Not-so-brief catch up

It’s been a while since I last jotted down what I’ve been up to, and as I’ve got a few photo’s and some video I ought to do that really. Here we go:

This shouldn’t come as as a surprise, but I realise I forgot to mention it: I started work at View Creative on June 2nd. View are a print and web design agency, and the last few months have been fantastic! The team are great, the work is challenging and interesting, and I can’t wait to show some stuff off. In fact, we did recently complete work on St. George’s Hotel, Llandudno, so go have a nosey if you are interested. I’m the guy responsible for all the mark-up, CSS, and JS. I also tweaked the design over a few weeks with a couple of other guys.

Heath came over to visit on June 14th, we went to see Ben and had a brief BBQ at his before he had to go to work. After that we went to Red Wharf Bay for a walk and a paddle before heading over to Llanberris from more walking and talking. The next day we were going to head off to Newborough, but instead chilled out at Bangor Pier before meeting up with Ben and Lou, and John Foster and Laura. We had lunch at the Harp but headed off for late afternoon as poor Heath was not well smiley icon: sad

The weekend of the 21st I headed home to see friends and family. I decided to bring my bike back with me so set about cleaning it. I accidentally cleaned my dad’s having forgotten which was mine - yes it had been that long. It turned out mine needed a new inner tube so mum and I went to get one, and a pump from Cheadle. After dad and myself had got the bike sorted I headed off to pick up Mike G and we had a chill at The Ship, where the sofas were super soft and the fire super warm - it was exactly how I like a pub! A little later Matt and Kath joined us, and it felt like old times - brilliant! smiley icon: smile

After replacing the rear inner tube (again) and re-adjusting the wheel nuts (again) I did eventually get the bike going properly. And for a month I biked to and from work, though during the process I lost three cogs - the top two and bottom one are no longer accessible. It’s an old bike and part of the path is cobblestone. It took a battering. I was thinking of getting a new bike, but for the entire of August it has rained every single day, and not once have I rode to work. It was the dullest August on record, officially.

June 30th I met the Karova gang at Weatherspoons and we did the pub quiz. Despite appropriating the power of Google we managed to not win. We could only conclude that someone else had a faster net connection than us. It’s not cheating apparently, but “utilising resources properly”. It was a fun night and good to see everyone again smiley icon: smile

6th July Kath and myself went out to Red Wharf Bay, but the tide was in which scuppered that plan - we ended up In Baumarris, where we bought sweets at the olden sweet shoppe and chilled out on the mini pier before heading off to Varsity for a game of pool. A week later we decided to try Red Wharf Bay again as it was really nice weather. This time the tide was waaaay out, so we went for a paddle and a walk around to the next cove, where I am told there are sandcastle buildign competitions. Sounds fun. After that we had a slow-to-arrive and not-all-that-good meal at The Ship.

Weekend of the 19th I went home to see family and visit Matt and Kath at their new place in Ashbourne. It’s all very nice, though it’s weird seeing my little sis moving in with my mate from college. Yes, despite the fact they’ve been going out for five years or so. And despite them being engaged. Deeply cool though! That weekend we also went to the Ashbourne Highland Games. Quite why there are Highland games in the middle of England I’m not sure, but it was a good day - Jeff Capes was assisting and commentating, and the day consisted of lots of Scottish guys in kilts either playing instruments or lobbing dirty great weights around. Mum, Dad, and Thomas joined us at the games too, and we were lucky the weather held.

27th July Kath and myself went to Aberfrraw, the original plan had been to meet Ban and Lou and go to Newborough, but Newborough was full to the brim and wasn’t letting cars in, so we just went to the next beach up - which turned out to be really nice. Kath spent a good ten minutes trying to catch fish bare-handed in the river on the way into the beach - there’s video of her trying it, but I missed the moment where she eventually succeeded. We had a great day relaxing and getting mildly sunburnt, but Ben and Lou didn’t arrive as Ben decided at the last minute he better have a panic attack and do some of his dissertation work. Fair play. We therefore went back to Bangor pier and met them both there, and we wandered to Varsity for a meal (I sprung Ben dollar as he was being impoverished that day). After a swift meal Ben had to leave for work so Lou, Kath, and myself went back to his place, pulled the sofa to the edge of the conservatory and set about listening to tunes from my ipod, chatting, and watching the sunset and then the stars. We also tried feeding the bats with rice krispies, which Kath insisted would be like flys to them - not one bat went near our enthusiastically thrown breakfast product. So we started throwing them into each others mouths instead. Or at least trying to. It’s harder than you’d think. Ben got back about 11 and got his telescope out, but we were literally 30sec too late getting it set-up to watch the International Space Station go past - we had to make do with our eyes instead.

