The Balloon trip

So, yesterday I went on my Balloon ride. This was a present from my partner Denise that she had given me for my birthday. I was something I had promised myself to do for years but never gotten around to. 

These trips are very much at the vagaries of the weather of course. A little to much wind, or rain and they are called off. But I was lucky and the only problem was that the site was changed to a field just before Bath.

Photos of the trip can be found on my Facebook page, or on my Flickr account here. 

I will put just a couple on here and if you are interested, just look at the album. If you have been on one of these you will know just how great they are. If you have not and have thought of it, then go for it. The peace and quiet up there is just surreal. Just gently floating and looking over our lovely countryside, getting a view that few ever see is a wonderful thing. 

Getting the balloon ready in the early mist.

Are there any downsides? Well if you have a problem with heights, then that of course if obvious but apart from that just a couple. The first is getting in the bloody cage in the first place. It is about four feet high and to access it there are feet holes in the basket and you have to climb in. No problem for the nimble, but I gave up climbing many years ago, and I had a struggle. 

Ready to fly

But when you are up and away, the view makes it all worth while. But then of course you have to get out! And that means climbing out of the thing you had a problem getting into! But I got out in the end, and I believe the photos were worth the effort. 

Fire the hot air!  

Up looking over the countryside.

And just the one more thing. This is an experience you are expected to join in with and that means helping to put the balloon by and folding it up with all the rest on board. The fact that the pilot landed in a field full of cow shit did not help either! 

And finally down again, with the balloon collapsing.  

But overall I had a great day and I am glad I went for it.
 

The referendum

The European referendum.

I seem to be getting a lot of posts these days as the referendum approaches on the ‘OUT’ side of the story, and not that many on the ‘IN’ side. So, I will put my point of view, which I realize many will disagree with, but hope that you will accept there is two sides to every story.

I am will be voting ‘IN’ on June 23^rd. Do I think that the E.U. is perfect? No, actually I don’t. There are many things that should be changed and yes it does cost a lot to run. We cannot change anything by leaving.  But NO we do not pay the £350 million or whatever figure has been plucked out of the air by Nigel Farage on a daily basis. This is the actual figure for the cost of being in the E.U. by the UK.  https://fullfact.org/europe/our-eu-membership-fee-55-million/

 

The ‘OUT’ side say that we can make Britain great again. You really believe that do you? I mean REALLY? Yes we were Great Britain about seventy years ago, and yes maybe Churchill was right at the time to say we should look after ourselves first.  But that was in the past, and we are now living in a new world and a new century. 

So we can look after ourselves can we? Why should the world care about us if we leave? Why would they give a shit if we are not part of a HUGE trading block? I am sorry friends on the ‘OUT’ side, but you are living in cloud cookoo land, and I have not heard one ABSOLUTE cohesive argument that will convince me that voting out will be better for the UK. 

 You think we will but you do not KNOW. 

As for the arguments on the TV, most of it is absolute bullshit on both sides. Yes, I know Cameron is a dickhead and so is Osborne, but who are your champions on the ‘OUT’ side? Nigel Farage? Boris Johnson? Michael Gove? Iain Duncan Smith? Oh please!  The ‘OUT’ side seem to be the more vocal. But I have a sneaky feeling that the ‘IN’ side are the quiet majority. We just have to make sure we vote on this. 

Well that is my side, and I hope that those that bother to read this don’t swear at me too much. Just accept that we all have our views.

A few days off

I do not get a huge number of readers to this blog, so I might as well catch up after a few days.

So what has happened? Well not a huge lot, just the normal day to day stuff. We went to see a show in Cardiff's New Theatre called 'Dancing in the streets'. This was Motown based, and very good and lively. We went along with my brother and his wife, and all in all had a great time. If this comes to your area, and you like Motown, I can highly recommend it.

And on Saturday we had another night out, this time the 65th birthday party of a relative of Denise. It was a surprise party, and a great time was had by all. His daughter Louise use to be a professional singer and she did a lot of singing, and very good she was as well. And while this was on, I had to drive over to Cardiff airport to pick up my son, who was coming home after a holiday in Ibiza.

