November in Wales (or perhaps we should say “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau”)

One word about November – Rugby. Two games at the Stadium, many more at the pub.

November saw the start of some cold weather. It started cold, warmed up a bit, then ended cold again. Huh – late autumn. The nights started getting longer, and the days shorter, as winter inexorably crept in on us.

We started the month celebrating Bonfire Night (also known as Guy Fawkes night) early, with an evening with the Barry Bergers.

Les and Ieuan

Cold and chilly, but with a suitably impressive display over the golf course. On the actual day, we went to the pub and sat in the warmth watching fireworks going off over Llandaff and Pontcanna Fields.

November was also a rugby month, with 4 international matches on at the Millennium Stadium. Woo hoo!!!!! We were offered some tickets to the South Africa match, and so of course we went. Clodey (who got us the tickets) also invited us to join him and his friends for lunch and drinks before and after the match, which were much appreciated! Kathy really enjoyed when Clodey and his mates – they are all from a prefessional choir (they are on Radio 4 you know) - burst into song.

Clodey et al, terrorisng the local populace with close-harmony singing

It was a good day, and a really enjoyable match (although Wales lost). Because it was just before Remembrance Day there was 2 minutes of silence before the match. Magic moment of the day was the shushing of idiots who were shouting things out during the silence. Not sure what the harpist was about (Men of Harlech, but as a girl at Matt's work said "A Harp!?!?! They didn't show them Zulus a thing or two using a harp!") but the band and the Goat Major (four legs, not the pub) were cool.

The Goat Major, and his orchestra

The singing at Millennium Stadium was amazing – to hear Welsh sing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau at the Stadium was a highlight (but this was trumped later in the month!)

Halftime Crowd at Wales v South Africa, Millenium Stadium

On the day that the Christmas lights were turned on (which are pretty spectacular – I hate to think what wintry Cardiff will look like when they're turned off) we went and saw Quantum of Solace. Much like the early Bond novels [and they borrowed the making of the "Vesper" – cocktail – from Casino Royale and slotted it here] We enjoyed it [Matt enjoyed it more it seems], but not as much as Burn After Reading by the Cohens.

On the 14^th Matt took the day off work [6 months here, still only taken 6 days leave!]. We went to Owain Gwyndir for lunch,

Matt and Kath, preparing for a spot of lunch

and ordered a bottle of wine. Now, on the 14^th, Wales were playing Canada at Millennium, so all drinks within a certain distance of the stadium had to be served in plastic containers – including the bottle of wine Matt ordered. It arrived in a plastic jug (classy). Matt said, sniffing the jug, “I think this wine is corked”. Very funny – the table next to us laughed too. Before lunch we walked through Bute Park and enjoyed a lovely autumn day. There were lots of squirrels and the last of the autumn leaves sitting in drifts on the ground. It reminded us a lot of 'Forever Autumn from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds:

Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way
You always loved this time of year
Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now
'cause you're not here

as we both had a similar mental picture about those words. Very cool. That evening (after finding a funny little pub that's only open on match days) we had another magic moment in our local. We were stitting in the pub watching the stream of traffic going in to the city for the match. There was a bloke sitting in his car, car full of kids, stuck in Rugby-bound traffic and scowling. Really filthy look on his face. He looked angrily into the pub, longing for some escape. Matt raises his beer glass, the bloke grins, nods his head and waves. Magic.

The next day we went to Caerleon. Caerleon was home to a Roman fort, and the ruins are still visible, and has the only fully excavated amphitheatre in Europe outside Italy. It was amazing!!!

Matt in the Caerleon Ampitheatre

Even in spite of the stench from the cows from the farm next door didn't affect our enjoyment too much. It was a fantastic trip. We went to the Amphitheatre and walked on the walls. It was pretty amazing, walking on structures that were in use nearly 1800 years ago. We were about to walk back to town when Kathy said 'oh, what's that over there?' - it was the ruins of the barracks , all mapped out with the layout of rooms and corridors still visible – stumbling on this which was a stroke of luck. There was no-one else there. We saw ruins of the Commander's accommodation, kitchens, latrines and baths, and the accommodation for the ordinary soldiers. Brilliant.

