Salut tout le monde!
Wales rocks, even though we had to cross the border to england to find the internet. Beautiful weather, gorgeous scenary, food, company… Sita even persuaded me to go horse riding yesterday. I rode Warrior up a mountain near where i did me D of E Bronze award, and I cycled along the canal from our little village to brecon yesterday. Lovely so it is. Anyroad, probl’y won’t see hide nor hair of the interweb for another few days so pardon the delays in mail answering. Looking forward to boring you with me photos and hearing how the summer’s going in other places. Cheers y’all,
gwyn

Quite a day for Londoners yesterday. The coverage ranged from ITV’s tell-us-what-you-felt-like-when-the-bomb-ripped-through-your-carriage to BBC’s “fair and balanced” without-wanting-to-speculate-about-the-motives-of-the-bombers,-which-muslim-extremists-do-you-blame? I initially thought that Tavistock Square was in Tavistock in Devon, which unsettled me a lot. Anyroad, me thoughts are with the deafened London masses and I’m v. glad we didn’t get caught up in it all. I couldn’t get through to Bert’s mobile, but his Dad says he’s fine…

We’re off to Brecon where I doubt there’ll be much blogging action, then Ashton Court Festival next weekend. So there’ll be a bumper crop of photos to slog through once we get back.

Judith & Arturo, if you’re reading this, I got your emails and am glad to hear things are going fine at PAPAS “so far”. Sounds like what needed doing’s been done and things are on the right track. Aguanten! I hope they get the ABC person in before Anna leaves for the North, she could write a 500 page manual on the place…

I’m booking tickets to Prague this morning with Sita, Beth and Ali. One possibility is a Boatel (Boat + Hotel= Boatel) sounds better than a Hoat. It’ll be the first time in a while that I go somewhere I don’t speak the language, but I have 13 days to become fluent in Czech. Otra cerveza por favor, probably won’t quite cut it there. Cheers y’all. Take care out there

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been far too busy having fun (and yet more dentistry) to blog of late. Friday night found us catching up with Beth and Ali and bundle of fun and fur, Jed before heading to Taunton town centre for a few ales. We went to Taunton’s newest Mexican Theme Pub, Que pasa (sic) which was just like walking into Watsonville and Sita grilled the terrified staff about who owned it and if it was a chain, pertinent research questions, naturally. A plan was vaguely hatched to follow Sita and Ali to Prague for a weekend in couple of weeks time, which may or may not happen, depends on the price and that. Both Beth’n’ali are looking well. Plans to have me first fish’n’chips were scuppered by the foolish opening times of Bishop’s Hull’s chippie and dad brought us home safe and sound.
After visiting Taunton market Sat AM for all your dairy, meat and pirate DVD needs, the rest of the weekend was spent round Stu and Anne’s in Bournemouth and that’s where the photos are mainly from (click here, or on the collage). In no particular order, dancing to happy hardcore, watching Live 8 in a pub, scrabble, lasagne, donner kebabs, proper chips, foreign students, irish pubs, hamster, cooked brekkie, walking round forts and beaches, cerne abbas, dorchester. Stu’n’anne’d been off on all kinds of travels since we last met up, india, china, thailand and had a fair few gorgeous pics to browse through. Thoroughly good weekend that one. Ta.
winding down since then, really. walk round lydeard hill with sita, mum and dad, no jed for that one. Off to Brecon on Sat, not sure about internet availability up there. Shall be passing by Hay-on-Wye though, Tanya… righty enough for now, keep up the commenting. Off for another ramble round the village to get away from the omnipresent Olympics 2012 coverage on t’telly. Cheersy- g

was about to blog but i’ve just heard that dinner’s ready. I’ll leave the computer uploading some pix from yesterdays amble round the quantocks.

Almost packed and ready for the off tomorrow morning. it’s 22:58 and while I’m tempted to set my watch to GMT so i can arrive with my circadian rhythms perfectly in sync, it might cause a problem or two as we wander sleepily around LAX tomorrow. Sally’s taking us to the airport and we’ll be arriving in Bristol on Wednesday morning. REALLY looking forward to it. It’s been a lovely week in L.A., which, despite its many shortcomings, is very homely thanks to the familia gaytan and assorted mates. Wouldn’t want to live here though, oh no. No. It gets a bit hot, see. Atticus even took to the Pacific Ocean this afternoon, he couldn’t take it either. Were I not wearing my last change of clothes I’d’ve followed him too.

We booked the tix for the 2nd jaunt to the UK, so here you go: in The Borough of Taunton Deane from tomorrow till the 29th of July, back here (LaLaLand) for August, then back to UK for all of September (30th of August till the 29th of Sept, or thereabouts). I’m taking my lappy and camera and shall be nagging me folks to get the broadband plumbed into Kingston so expect some more blogging soonish. Bon pas de voyage, or whatever you wish those who stay put while you travel and don’t forget to comment/ guestmap

Bless’em– A storming mixed grill of stuffed pork, sausages, portabello mushrooms, fish, peppers, shrimps (prawns?) and more was ably served by Roberto & Maca last night. Looking and sounding well the lot of them. They’ve even found a barrio in L.A. that doesn’t look like a mall. Right next to LAX.

Farewell Richard Whitely, ham-fisted Alan-Partridge-alike from the inimitable Countdown. So many fond memories…

As you’ll see in these here new photos Sally, Martin and I have rebuilt the porch in grand fashion. It’s surprisingly sturdy considering the last parts took place after a fine lamb dinner with Chianti, Cab Sauv and Zinfandel all round. There’s also pictures from Downey’s fantastically-named “Wilderness Park”. Santa Cruz it ain’t.

