Holiday Write-Up
Apr. 23rd, 2012 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teylaminhRight, back at work after my week off. I am more tired now than I was before I went away, go figure.
So, we went to Tenby from 14th to 18th April. Both the 14th and the 18th were taken up with travel (6-7 hours by coach, one change on the way there and two on the way back), and thankfully the weather on both of those days was rubbish and it was lovely whilst we were there - the exact opposite of what the weather forecast predicted. :)
We arrived about 6.30pm on the Saturday. It took a while to find the apartment because it was hidden away behind a wall, but it was very nice and definitely more than worth the £60 per night that we paid. It was a basement apartment so fairly quiet (at least until the upstairs neighbours spent most of Tuesday stamping about; I have no idea what they were doing up there, presumably refurbishing but it sounded like they were just running around), and the kitchen was ridiculously well-stocked with utensils, pans, etc. We actually only cooked one proper meal in there as we ate out most of the days (apart from breakfast), but managed it with minimal trouble.
On Saturday night, both being knackered, we went to a local chippy for tea. OMG, best fish and chips I have EVER had.
On Sunday the weather was beautiful and since we were up early, we went for a walk along the beach. As it was early, for the most part the beach was deserted. The trouble with walking along the beach is that you have no sense of perspective, so we literally walked for miles. I'll find a map later to demonstrate but we think it was about three miles. At the end of the beach we decided to climb up the cliff path, at which point we noticed that Tenby was very far away and we had in fact almost reached Penally, the next coastal town along. Foolishly we had brought no water with us (not anticipating climbing a cilff) so we headed back again. The thing I like about beach-walking is that it's low impact so your feet don't hurt - apart from being good exercise. Plus the cliff-climbing was effectively our work-out for the week. ;)
We had lunch at Tenby House, a nearby pub, which was very nice, and scouted out local restaurants to narrow down the choices for Monday night. We also discovered that Peacocks still exists in Wales! Which was fortuitous, as I'd forgotten to pack my pyjama bottoms, so managed to buy some new ones.
I think we spent Sunday wandering around, to be honest, as the weather was nice. The trouble with being on the coast was that it changed literally every five minutes as the wind blew the clouds around, but Sunday was definitely the nicest day of the three. We cooked on Sunday night and had a roast pork dinner. Had to buy the stuff from Sainsbury's (meh) but it was very nice nonetheless.
On Monday, we took a boat-trip over to Caldey Island. This is mostly untouched apart from the touristy bit leading up to the cliff path (there's a cafe, gift shop, perfume shop and 'chocolate factory' where we bought some fudge - the raspberry one was AMAZING) and the lighthouse, as there is a monastery there. There's also the ruins of the old priory. We decided to do the cliff walk, which was very uphill indeed. It took another day and a half for my legs to recover, though I do feel less guilty about not going to the gym for a week. :P
The boats back from the island are every half-hour so we headed back around half-three and had some pasties from a nearby shop (Paul's was lamb with a fruity gravy, mine was chilli beef), and went back to the apartment for a bit. Whereupon I had a quick bath, then fell asleep for about two hours.
We had our anniversary meal at The Plantagenet, a local seafood restaurant. Very expensive but definitely worth it. Paul tried oysters for his starter and didn't like them (which was a shame as they were pricey!), but everything else was lovely. For starter I had a butternut squash and potato cake, then for mains I had the monkfish with colcannon and Paul had a sewin fillet with samphire risotto (sewin is a bit like trout, samphire is I think a type of seaweed - it was very nice, though). I had the lemon cheesecake for dessert.
We managed to get through half of season 2 of Glee whilst away and are still working through the rest of it now we're back...
Tuesday was a bit more sedate as I was finding walking a bit tricky - my legs felt about as bad as after my first training session with Samson! We mostly wandered around pubs and the amusement arcades (why is feeding 2-pence pieces into a coin-push machine so addictive?) We had an early dinner at Tenby House again to try their 'famous' rib-eye steak. It's normally £12.95 for a 16oz steak, but they had them on offer for £10 with a pint! Even though they accidentally got them the wrong way around (we realised halfway through eating them that I'd got Paul's rare and he'd got my medium, but decided to carry on anyway) they were very nice. And anyway, they were served on hotplates so would have ended up more "done" than we'd ordered in any event...