Kathy in the ruins of the barracks, Caerleon

We'll go back in the summer and have another look around the township and go into the museum – and stay the night there in a cute little hotel we found. To get back in to town, we had to walk along a Roman road – still in use all that time after it was originally built. This just blew us away. After we got back in to Cardiff, we decided to get a taxi up to the pub, so that we could watch the Australia v England match. So, there we were happily sitting in the cab, when some dickhead walks right out in to the path of the taxi as it pulled in to an intersection. This loose link then hit the windscreen with his hand so hard he cracked the windscreen – all the while abusing the cabbie, who understandably was a bit shaken by all of this. He said that in 20 years of driving that had never happened to him, poor bloke. We eventually made it to the Halfway safely, and happily sat and watched the match with an Englishman who left the pub the moment his team lost. Not to matter, we had a good chat with the publican.

The next weekend was really, really cold (or so we thought) – in time for the Kiwis to hit town. We were so glad we didn't go to that match – we would have frozen. Mind you, the big things for that week were that we booked a trip to Edinburgh for New Year, and – drum roll please – Kathy finally got a job offer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She has a 2 year contract with Cardiff University working in the Registry doing quality assurance. Big thanks and many kudos to her referees back in Australia – Moz and Howard.

In the last weekend of the month was the match we'd been most looking forward to – the Aussies! We had a lovely lunch with Matt's cousin Linda and her hubby Phil, and some friends of theirs, then headed in to town to watch the match. We were very, very cold. We were standing at an outdoor bar and our beers were getting colder from the wind! We had some OK sort of seats – 7 rows back behind the goal posts. Not too good for seeing the far end of the pitch, but good for sitting behind the big gas flames which went off at the start of the match. It was a really exciting game (despite the result), and was the best we've ever been to in terms of atmosphere – the singing was everything we'd hoped to hear at a Welsh rugby match and hadn't up to then. As well as Land of my Fathers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNtybd7kTqo) the crowd were in full song with Cwm Rhondda (that's “Bread of Heaven”) and the Max Boyce song Hymns and Arias. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym7d5IuRjxE&feature=related) It was spine tingling. Goosebumps. It made the effort against the South Africans a few weeks earlier seem amateur. We challenge anyone to sit through all that and not be moved. Then after bumping into Terry & Lisa (Terry said the Rugby “...was just like the 70's – the crowd, the singing, Wales winning”) we met up with Clodey, and the Cardiff Aussies afterwards and had a simply brilliant evening. The ever eclectic Old Arcade in Cardiff didn't disappoint. Matt told a story about a trip to the gents, clad in his full Wallaby regalia, when the lad next to him started shouting “Wales! Wales! ... Oh sorry pal didn't see you there...” - with a big grin. Not to be outdone, Matt replied in full voice “Once a jolly swagman ...”, at which point all the other guys at the urinal – Welsh guys mind you, burst into song and sang the first verse, and knew all the words! Following a good and long evening

Clear signs the "good and long evening" is taking it's toll:
Craig, Lewis and Matt in Queen St en route from the Old Arcade

we finished up at Lewis and Sarah's, where the boys cooked (good job, well trained) while the girls sat and talked. It was a great day, and a good end to the month.

Beers of the month:

• Crow Valley Ale

• O'Hanlons Port Stout
  

• Theakston Old Peculier

• Wells Bombadier
  

Oh, and the Halfway put Brain's Dark on the pull pump.

Thank you, Mr SA Brain

Mmmmmmm... [This is now Matt's favourite beer – plus it's only mid-strength at 3.5%, and he doesn't care!]

October, not much doing

Apart from our visit to London, October seems to have been a relatively quiet month.

There was, or so it felt, a dramatic drop in temperatures from 1 October. This not only triggered a desire for more soups and stews in our bellies, but also took a little toll on our health. It was all the encouragement we needed to sit inside and watch days of Heinekin Cup rugby coverage. Up to 3 games in an afternoon – what more encouragement did we need? That pretty much accounted for most of the weekends in the month.

All of that said, there were some non-rugby things we did this month. The middle 2 weekends in the month provided some spectacular weather,

Blackweir on the River Taff, with leaves starting to change colour

and increased the speed of change in the leaves on the trees.

Spectacular leaf colour

On one day we went for a walk amongst showers of leaves coming loose in the wind – spectacular, but didn’t come up well on photos unfortunately.

No really, there was a shower of leaves

There were also quite hazy days, so we had some spectacular effects amongst the trees in Bute Park on another walk.