Also, hola Arturo, acabo de ver tu mensaje en mi blog. Bienvenido a mi mundo electronico y te deseo el mejor en el trabajo. Espero que las cosas alli se arreglen pronto y que no te desesperes. Pienso en Uds. alli mucho. Cuidate mucho- un abrazo, gwyn

Here are the photos to accompany yesterday’s entry. And today Sally, Martin and I have been demolishing the porch and building a new one from scratch. Off to the computer swap meet tomorrow AM for bargains aplenty, USB drives, anyone? Dinner and another movie this evening with young Sita and all the usual L.A. fun. Stay well, do good work and keep in touch…

The bunnies got their new hutch yesterday, we only had to go to Petsmart but ended up passing through Old Navy, Staples, Trader Joe’s, All American & Starbucks along the way… basically I got malled in LA again, hey ho, we made amends today by going to a genuine (open since 1937- California prehistory) Farmers Market and feasting on Greek fancy food then on to La Brea tar pits where many a dinosaur met its end. I was expecting it to be more like in Sin City so was a little disappointed, but there was lots to see and it was nicely laid out and all.

After all the cultural fun, we headed for Venice Beach, Santa Monica, various pubs, to see Mr & Mrs Smith (AVOID… 2 lulus, tops) then, at Sita’s request, Hooters for a meal. Photos were taken and will doubtless follow soon. We’re fine tuning our travel plans and budgetary possibilies for this summer, the Massachusetts part is looking a little shaky right now… more on that as we thrash it all out though. Time for bed methinks…

Here’s a gallery of photos in and around the house in da ‘hood.

Thanks to a combination of fantastic friends, in-laws and compliant pets we made it to L.A. in one piece. We spent today reorganising the garage to hold not only Martin & Sally’s heirlooms but 2 bunnies and all our crap too. Looks like more trips to the dump are in our close future. Sally’s been cleaning, cooking and orchestrating good times all round. Martin had me taking pictures of the house to show to one of his ham radio buddies, it’ll take a while to upload them on dial-up… (the first casualty of moving is DSL)… but we’ll get there as long as no one rings us during the process. I’ve been in L.A. 24 hours nearly and we’ve I’ve managed not to go to any malls or chain stores. We’ve got to go shopping for luxury, EZ-Clean rabbit hutches tomorrow. We might have to go to a multiplex too to enjoy air conditioning and Mr.& Mrs. Smith or Batman Begins or maybe Bewitched which is opening soon I think. We watched Finding Neverland t’other day which Sally recommends. Not my cup of tea, really, but it hit the spot.

We stopped at the giant artichoke in Castroville yesterday and had fine local cuisine for brekky/dinner, the rest of the journey I got by on coke and Snickers mind, then arrived after 7 hours or so in one piece with a tired little doggy and 2 traumatised conejitos in tow.

Righty that’s it for now. Might have some more photos up soon. Byeee

Thanks to a combination of fantastic friends, in-laws and compliant pets we made it to L.A. in one piece. We spent today reorganising the garage to hold not only Martin & Sally’s heirlooms but 2 bunnies and all our crap too. Looks like more trips to the dump are in our close future. Sally’s been cleaning, cooking and orchestrating good times all round. Martin had me taking pictures of the house to show to one of his ham radio buddies, it’ll take a while to upload them on dial-up… (the first casualty of moving is DSL)… but we’ll get there as long as no one rings us during the process. I’ve been in L.A. 24 hours nearly and we’ve I’ve managed not to go to any malls or chain stores. We’ve got to go shopping for luxury, EZ-Clean rabbit hutches tomorrow. We might have to go to a multiplex too to enjoy air conditioning and Mr.& Mrs. Smith or Batman Begins or maybe Bewitched which is opening soon I think. We watched Finding Neverland t’other day which Sally recommends. Not my cup of tea, really, but it hit the spot.

We stopped at the giant artichoke in Castroville yesterday and had fine local cuisine for brekky/dinner, the rest of the journey I got by on coke and Snickers mind, then arrived after 7 hours or so in one piece with a tired little doggy and 2 traumatised conejitos in tow.

Righty that’s it for now. Might have some more photos up soon. Byeee

News and pix soon from a very smooth transition from Santa Cruz to Downey via the Artichoke Centre of the World. Thanks to everyone involved.

Lovely, lovely night round Sudarat’s house. Photos for your delight and delectation here.

Last few bargains

Atticus’s wound was going down nicely… too nicely. It healed up, stopped oozing and started swelling again and a trip to the vets was in order this morning. $150 bucks later and the drain’s back in, the 15 inch collar’s on and, oh, he has tapeworm (don’t worry, Liz, it’s a one-off pill treatment, wil clear up in no time, promise, and we’re thinking of getting him Doggy health insurance for the next year…) (please don’t change you mind…). He needs constant care and attention and I’ve got a million things to do… Honest.

I’ve been backing up DVDs before our trip… I was testing the copy of Spaced and happened upon the episode where Daisy gets a dog while Mike and Tim are out paintballing. The episode ends with Tim saying something along the lines of “I’ve never been this happy, I literally have no responsibilities at all, and everything has been sorted out”, then the camera zooms back to the scottie dog that’s just been adopted… with the attendant horror film effects.