He does love that island. He says he has more friends there than back at home. I cannot get the idea of going to the same place year on year, but it suits him. But while he we was there, he managed to lost his passport. Silly sod, but he took it all in his stride, and I guess they are used to Brits doing that over there. Luckily he managed to get it sorted in time to get his plane home. 

And finally, after a couple of months work, my house is finished. Or at least the wall cladding part of it that the council sorted. It is much warmer now, and even if it goes cool, putting the heating on for a short time warms it up quickly. I have also had a lot of work done on the house and apart from a couple of small building jobs, it is finished. I have made up a small video of the before and after work to be put on here.

On Thursday I am supposed to be having a balloon ride in the Bristol area. It will depend on the weather, but if it goes ahead, expect another blog about it with some photos!

back swimming

Yes, I am going back to the pool on a fairly regular basis these days again. I used to go quite often, then, gave that up due to work, and recently joined a gym. But sessions on the bikes and treadmills seemed to have given me a pain in the hips, so sadly I have had to give that up.

So it was back to the pool again. I need to try and lose a bit of weight and the exercise will do no harm at all. I am enjoying it, but after laying off for while it is taking a little time to get back into swimming again. I have been doing about ten widths, and then building up to twelve and today fourteen. There is no points in doing myself an injury as it is meant to be good for me! 

So today, being another nice day, I decided to clean the car. I have purchased some 'Williams waterless wash' with carnuba wax in it. This is a product I have used many times before on other cars, and always with a good finish. So today, it was time for my Peugeot to get the treatment. I spent a good part of the morning cleaning the outside of the car and a little while ago, I did the wheel trims. 

It is a damn  good car, and probably the best I will have, so I want it to look its best for as long as I can. Check out the photos below and let me know what you think. 

Peace and quiet at the moment as my son is in Ibiza on holiday for a week. Getting suntanned and drunk I would guess, but that is the sort of holiday he likes. 

A night with Annie

Annie. The stage musical of course. This took place in the 'Muni' in Pontypridd about ten miles from Cardiff. 

This used to be run by the local council but was shut to save costs. It has been taken over by a local group who are all volunteers and puts on musicals and arts items.

This show was put on by a local 'am-dram' group, the Pontypridd theatre company. Who knew there was such talent in this little town?  Very well staged, and the young girl who played the central part was simply superb. She sounded just like the girl who first played Annie on the original film back in 1982.

All the cast played great parts, and it was very well received by a virtually full house.  All in all, a great night and it encouraged me to go again the next time they have something on.

Rocket and paper

 A bit a strange title for this blog I would think. But this is a moan about the crap lettuce that is served these days known as rocket lettuce. Whenever you go for a meal in a restaurant they nearly always shove some of this rubbish on the plate and call it 'salad'. Small leaves that just taste of nothing and about two halves of a cherry tomato. And that is a bloody salad. 

Why? because it is cheap and cheerful and can look as if the plate is full. We went for a meal last weekend in a new pub, and I chose burrito. And to be fair it was a very tasty burrito accompanied by some tortilla chips and a long line of salad. Rocket lettuce of course. And all served on a piece of bloody paper on the plate.

Paper! Why would they serve the meal on paper? It was some sort of a type of paper that thankfully did not cut as I was cutting up my food, but why put it on there? The other meals in the party did not have it, and it is hardly going to save washing the plate, so what possible use is it? I imagined that I would be chewing the bloody stuff as I was eating. 

I have seen this in other restaurants so this is not exactly new, I just cannot understand why they would not serve the food straight onto a plate. 

Anyway, that is my daily moan as it is pissing down outside and I am fed up with the TV. Have a nice day all. 

Catch up time

Off for the last few days, as I have been first bored and then busy. On Saturday we took my niece Katie's son out for a birthday treat. He was twelve on the Thursday and a nice bright young man interested in history.

So we took him to Cardiff Castle for a treat. If you have never been there, then while in the city, this is a must see. Well worth the entrance fee and the tour is brilliant. The only down side, is that if you have difficulties with stairs, this is not for you. As we are residents of Cardiff, we were entitled to the Cardiff Key which for a small price will give free entrance to the castle and parts of the house and tour.