View down the River Taff from the Blackweir footbridge

Haze and trees in Bute Park, Cardiff

Chris and Bron, Kathy’s parents, visited twice this month on their way to and from Ireland. They’ve been living in Europe for just over 18 months, but have now returned to New Zealand in preparation for Kathy’s Grandma’s 90^th birthday in November. The reason for their trip to Ireland was to sell the van Chris had bought when they first arrived in the Northern Hemisphere – back to the guy they’d originally bought it from. For us, the upside of that was that we were able to acquire a whole heap of stuff which would otherwise have been sold or thrown away, like kitchen scales and a few food stuffs, and so on.

October has also seen a change in the fresh food available, with lots of swedes and parsnips, mushrooms and apples, plums, pears and quinces appearing at the Farmer’s Market, and figs and pomegranates in the grocery stores. October also saw the start of the autumn lamb – sooooo delicious! And native oysters, which we sampled at a great lunch at the end of the month at a restaurant in Cardiff called Le Monde. The oysters were really, really great – quite large and really briny, but with quite a meaty texture so not at all snotty like Pacific Oysters. So far they vie in Kathy’s heart for fave oyster with Sydney Rock Oysters, those sweet little nuggets of deliciousness… We also experimented with the first of some game – guinea fowl. A bit like a slightly richer chicken – yummy though. At the lunch at Le Monde (which we had because Matt took the day off from work at the very end of the month) we also had a side dish of wild mushrooms in garlicky goodness, and Matt had the most enormous but perfectly cooked rack of lamb, and Kathy had a delicious fillet of beef. Mmmmm. Yummy wines this month were a Ropiteau Vin de pays d’Oc Pinot Noir 2007 and a Baroncini Vino Nobile de Montepulciano 2004.

Other things of note for the month were the re-opening of O’Neil’s at St Mary’s – which the observant of you will remember burnt down just after the final of the 2007/08 Heinekin Cup back around March/April, and the increasing appeal of the pub of an evening. Not only for the beer (which has improved dramatically since the landlord changed earlier in the month), but because it’s warm and cosy, and there are always people there. We also saw the Cohen Brother’s latest effort, Burn After Reading. I know that some people didn’t like it, but we’re fans of the Cohen Brothers and thought it was typically weird. Brad Pitt was very good in it – he really seemed to enjoy playing a stupid beef head. Oh, and most importantly for next summer we received confirmation of our purchase of tickets to Days 1 and 3 of the Ashes Test here in Cardiff. WOO HOO!!!!!

So, the nights have been drawing in sooner, and we’re starting to mentally prepare ourselves for a darker winter than what we’re used to. It now seems as though the earlier predictions of a white Christmas may not be correct, but who knows – there have already been a few snow falls this month as the autumn storms start to come through. Bring it on.

London Calling...

As some of you may have seen in our other blog (there is a language warning associated with this! Monopoly board pub crawl ), we went to London in the last weekend in October for Matt’s 40^th birthday commiserations – I mean celebrations.

So, on Friday 24^th we set off to London. We get to London Paddington and negotiate our way out and to our hotel with very little drama. However. When we get to our hotel, we’re informed by the clerk behind the desk that the group which owns the hotel has 2 properties in the area, and although we booked at one, we’ve been “upgraded” to the other, at no charge. Well, we thought, that’s OK especially given that the other hotel is on the same street as the one we booked. This was on a street of lovely looking houses not too far from Paddington Station. Our “upgraded” room was in the basement, and was right next to the lift and down the corridor to the dining room. We could hear every tube service which passed underneath. We could hear conversations in other rooms. The door to the bathroom couldn’t open all the way as the bed was in the way. And it had the most horrible breakfasts we’ve ever had – it even put the nasty greasy excuse for a breakfast we had at our hotel in Dublin to shame. The coffee was nasty. The OJ was watered down. The cooked breakfast consisted of 1 egg (is that poached or fried? We couldn’t tell) and 1 rasher of bacon – Matt’s ‘full English’ had 1 egg, 1 rasher of bacon, and the smallest sausage you’ve ever seen – barely the length of an adult’s little finger. So much for stocking up on a filling breakfast before our pub crawl! We won’t be staying at the Athena Hotel ever, ever again.

Anyway, back to the Friday. Kathy had pre-booked entry tickets to the Tower of London, so after we checked in we headed off, recharging our Oyster cards as we went (and many thanks to Chris and Bron for leaving them behind for us – they were invaluable). The Tower was fantastic!

