not too long and we knew we had somewhere to stay the next day: College Guest House in Haverfort West.

Unfortunately it started to rain quite soon and it was really ghastly outside. We therefore decided to stop in Corris at King Arthur's Labyrinth where you can take an underground boat ride through the great waterfall and the spectacular caverns and a labyrinth of tunnels. There was also the Corris Craft Centre to visit. Sad enough it seemed that many other people had the same idea on this rainy Sunday morning and the next tour we could have taken would have been in 3 hours time and therefore we decided to skip the boat ride and to visit only the Craft centre. That was really a pitty but it couldn't be helped! We made our way to central Snowdownia and stopped every now and then at the little mountain villages with its gorgeous scenery (even in the rain it looked gorgeous!).

Along the Afon (river) Conwy we headed north to have our first real stop at the town Conwy itself. Conwy Castle, conceived and created in just four years by Edward I, is one of the most outstanding achievements of medieval military architecture. Soaring on a rock above the walled town, its battlements offered a breathtaking view of the Snowdonian mountains and the sea. The city is still surrounded by a complete city wall with 12 towers. It had stopped raining and we enjoyed to take a walk on the city wall and have a close look at the castle, even though we did not really go in. The view was just great and it was finally the first time we had a good look at the Irish Sea.

The weather improved by the minute and finally the sun came out - and as soon as the sun came out it got quite warm. We took the road along the coast and headed to Caernafon which hosts one of the most famous castles in Wales. It was also build by Edward I, not only as a military stronghold but also as a seat of government and a royal palace. It had become quite late by then and so we did not stay long, but took a walk down to the harbour where the castle is.

We would have loved to take the Snowdonian Railway up to Mount Snowdon, but as the day had already gone so quickly, we decided to skip that and make our way further south. Unfortunately it started to rain heavily again when we were close to mount Snowdon and in the end we never really saw it because the clouds were so low.

Our last stop for the day was Harlech Castle which keeps a watchful eye over Snowdonia with truly panoramic views from its lofty battlements of sea and mountains. We did not dare to go up as a new rain storm was threatening and it also started to get dark. So we had to satisfy ourselves with a look at the castle from the coast road.

This second day was packed with cultur through and through and we were looking forward to go south to the Pembroke Shire Coast National Park the next day, because we all love the seaside.

Getting on the Road or 1st day in Wales

Well, it took us some time to get ourselves sorted out on that cold, cloudy and even rainy Saturday morning. I have already told you that we got a Focus instead of a Fiesta and that was a good thing in the end, as you can see for yourself on the picture. We finally managed to sqeeze all stuff and ourselves in and off we went.

It took quite some time to decide which way we wanted to go and how to start our tour. The only fix destination we had was Cardiff on Tuesday as Vanessa had to get a bus from there back to London. We had argued about a route for quite some time the evening before and I finally managed to convince them that we should head north as far as we could on our first day and then decide from there where to go next. To get a better impression on where we went, have a look at the map of Wales with its gorgeous countryside and sheep of course ;-)

There was no accomodation booked, even though it was a long bank holiday weekend, but we were certain to find something somewhere. We took the motorway towards Newport and finally crossed into Wales over the Severn Bridge (which was ridiculously high priced!). It was still quite cloudy but at least it was not raining. That is us by the way: Christoph, Vanessa and Nadja!

Our first cultural stop brought us to the gorgeous Wye Valley with the most fascinating ruins of Tintern Abbey. We were quite impressed and the £3.00 entrance fee were well spent. It must have been an enourmous complex in former times, as you can see from the hight of the main church. As it was already early afternoon, we had a good long walk around the ruins (to get the stiffness out of our limbs after the long car ride) and then had an improvised picnic in the car park.

We moved on through the Wye valley, had a good look at some castles at the wayside (but did not go in) and passed through the gorgeous Brecon Beacon Nationalpark with its beautiful landscape. We stopped just everywhere we found a nice spot or village on the way up to Brecon itself, which is the main town in the heart of the National Park. Unfortunately we had not enough time to visit the Waterfalls (they were too far off the road we were intending to travel).

When we finally got to Brecon (it was about 5 pm) we were told that there was nothing available around the town, everything fully booked because of the bank holiday. But we had intended to head further north anyway and after some waiting and having a good look around the town, we got a family room on a farm in Pennal near Machyntleth. This meant at least another 2 hour drive further north and I can tell you I was quite tired by that time. We intended to be there by 7, but in the end it was nearly 9 until we got there, because the sun came out and we just stopped at this gorgeous lake near Llangurig.