In the evening we watched one the DVD's we'd taken with us, Submarine, which was weird but good. (I watched Edward Scissorhands earlier in the day as it had been a while...) Spent the evening packing up the majority of things and had an early night.
Wednesday we got up early as the coach was at 10.10. As we'd run out of breakfast things we decided to go and find a cafe, as Paul was convinced there would be one open somewhere near the bus stop. This turned out to be a naive assumption, so we ended up having sandwiches from Sainsbury's and waiting around AGES for the bus as we got there at about 8.45. :P The journey back wasn't too bad; I nodded off on the Tenby-Swansea journey, then we sat in Costa for an hour at Swansea waiting for our transfer. Another half-hour wait at Cardiff and then the home stretch, which was delayed by Hagley Road traffic at the Five Ways island, which was inevitable. We got back at a decentish time anyway.
I then spent Thursday putting pics on Facebook, and of the evening we went to Comet to get the new TV with the aid of David's car. As a thank you we took he and my mum out for a meal at the Kings Head, thus capping off the insane amount of money we spent whilst in Tenby. Accommodation and travel were relatively cheap but everything else was not. :P
The next three days were spent being lazy. I managed to get some washing done, but that was about it. So much for cleaning the house and sorting out the office. :P
So, there we go. That week off went far too quickly. I think I'll book another one in May or June and use it to sort out the house. I need to measure up the bedroom and living room and plot out furniture re-arrangement on graph paper, as at some point we need to get the piano in, and I want to rearrange the bedroom. The cut-off corners of the upstairs rooms are an interesting feature, but a bit of a pain in the arse when you're trying to fit things into the rooms. :P At some point the other two bedrooms (spare room and office) also need rearranging, but they can wait until I've bought a new desk and some new bookcases...
I want to get things at least vaguely sorted by July so we can have a house-warming barbecue. Once I start sorting things I will carry on until I reach an adequate end point; it's just finding the energy and motivation to start, because I keep looking at all the stuff and then feel overwhelmed by the prospect. :P
Anyway, that's that.
So, we went to Tenby from 14th to 18th April. Both the 14th and the 18th were taken up with travel (6-7 hours by coach, one change on the way there and two on the way back), and thankfully the weather on both of those days was rubbish and it was lovely whilst we were there - the exact opposite of what the weather forecast predicted. :)
We arrived about 6.30pm on the Saturday. It took a while to find the apartment because it was hidden away behind a wall, but it was very nice and definitely more than worth the £60 per night that we paid. It was a basement apartment so fairly quiet (at least until the upstairs neighbours spent most of Tuesday stamping about; I have no idea what they were doing up there, presumably refurbishing but it sounded like they were just running around), and the kitchen was ridiculously well-stocked with utensils, pans, etc. We actually only cooked one proper meal in there as we ate out most of the days (apart from breakfast), but managed it with minimal trouble.
On Saturday night, both being knackered, we went to a local chippy for tea. OMG, best fish and chips I have EVER had.
On Sunday the weather was beautiful and since we were up early, we went for a walk along the beach. As it was early, for the most part the beach was deserted. The trouble with walking along the beach is that you have no sense of perspective, so we literally walked for miles. I'll find a map later to demonstrate but we think it was about three miles. At the end of the beach we decided to climb up the cliff path, at which point we noticed that Tenby was very far away and we had in fact almost reached Penally, the next coastal town along. Foolishly we had brought no water with us (not anticipating climbing a cilff) so we headed back again. The thing I like about beach-walking is that it's low impact so your feet don't hurt - apart from being good exercise. Plus the cliff-climbing was effectively our work-out for the week. ;)
We had lunch at Tenby House, a nearby pub, which was very nice, and scouted out local restaurants to narrow down the choices for Monday night. We also discovered that Peacocks still exists in Wales! Which was fortuitous, as I'd forgotten to pack my pyjama bottoms, so managed to buy some new ones.