Matt at the Tower of London

Tower of London

Because we didn’t get there until 3.45pm we didn’t have time to see a lot of stuff before the Tower closed at 5.30pm. We went in to one part and had a good look around, and saw a recreation of how a medieval royal bedroom would have been set up (complete with cheesy open fire sounds) and walked along one of the walls,

Obligatory photo of the ravens at the Tower

before going in to the Royal Armoury. Here Matt was in his element – all that time spent playing role play games and reading about Agincourt paid off.

pikes and other nasty bits

It was pretty spectacular, but Kathy did start to get bored and a bit fidgety after the suits of armour display. One thing we did stand and go ‘oh my goodness’ at was a video on a loop of a guy doing cartwheels in a full suit of plate armour! We had just enough time to have a little wander around near the courtyard where most of the executions took place, and to buy some bears for a pair of boys in Kadina before they started kicking us out. The sun was setting, so we walked around the outside of the Tower complex and watched the sun reflecting off the White Tower,

White Tower at sunset

Close up of the White Tower at sunset

Tower Bridge,

and the buildings on the other side of the Thames

before walking back to the Tube

Traffic on Tower Bridge, on our long way round back to the tube station

to head off to Fulham Broadway for dinner.

The tube at nearly rush hour was an interesting experience! Glad we were on a less busy line and were closer to 6pm than 5.30pm. Some of those trains must get soooooo crowded. We get to Fulham Broadway no problems, and have the address of the restaurant (The Sugar Hut). So, where was it? Hmm, perhaps we should have bought a map which was of greater London, not just the freebie which has Central London and all the tourist spots. Undaunted, we head to a Waterstone’s at the tube station, find where we were heading to, and head off – with only 1 wrong turn. Which is better than some of the party could manage (Terry, you’re never going to live that down)! We’d had a phone call earlier in the afternoon from Tim, who was caught up on a delayed Eurostar train saying that he was going to be late, but it turns out that by the time everyone had finally arrived, we’d just sat down to order when he did turn up – well timed, Clodey. Not that we minded terribly, because the restaurant was also a cocktail bar and it served sparkling wine by the glass, so we were quite happy to settle down and have a quiet couple while we waited for everyone else. We had a good meal, and even managed to find our way home again afterwards.

Saturday, the momentous day, dawned, and we were blessed with the weather. Yes, it was windy and cool, but it wasn’t raining. As much of what transpired is in the other blog, I won’t repeat much of it here. We walked 5,000 miles, or so it felt, so that the effects of drinking at 25 pubs wasn’t too great (for us at least). Yes, there were 26 pubs on the list, for the 26 squares on a monopoly board (excluding utilities), but at Kings Cross Station the pub is closed. So there you go. We were really impressed at the way that such a diverse group of people all got along so well, and that everyone remained in fairly good spirits – tiredness and sore feet aside as it was a 12 hour effort. Matt drank halves of bitter, and Kathy drank halves of bitter at every other pub, alternating with OJ or soda water. The hardest parts of the day were the distances covered and the need to keep moving. Sometimes it was a shame to have to move on in some of the nicer places we visited, but we had to keep moving in order to get through the board. We did start off with several other groups, but they all fell by the wayside by about pub 6. I think it had to do with the effort of keeping moving and making transport connections. The pub aspect aside, we really did see some fantastic parts of London. As Matt kept saying, it was as though we were running amok in a postcard.

Some of the gems of the day were Matt and Weezul (Rich) getting the giggles (this won’t surprise some who know both of them), seeing St Paul’s all lit up at night, and some yummy food Kathy grabbed on the way – a cheese and bacon pastie at one place, and a fantastic (healthy) vegetarian kebab towards the end at Marlborough Street.

On Sunday we had a bit of a lie in (partly to do with the end of Daylight Saving) – it was impossible to have a sleep in with the noise in the hotel. A little reward for our efforts of the previous day, and we got up feeling remarkably chipper, sore feet and legs aside. As Sunday was the actual day of Matt’s birthday, it was a day of doing things he particularly wanted to do. One of those things was to have yum char – or dim sum as it’s called in the UK. We headed off in the vague direction of China Town, and due to Kathy’s surprisingly good guess work, found it (after walking around in the West End for a bit). We ended up choosing a place called the Golden Dragon, using the time honoured method of ‘what’s the ratio of Asians to Westerners?’, which has so far not let us down. The choice was a good one, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. It’s different from dim sum in Sydney, as we had to order off a menu instead of picking stuff off a trolley – which had the advantage of us not ordering too much!