It also took us some time to find Gogarth Hall Farm because it was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a small farm and we were lucky to find a place to stay that night as our landlady told us later on. She had a cancellation and therefore the room we got was free. There were a herd of cows, two dogs, some chicken and I guess several other animals around this place and Vanessa especially made friends with the dogs. She adored them even though they were not quite "clean"!

The B&B room itself was just as you imagine it to be: many cushions, MANY flowers and everything in these pastel colours. In my opinion it was just great. As Vanessa and Christoph had only met for the first time last night, we decided that Vanessa and I should sleep in the double bed and Christoph took the single. Of course the double bed had only one duvet, but I thought we could manage. That was, however, before I knew that Vanessa is such a light sleeper and turns quite a lot ;-)

We had a hearty improvised meal (Tikka Masala Wraps) in our room which was definitely not made for something like that. As the weather was threatening to get worse again, we had only a short walk around the farm even though we had longed to get to the river mouth to get the first glimpse of the coast. But we had to content with what we got and I cannot tell you how glad I finally was to get to bed, I was truly "smashed out". But that was only our first day and four more to go...

A Pilgrim's Tale and FLOODING THE FIRST

Well, on the last day before half-term (a 1-week-holiday) I had the pleasure to accompany the Year 7s on their trip to St. Alban's. As I teach most of them anyway on a Friday it was reasonable that I came along as well. I had never been to St. Alban's which is apparently just 40 min drive from the school, but I was looking forward to go. The weather god was decent as well and it was sunny but not too hot.

First we visited the ruins of the great Roman theatre and the Museum with its gorgeous mosaics. The girls had to complete a questionaire and I have to admit I did not know all the answers either!

As you can imagine, the girls were not too keen to fill in questionaires, but they managed in the end and as a treat we had lunch in the big park surrounding the museum. After some nervwracking spider-attacks including high pitched screams on the girls side we made our way through the park towards the cathedral where we were to dress as pilgrims. The girls are learning about life in the Middle Ages at the moment and so they were pretending to be pilgrims and then get a tour through the cathedral and the monastery. It was fun, I can tell you and I guess the girls enjoyed it as well. It was definitely more interesting than just walking through the cathedral and the guide explains this and that. Fortunately the teachers did not have to dress up - even though I would have liked it, but I guess this is because I am 25 years younger than the rest of the teachers!

Unfortunately there was a funeral service in part of the cathedral and therefore we were not able to visit the whole place, but we at least got a look on St. Alban's shrine in the centre. I am quite sure if you open it today, one will find just the bones of some pirate in it, I do not believe that with all the relic-fuss in former times that the remains of holy people actually stayed in their graves - later on they were replaced or probably the people who stole them just put some other bones in! But as a good catholic I obviously believe in the "deeper meaning" of it all ;-)

The trip to St. Alban's was all in all great fun. However, I was a bit weary because I knew Christoph was on the way and I was not sure if I were back in time to meet him. He was late so I was on time! I should tell you, however, that I had thoroughly the night before so everything was ready for Christoph and Vanessa, who was also to arrive in the evening for our trip to Wales. When I came back from St. Alban's I found a note on my door that some people from the works the departement had to go in my flat in order to get the boiler working (the school heating system was down for the holidays for repair). Unfortunately it turned out that the overflooding device was broken in my boiler and therefore my bathroom was FLOODED and all my cleaning the night before had been in vain. Great! So I immediately phoned the duty engineer and he came round to turn it off. He put me back on the school system (which meant hot water only until 10pm this very evening) and promised to get it fixed till I get back from Wales. Alright I thought, what next?

One of the teachers had kindly offered to give me a lift to Tolpits Garage in Watford to pick up the car that we had hired. That fortunately worked out alright, apart from the fact that I ordered a Ford Fiesta and got a Ford Focus (twice upgraded!). Sure I can manage, I thought, but I was dreading to go back. Somehow I managed to get the car back to RMS, even though it was a strange feeling to have the steering wheel and the gear in the wrong place and drive on the left of course! When I finally made it back I was just in time to meet Christoph and we soon made our first car trip to the station to pick up Vanessa and then go to Tesco to get everything for our Wales trip.

Later on that night we cooked a Tikka Massala and had some salad with it and went to bed "early" as we wanted to start at 8 next morning! But that is stuff for another post!