The only issue is if you have walking difficulties as there is a lot of stairs up and down on the tour. But it is very interesting and of course the guide are extremely knowledgeable. Well they would have to be or there would no point in doing the job! The tour is just under an hour and then you are free to wander around. One of the highlights is the Castle keep which is the second highest in the UK. 

And then there is the Welsh regiments museum underneath the visitor centre. You can also walk through the walls of the castle where people sheltered from the bombs during the war. All in all a very interesting day and young Lewis loved it.
 

Some more photos taken there below, and the full album is on my Facebook page. 

And then yesterday we went out to a pub for lunch that I had not been to before, the Oystercatcher just outside of Penarth. It is one of the 'hungry horse' pubs, and serves large portions! I had a burrito, and just could not finish it. All in all though a very nice meal and I would go back again. 

It was a very hot day though, as in my car it read 27c and even at home I had 22c, and this in early May. Extreme for the UK, but that will ease off by this week. Us Brit's simply are not used to that heat this early.

Great google maps

On the way to our weekend away, I had put the whole weekend into a new sat nav that I had purchased. This is a Tomtom start 60, and of course, I wanted to try it out properly. I put in all the addresses we were going to via my home computer before we left, and turned it on and away we went.

Yes, I know I should have checked the route out on a map before we went, but of course with a new Sat Nav, they are so good these days, you get a bit lazy. So it was a shock when after an hour of driving and nowhere near my first destination, the Tomtom screen went blank.

After a lot of swearing, I thought the plug for the in car power might be gone so we pulled into a services to get a new one. The guy there checked ours out, and found it working and said that almost certainly the power socket fuse in the car was gone. 

So there I was with no Sat Nav on the way to Stratford. Now I could have found that OK, but the hotel was in Walsall, and a bit of a journey away from there. So I tried the Google maps on my new phone. I know Google maps have been around for ages, but I had never had a phone good enough to use them while driving. 

But with my new phone, this was a different proposition.I put in my first destination, Stratford, and it found it straight away. From there I searched for the hotel and once again it found it with no problem. And from there the next day, the car park near the canals that we had to park at. 

So it is fair to say, that I am now a big fan of the fantastic Google maps. I have used them at home, like I suppose a lot of us, but never as a Sat Nav. They are as good as my Tomtom, although of course not quite as easy to read, but then that has a five inch screen. but, they are very good indeed.

a busy weekend

And a busy weekend it has been. On Saturday we drove to Stratford upon Avon and had a look around there, and if you have never been to Shakespeare's birth place, it is worth a visit. Only a small place, but because of the bard, busy with tourists. Not that I know anything about him, but the history and ancient buildings are worth seeing.  Below is Shakespeare's birthplace.

 Then after that we drove onto Warwick about half an hour away. This was a quiet place when we were there, although it is probable that we missed part of it. The photo I have put in is of 'Eastgate'. This building first built in 1420 fascinated me, as it was used for hundreds of years as part of a school nearby and has now been purchased and remodeled as a private residence available for hire. The link will tell you the prices, but if you could afford it, that would be quite the place to stay.

 After that we moved on to the hotel in Walsall that we had booked for the night. Another holiday inn by Express. We like these for a short stay. They are clean and comfy with all the amenities you need. Breakfast is included in the price, but as we were going for a Sunday lunch, we just had some toast and a hot drink.

And then onto the real reason for this weekend away. We had been given as a Christmas present from my brother and his wife, a riverboat cruise dining experience.  This was on the canals in Birmingham centre, and was a three course Sunday lunch.

We boarded at just before twelve, set off shortly after, being served by waitresses, a very pleasant choice and as the boat only does about four miles an hour, just a gentle relaxing time. It lasts about three hours, and is so easy going. The food was excellent and I would recommend it to anyone.  

These narrow boats are not the easiest to get into and as they are only six foot ten inches at the widest, not for the disabled. That would be the only downside though.  A couple of photos below of narrow boats. 

 The bottom one is the one we took the cruise on. At over seventy foot long, these have to be turned around with care! 

And the last photo is of my lovely partner Denise. Of all the photos I took, this is the one that I think came out best.