Next we headed off to Westminster, walking through Carnaby and Oxford Streets and looking at the window displays. Who would have thunk it – we went all that way only to pass a sports shop which had as it’s main display of rugby jumpers a Welsh line up – not English! It was a bit drizzly, but that didn’t spoil the day for us. Anyway, it fined up after a while. Once in Westminster we stood and listened to Big Ben

Guess where...

chiming 1 o’clock (and later 2 o’clock), which was fantastic – it’s a really big bell with a really big sound which goes right through you, if you’re close enough. Great stuff. We also wandered around the outside of the Houses of Parliament as much as we were able too,

Matt standing outside the Sovereign's Entrance at Westminster

then headed in to a little park area at one end to look out over the Thames and played ‘what building is that’. Turns out we were looking at St. Martin’s Hospital and towards Lambeth Palace, which was lovely. Westminster Cathedral is not open to tourists on Sundays, but does invite them to join in the services – we thought about going to evensong, which is sung, but forgot. So instead of going in to the Cathedral building we walked around the outside, and looked at the outside of the building, and a Jewel Tower, which was part of the original palace at Westminster. We then headed off down Whitehall, past the Horse Guards,

Horse Guardsman on duty surrounded by tourists

and towards Downing Street. It’s an interesting part of town to wander down, as there are lots of statues and memorials to look at. We spied one which had a name on it we recognised, because we used to drive along a stretch of road in Canberra named after him – William Slim.

Viscount William Slim

Kathy really loved a memorial to the women who lost their lives serving in World War 2.

By this time the memory card on our little camera was full (we’d left the other one at the hotel as Matt was concerned about battery life ‘cause we’d forgotten to charge them before leaving Cardiff, and were relying on Matt's phone to take pictures). We thought we’d just buy a new card, but no. Who would have thought that a 4 year old digital camera had become obsolete? There was a solution of sorts, but it would have cost £35. Enough said.

Also by this time was an overwhelming need to sit for a bit, so we found a pub which wasn’t too crowded and did just that for a bit. Suitably fortified and refreshed, we headed back towards Trafalgar Square to see Nelson’s column – and for Kathy to point out to Matt how neatly the alignment of the column had Nelson looking over the Houses of Parliament.

Nelson's Column

Admiralty Arch, at Trafalgar Square

Because it was there, we quickly popped in to St. Martin’s in the Field for a look, but also to try and find out why there were military flags flying outside it. Best guess we could come up with was that it was a regimental church for some unit, because there was nothing about it we could find inside the church. We were quite saddened to see that the crypt had been turned in to a café (and we found out that there’s a similar one at St Paul’s, too), but I suppose the church has to make money somehow.

Our move in to that part of town wasn’t by accident, as Matt had missed taking a photo of one of the pubs we visited the night before. Seeing as we were outside it, we decided to go inside it, rest and have a couple of drinks and a something to eat – and to see if Matt could stop smiling to give his cheek muscles a rest because he’d had a grin on his face all day. We were disturbed by a guy at the bar, who we’d actually noticed the day before. He stood at the bar wearing an anorak, taking the most minute sips from his glass. Very odd.

When we were in China Town earlier in the day we’d seen a place which did hot pot, which Matt had had on one of his trips in S.E. Asia. It was a great decision – it was Japanese style and such a huge meal! For those who don’t know what it is, you have a big bowl of boiling stock on your table, and you cook your own meal in it – fish, meat, veg, whatever, and you season it how you like. Great fun, but so much food!! We’ve also lived in small cities or towns for too long. Despite it being a Sunday night, there were people everywhere! Going out for a meal, coming out of matinee performances at a theatre, whatever. To get some idea of the size of the crowd, Canberrans can think of Civic in the week before Christmas. We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto!

Monday was our last day in London, and as we had a 3.15 train back to Cardiff needed to get out and about sharpish if we were going to see anything. We got the tube to Monument, to go to the monument commemorating the Great Fire of London. After a crowded tube trip, we found that the monument was closed for renovation. D’oh! Not entirely a wasted trip, as we bought our poppies for Remembrance Day. The chap we bought them from had already done 2 hours at London Bridge that morning. So it was back on the tube, and off to St. Paul’s.

