Blogs from Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom, Europe - page 7

Well, it's been some time since I last put finger to keyboard in anger and now it's time for that to change. For one reason or another, I haven't seen some of you in a long, long while. Maybe it's because we live on different continents or we've inexplicably lost touch in this modern communication age. Maybe it's because we've changed addresses, lifestyles, phones and friends. Maybe we've just changed? Anyway, here's an almost chronological update of what's gone on in the previous sixteen months since I returned from my Latin American adventure... I arrived back at Heathrow - that giant shopping mall/high security prison with an airport attached - tired of international travel and still quite ill from the mysterious Guatemalan/Colombian stomach bug that had did for my insides what Chernobyl Power Plant had did ... read more

Our last day in London we went and saw the musical Evita which was good and which we really enjoyed. Although nothing can compare to Equus. We almost went to the stage door on our last night in London to talk to the actors because we still couldn't stop thinking about the show but then we found a Canadian pub and stayed there instead. We even convinced the pub owners to switch the t.v. from a soccer station to a hockey one with our Canadian charm. On the 9th we took the train from London to Bath for a couple hours before continuing on to Swansea. Bath is the picturesque village famed for it's hot springs and used by early pagan Britons and then converted by the Romans into baths. We stumbled around in sheer ... read more

We spent a beautiful afternoon having a picnic in my car, and then running around and enjoyin the freezing cold weather..... Lisa and Amy (crazy girls!!!) even managed to run around without their shoes on... So much fun!!... read more

The first real test of the man/bike/trailer machine was passed successfully last week, with all three of us covering the 70 odd kilometres between Swansea and Cilycwm, the site of the Small nations festival in the encouraging time of 3 hours 45 minutes (and one second). The only two problems I noticed were the tendency of the clamp attaching the trailer to the frame of the bike to slip and the bulging sides of the full to the brim trailer rubbing against the trailer's tyres. The first has been resolved with the help of the resourceful Paul from Schmoos in Swansea, who suggested attaching a piece of tyre rubber to the frame with cable ties, providing an attachment point for the trailer; the second was temporarily fixed by a visit to a garden centre en-route to ... read more

Now the weather has got back on track in proper summer style, me and the old girl are enjoying the ups and downs that Swansea has to offer. Yesterday we took a trip up to Dunvant, which involved a couple of steep, battery acid in the leg inducing climbs, followed by the joy of free wheeling down to the front, overtaking cars all the way. Then along to the Mumbles, before taking on the slow and steady climb up to Newton, where I stopped off for much needed liquid intake at Auntie Chris' hill top residence. And so finally to JCS, the uni bar, to enjoy a hard earned pint. A big up to the hard working staff of JCS, for their tireless efforts to provide the student hordes with veritable lakes of booze, all provided ... read more