I think we spent Sunday wandering around, to be honest, as the weather was nice. The trouble with being on the coast was that it changed literally every five minutes as the wind blew the clouds around, but Sunday was definitely the nicest day of the three. We cooked on Sunday night and had a roast pork dinner. Had to buy the stuff from Sainsbury's (meh) but it was very nice nonetheless.
On Monday, we took a boat-trip over to Caldey Island. This is mostly untouched apart from the touristy bit leading up to the cliff path (there's a cafe, gift shop, perfume shop and 'chocolate factory' where we bought some fudge - the raspberry one was AMAZING) and the lighthouse, as there is a monastery there. There's also the ruins of the old priory. We decided to do the cliff walk, which was very uphill indeed. It took another day and a half for my legs to recover, though I do feel less guilty about not going to the gym for a week. :P
The boats back from the island are every half-hour so we headed back around half-three and had some pasties from a nearby shop (Paul's was lamb with a fruity gravy, mine was chilli beef), and went back to the apartment for a bit. Whereupon I had a quick bath, then fell asleep for about two hours.
We had our anniversary meal at The Plantagenet, a local seafood restaurant. Very expensive but definitely worth it. Paul tried oysters for his starter and didn't like them (which was a shame as they were pricey!), but everything else was lovely. For starter I had a butternut squash and potato cake, then for mains I had the monkfish with colcannon and Paul had a sewin fillet with samphire risotto (sewin is a bit like trout, samphire is I think a type of seaweed - it was very nice, though). I had the lemon cheesecake for dessert.
We managed to get through half of season 2 of Glee whilst away and are still working through the rest of it now we're back...
Tuesday was a bit more sedate as I was finding walking a bit tricky - my legs felt about as bad as after my first training session with Samson! We mostly wandered around pubs and the amusement arcades (why is feeding 2-pence pieces into a coin-push machine so addictive?) We had an early dinner at Tenby House again to try their 'famous' rib-eye steak. It's normally £12.95 for a 16oz steak, but they had them on offer for £10 with a pint! Even though they accidentally got them the wrong way around (we realised halfway through eating them that I'd got Paul's rare and he'd got my medium, but decided to carry on anyway) they were very nice. And anyway, they were served on hotplates so would have ended up more "done" than we'd ordered in any event...
In the evening we watched one the DVD's we'd taken with us, Submarine, which was weird but good. (I watched Edward Scissorhands earlier in the day as it had been a while...) Spent the evening packing up the majority of things and had an early night.
Wednesday we got up early as the coach was at 10.10. As we'd run out of breakfast things we decided to go and find a cafe, as Paul was convinced there would be one open somewhere near the bus stop. This turned out to be a naive assumption, so we ended up having sandwiches from Sainsbury's and waiting around AGES for the bus as we got there at about 8.45. :P The journey back wasn't too bad; I nodded off on the Tenby-Swansea journey, then we sat in Costa for an hour at Swansea waiting for our transfer. Another half-hour wait at Cardiff and then the home stretch, which was delayed by Hagley Road traffic at the Five Ways island, which was inevitable. We got back at a decentish time anyway.
I then spent Thursday putting pics on Facebook, and of the evening we went to Comet to get the new TV with the aid of David's car. As a thank you we took he and my mum out for a meal at the Kings Head, thus capping off the insane amount of money we spent whilst in Tenby. Accommodation and travel were relatively cheap but everything else was not. :P
The next three days were spent being lazy. I managed to get some washing done, but that was about it. So much for cleaning the house and sorting out the office. :P
So, there we go. That week off went far too quickly. I think I'll book another one in May or June and use it to sort out the house. I need to measure up the bedroom and living room and plot out furniture re-arrangement on graph paper, as at some point we need to get the piano in, and I want to rearrange the bedroom. The cut-off corners of the upstairs rooms are an interesting feature, but a bit of a pain in the arse when you're trying to fit things into the rooms. :P At some point the other two bedrooms (spare room and office) also need rearranging, but they can wait until I've bought a new desk and some new bookcases...
I want to get things at least vaguely sorted by July so we can have a house-warming barbecue. Once I start sorting things I will carry on until I reach an adequate end point; it's just finding the energy and motivation to start, because I keep looking at all the stuff and then feel overwhelmed by the prospect. :P
Anyway, that's that.