Outside the front of St. Paul's Cathedral

Frieze at St. Paul's Cathedral

Oh. My. Goodness. What a building! We spent 2 hours there looking at all the memorials and tombs, including Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, Richard Seddon and George Grey, Flemming, and the US role of Honour, and of course Christopher Wren himself. We learnt that the first Bishop was appointed around 314 AD, and that there had been a church standing on that spot since the 11^th century. Wow. We climbed up to the Whispering Gallery, then up to the Stone Gallery to look at the view.

Matt wanted to continue up to the next level, but Kathy thought that discretion should be the better part of valour – and besides our tickets were valid for 12 months and we can come back when our legs will be less inclined to give us very rude messages. After a photo op outside the building

Matt on the steps of the Cathedral - believe it or not

(and watching the Bobby on duty handing out postcards to all the tourists warning of pick pockets and thieves in the area) we went to Notting Hill for lunch. Why? Because we could. Then it was back to Paddington to pick up our gear and wait for the train. Kathy did some essential Bear shopping for niece and nephews, and then it was on to the train and back to Cardiff for a fairly uneventful trip home. Because of the end of daylight saving and with the progression of the season, the sun is setting earlier and earlier. At about 4.45pm as we were near Bristol there was a spectacular sunset, of a big golden sun setting behind darkly purple clouds – just brilliant.

Back home in Cardiff, and the end of our London Monopoly adventure and a great weekend.

Autumn was a mixed bag

September 1 came, and the weather went off. Apparently August had broken recent records for bad weather, and the weather experts predict a white Christmas. OMG. Cool, but kinda scary. Let's just wait and see.

Start of September saw the final one day match between England and South Africa held in Cardiff. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah, right. It rained heavily in the lead-up to the match, and because the outfield drainage isn't the best, almost no play took place (they'd better fix it before the Ashes...). While we support the idea of international cricket in our little adopted home town, this summer has not been a good one for cricket in terms of the weather. Still, Glamorgan ended their season well, but failed in the end to win the promotion place to the next grade.

In September there were the first of the autumn storms, with significant flooding throughout Wales. The River Taff broke it's banks near us at Blackweir, and scoured out nearly all of the gravel pathways nearby. The floodwaters didn't reach us, as there are 2 sets of flood banks between us and the river. Very fortunately, Matt had also just switched over his bank account, and as part of the package purchased contents insurance the week before the worst of the storms hit. Thank goodness we didn't need it! But those storms were at the beginning of the month, and the rest of September had us enjoying mostly sunny days but with cooler evenings.

The Magners League rugby kicked off in September, and so we've been watching a fair bit of rugby on the TV. We have been to a Cardiff Blues match (v Leinster), as well, which we enjoyed a lot. The game was at Cardiff Arms Park, which is now a lot smaller than it used to be when it was still an international ground. The corporate boxes are so close to the ground that each time there's a kick for goal the ball bounces off the windows of the boxes. Must be startling if you're not paying attention to the game. For those who don't know what the Magners League is, it's the Celtic rugby competition – Ireland, Wales and Scotland – and is sponsored by Magners Cider. Hence the name.

The weekend the Magners League started there was also a football international on at the Millennium Stadium – Wales v Azerbaijan. We were tempted to go, but decided against it. We had been at the pub before the match, and were really put off by the football crowd. We started to feel really edgy, especially just before the match was on. We ended up watching the match at a rugby pub, and immediately started to relax. It was a rugby pub, so although the football was on the rugby crowd was watching it. They were polite and considerate. They moved to allow people to get to the bar. They were relaxed and joking. Sorry, football fans, we really did try to get in to your sport, but you guys have put us off. Because of the football, the South Wales police had their mounted unit out. Why aren't there more mounted police in Australia?

Our big expedition for the month was to Chepstow, to visit Chepstow Castle. What a brilliant castle!

Matt at the main gateway to Chepstow Castle

It's the oldest stone castle in the UK, and has wooden doors dating from 1190 – the oldest still surviving in the whole of Europe.

The oldest wooden door in Europe at Chepstow Castle

The castle was founded by the Normans, and went on to become the seat of the Marshalls, and was a key fort during the English Civil War. It was in continuous use, therefore, from the Normans to Cromwell.

Ruins of the original Norman tower (the Great Tower) at Chepstow Castle

Carved lintel over a doorway into the Great Tower

Big windows looking over the River Wye in the Great Tower

Matt in the ruins of the old dining hall at Chepstow Castle

Detail on the top of Marten's Tower, Chepstow Castle

It was constructed during 3 distinct phases, each providing it's own outer defences which were then incorporated in to the castle defences. It must have been a pretty amazing place to defend, as one whole side of the defences are a sheer cliff up from the River Wye (when we were there the river was brown and swollen from the rains). Clever place to put the castle, so that only 3 walls need defending. Because of the 3 phases, and the centuries of use the walls have both arrow and gun slits. We went there and back on the train, and enjoyed travelling along side the Severn River. Hey, do you think they'd see if we made rude gestures across to the English?

