Blogs from Vale Of Glamorgan, Wales, United Kingdom, Europe

Woolly says – the sun was shining as I padded towards the shore line but with the clouds gathering above I was mindful that the day could get chilly and hoped that Jo had packed another few extra layers for me. Our tour guide for the day was an old friend from Aberystwyth, Tal, having been greeted with warm hugs and a round of ‘what’s occuring’ I remembered why I liked her so much when the first port of call was to her Aunt’s pub and lunch. Having demolished a lovely plate of fish and chips and tried to hide the fact that the ketchup seemed to have adhered itself to rather a lot of my body parts we were at the start of our tour of Barry. Barry is a town in the Vale of ... read more

So here we are. We made it. To the other side of the world and back. The flight was long and an added delay in Dubai made it longer still, but we got back home in one piece. So did Jans new china dining set that she bought in Pukekohe and boxed up to fly back with us. Sitting here in cold rainy Wales reflecting on the past month, there are always things to be learned from holidays: No matter how many times you order it, Den will still think a fry up is on its way if you order English breakfast tea, Caleb is possibly the best behaved baby on the planet-hats off to michelle again- the routine paid off-speaking of routine, the folder went everywhere with Michelle and she did a great job of ... read more

Today we set out on a quest to see the coast of Wales - by foot. The city of Cardiff itself is not right on the coast (the water being the Bristol channel which eventually goes out to the Atlantic) but a borough of the city, called Cardiff Bay, sits (surprise!) on Cardiff Bay. The actual bay is separated from the channel by a series of large locks. We'd heard that Cardiff Bay (the city) is known for being one of Europe's most modern waterfront complexes, so we wanted to check it off the list. So we started walking in what we thought was the right direction, and didn't feel the need to consult a map. We were going the right way, but what we didn't realize was that we were on the wrong side of ... read more

Unfortunately the only reason I have time to write this now is because I can't physically sleep, not through an entire night anyway. Every time my head hits the pillow my eye falls on the Spanish subjunctive review and the Ted Hughes quotes I have stuck to my ceiling (which, I guess, was the entire point of sticking them to the ceiling), and out of that follows an frantic mental review of operatic terms. Suddenly, my mind is whirring so incessantly that sometimes I even have to start reading my Chemistry textbook in order to get myself to fall asleep. I could easily blame the elaborate ceremony that is End of Codes for irrevocably interrupting my sleep rhythm; if I described my past week in terms of Higher Level Music terminology, it would be a compound ... read more

I feel like I should write quickly, before something goes wrong. Among the hailstones pelting campus yesterday, the only one which could be large enough to pop my constantly-inflating helium balloon of blissful perfection is the IB itself, which I consider more of an inevitable fiery meteor now than a hailstone anyway. After the week and a half that I spent actually living (as in, eating in the practice rooms and sleeping on the white leather couch) in the upstairs of the music department, the frantic hair-tearing night I typed the final full stop at the end of my conclusion in my chemistry design practical, and the methodical afternoon I spent in Marion's guest bedroom skipping out on lying in her garden in the golden afternoon to ask her statistician father how to do problem 3a ... read more