1st Aug was spent at Ben’s with Kath and Plip, it was a fun night which ended up with all four of us asleep on Ben’s (tiny) bed. Fri 8th Kath and myself wandered Bangor pier, but just missed out on getting dinner at the Tap & Spile, so after downing a quick drink we headed to Texco, stocked up on food, then went to Penmon. The sun had already set by the time we got there, but it was a cool place to sit on the beach, watch the rest of the sky go dark, listen to the lighthouse (no, really - it has a bell), and talk random talk whilst watching the stars appear. It was, however, very cold and Kath as usual had not dressed for the weather. There’s a video of her attempting to warm up by going for a run - not that you can see much as it was quite dark by then.

Heather came to visit on the 10th, and having discovered Penmon the night before, and Heath not having been before, we headed off to visit Penmon and have a little picnic. It was quite pretty in the daytime, though Ben joined us after we had been there half an hour and immediately said “hmm, not very pretty is it”. I have no idea what passes through his brain sometimes smiley icon: joke We all had a tea and ice-cream at the cafe, before Ben had to head off to work again. Heath and myself went for a random drive around Anglesey and somehow ended up at Red Wharf Bay after an hour or so. But the tide was in so we came back to Llandudno and had some chips in the gardens overlooking the town. It was good to have a catch up, and a nice day overall smiley icon: smile

14th Aug saw Ben with no power as his entire street was without power, so we had dinner at The Harp before heading out for a drive around mid-wales with his new GPS system. It was good fun, a little off-roading, and some random forest tracks helped. We ended up going through Betws-y-coed a few times too. It was during this car-outing that Kath messaged me to say that although she was now at Prestatyn with Justine there had been drama on the train - armed police had arrested a guy with a gun!

16th Aug Kath and myself went for a walk up in the Conwy Mountains, it’s really pretty up there! After that we said hello to Matt at work, who was pulling some weekend overtime (the look on his face seeing us wander into the office was priceless). Having dropped the car off at work and said hello to Matt Kath and myself went for a wander around Conwy itself, and had a very pleasant lunch in the Pen-y-brin Tea Rooms. Highly recommended dear people smiley icon: wink Later on we went to Llandudno and had some chips before I drove us back to Bangor, where we picked up Justing and headed to Weatherspoons for a good old chin-wag. Ben joined us there after he finished work and we managed to watch tv and debate all sorts of things until 3am, when I took the ladies back to their respective homes and drove myself to mine before keeling over on my bed exhausted.

24th I decided to take a random drive with my GPS, and ended up with a couple of photos. Even out in the middle of nowhere (and I mean nowhere - on two occasions I had to stop the car on the road to open gates to drive through) there are people in cars. I eventually hit the end of a road to discover a mini car park full of cars. There were no signs to it, and nothing there but hills, sheep, and power pylons. After that I just drove around through some ye olden back-roads where there were individual houses dotting the landscape, and hens and peacocks wandering loose. It was really nice. I like that, I am definitely not a city boy.

30th Aug saw Kath come visit via train. I was a little late picking her up as I’d bumped into my landlord on the way downstairs! It being lunch time we went to the Haulfre tea-rooms and had some snacking before walking over to the West Shore and mooching around. Later we went clothes shopping and pet-window-shopping, which was a good laugh. As Kath was staying over and I therefore didn’t have to drive we had a bottle of red at mine, chatted loads and watched Family Guy. Excellent. The next morning I awoke with a serious cold, and I’ve had it now for a week! The weather was rubbish so we were stuck inside, listening to music, doodling, and chatting until 4, when we headed off to get her train.

Tuesday was Ben’s birthday, which i forgot until 10pm, but it’s OK because he’d been to Corfu with Lou for the last week and I’m going to blame that for not remembering! Anyway, I went and said hello at the weekend and we all caught up on things before going to the pet shop to spend his birthday money I’d just given him on stuff for his newly acquired fish-tank. We spent the afternoon cleaning it and setting it up, all good fun!

Aaaand that brings us up to date.