The weekend after we went to Chepstow we went out to Barry and had lunch with some more of Matt's relatives – this time his cousin Linda and her family.

Linda

Phil

It was a really great afternoon. Matt's aunt Marion and her husband Norman were there, and it was the first time Matt had seen them since he was in Wales as a youngster.

Matt with Norman and Marion

Linda's youngest son, Matt (confusing, isn't it?) is breaking in to the professional audio-visual industry. He'd been at the joust at Cardiff Castle we were at a couple of months before and had recorded the goings on. He'd then put in a sound track and took it to the media people at the Castle. They were so impressed that they have commissioned him to do a similar production for the Cheese Festival which is on there at the end of the month. He's pretty excited about it. They showed us some of his other works, and they are really quite good.

The second half of September had better weather. A lot better. We were able to get up early on weekend mornings and go for a walk, especially through Llandaff Field.

Llandaff field early morning on 13 September

Kathy and Matt 13 September

What was really good about that was seeing the chestnut trees almost moving they had so many squirrels in them. The were after the nuts, of course. The noise they made as they tore the outer husks off the nuts was just amazing, and you had to be careful about not standing under the trees or else something would land on your head as they dropped husks or partly eaten nuts. If the squirrels weren't in the trees they were on the ground burying nuts or running between trees.

Squirrel on the ground at Llandaff Field

We also discovered that the butcher is open by 7.30am on Saturdays. How convenient...

September is of course Voorburg Group Meeting time.

Matt at the first session at Voorburg Meeting

So Matt headed off to Mexico, and not without a few dramas. The afternoon of day before (!!!!) he was due to fly out (at 6am, mind you) he gets a call from KLM – the airline he was travelling with. 'Mr Berger, we've cancelled the flight you were booked on out of Cardiff, but it's OK because we've booked you on a flight which departs at the same time from Birmingham'. What the?!?!?!?!? They couldn't understand that it would be a problem for them to do that. Even when he explained that a 6am departure meant a 4am check in at the airport. So he would have had to have left Cardiff as soon as he got the call, assuming that he could get accommodation in Birmingham that night. Not a particularly helpful attitude, nor a particularly good use of public money. After much discussion he was able to get on the same flight to leave Cardiff, but 24 hours later. Good for us, but not good for Matt at the other end, as he had to present a session first thing on the Monday morning. Needless to say, Matt's not impressed with the KLM Customer Service people. So on our bonus day, we had a nice relaxing day in the sun. We went for a walk up Cowbridge Road, and went to a little park we'd seen when we'd done the Cowbridge Mile. Once he finally got there, the Voorburg meeting went well. Matt enjoyed the Host Day, and the food. More problems with KLM, this time being told he couldn't check in to his Mexico City-Amsterdam flight, even though other people could. So instead of going shopping in Mexico for our niece and nephews, he had to hang around the airport with his luggage until his flight opened. He was very glad to get home. But he did have a good time in Mexico.



While Matt was away, Kathy was all on her lonesome. She did do some shopping at the Markets, and on the weekend Matt came home she went to the British Cheese Festival with Linda and Phil, and had a very good time. She was very well behaved, and bought only 2 cheeses and a 50 ml bottle of each of Sloe Gin and Damson Gin. Kathy was impressed with the variety of cheeses on offer for tasting and purchase, and enjoyed a lot of goat and sheep milk cheeses, and especially the unpasteurised ones. They've got such a different flavour and texture to cheeses made from pasteurised cheese that in Australia they'd be worth the effort of seeking out. Also at the Festival was a marquee for CAMRA – the Campaign for Real Ale. Naturally, the products on offer had to be sampled as a palate cleanser (pity there was no red wine). There were, in addition to various ales, cider and perry available for purchase. Everything tried was very, very yummy, and after a foggy start the day was beautifully sunny and crisp.

So, apart from cheese, big tasty things were Discovery apples (in particular, but fresh season apples from the farmer's market were spectacular), plums and guinea fowl (the start of autumn being the start of the game season). We're still enjoying the various wines and beers, of course.