Ricky Festival

Once a year there is the big Rickmansworth Canal Festival which lasts for a week and stages all different kind of things. On the last day of the festival there is a big feast at the Aquadrome and there are many colourful boats on the Canals. It is great fun and the weather was just great. It is nothing really special, but it is nice to walk along the canal and look at the canal boats which are hugely decorated with the special flower patterns. Vanessa came out to Ricky as well and so Dana, Vanessa and me had a great day out and in the evening I finally got to earn some money: I did Babysitting at Drew's. Maybe you remember his kids which have grown obviously, because back then Eoin was just 3 and Shona merely a toddler!

Anyway, here are a few impressions of the Ricky festival

the canal boats

the various canal flower designs

without words

the dance of the canal folk

swans at the Aquadrome

Long time no see

It has been nearly 4 years since Dana and I met for the last time and I still cannot understand how we survived without seeing each other more regularly. Well, everything was planned to see her at her wedding, but then Isabel fell ill and I could not go, which I still deeply regret - by the way, I have never seen a wedding-picture!!!!

So Dana decided it was time to pay RMS - and me of course - a visit and since she can now conveniently travel to the UK without a visa, she just had to board a train and there she was!

Of course it was just great to have her back and somehow it seems as if we had seen each other only yesterday - it just felt so normal to have her around. As I had to work on Thursday (thanks Henry VIII. for splitting from the Catholic Church, otherwise the UK would now also have a bank holiday!) Dana went shopping in Oxford Street and I will wisely hold my tongue and refrain from telling you with how many bags she got back! As she was hungry like a lion I did some cooking for us and then we went to the pub to have a decent Guinness together. We still both like it very much (well, in former times we especially liked it because it was cheap) and I had the feeling as if we had never left the UK 5 years ago to live completely different lives - okay maybe this is due to the fact that the Pennsilvanian did not change either!

Friday was Dana's "Back to RMS" day, which I guessed she enjoyed immensely. Especially when even Mrs Rose - the headmistress - remembered her as "the business efficient one"! Dana was all thrilled I can tell you. She met up with some of her girls from Atholl-Sussex and of course she spoke to many of the nice people we spent so much time with back then - Dave for example who runs the kitchen store, as he is the one who did our packed lunches and if you had preferences (like tuna sandwich and ready salted crisps) you should be nice to him and not to forget Tom the caretaker with whom we fought many a Badminton match.

Dana has not changed or let's say I am still very fond of her, especially because she helped me back then through some very hard times. Especially her "games-attitude" has not changed :-) and when you look at the picture you will quite agree with me!

We spent the Saturday in London, visited Camden, Notting Hill and all the other places like Hyde Park which we both love so much. The weather was fine and we even did some sunbathing. There are so many good memories connected with these places, that we even took a picture at Parliament Bridge again (with the Houses of Parliament in the background), just to do the same as 6 years ago when we both went into London together for the first time. It was a strange feeling back then because it was the day after 9/11 and I have never seen that many police officers in one place before. But it was also our first day off and we were desperate to get into the city! This time the city was also croweded because in the afternoon there was the FA cup final between ManU and Chelsea to be held at Wembley Stadiun - they said something about 20,000 police officers at the stadium and around the city!

We spent the sunday at the Rickmansworth Festival together with Vanessa who finally managed to find her way to Ricky! But I will save that for another post, this one is way to long again anyway - people started complaining about that :-) Of course Dana has written her own version of her stay in London which can be found here!

It's been a long time....

...since I last posted something here!

And so many things have happened since then that I hardly know where to begin. So probably I should make a list to remind myself what I wanted to write about over the last few weeks:

1. Prep. Department: Year 1 talk about the school


2. Prep. Department: Year 3 half-term assembly


3. Dana's visit in May


4. Rickmansworth Festival


5. Year 7 trip to St. Albans


6. Flat flooded THE FIRST


7. 5-day trip to Wales


8. Flat flooded THE SECOND


9. 4 days with Christoph in London


10. Year 5 trip to Windsor Castle


11. Flat flooded THE THIRD


12. Sunrise-Dinner at Christian's


13. Inspiration in Wuestensachsen


14. classtrip with my father to Italy (and flooding the FOURTH)


15. Oh the joy of relying on public transport


16. ....

You see that quite a lot of things have happened since my last post and I am not sure if I really manage to write about all the things that have been going on. Maybe I have to transfer you to some other blogs where you find more information about recent events. I might leave out the prep. dept. stuff right now to get to the more interesting bits, as I can write about them later on. We will see. I hope I did not keep you waiting for too long!

I still enjoy my time here in London, you can be sure of that and as long as you do not hear from me, I am fine :-)