Time is counting down

This week we reached another couple of milestones before our return to Brisbane. I officially resigned from my job this week. I made my work aware that I was leaving a while ago so that they would have plenty of time to find a replacement. This week though I handed in my written resignation and will finish at the end of July.

Further steps have been taken towards setting up The Quizzical Owl and we have decided that we will be opening the online store on 1 October 2011. We have a domain name and are looking to get someone to write a webpage for us that will hopefully be ready at this time as well. Things on this front are moving along steadily which is excellent news.

Preparations for the final event as The Bothered Owl continue apace, Alex and Sarah are making lots of bags and needle rolls and Alex has made lots of stitch markers for the event.

Preparations for the travel that we are planning on doing before arriving back in Australia are continuing and I will write a substantial blog post on this when everything is closer to being finalised. Suffice it to say that we are both very excited by the places that we are travelling to.

Both Alex and I are getting excited about taking Sarah's children to Legoland Windsor. We are going with friends who also have two children who are a little bit older than Esme and Orlaith. I am not sure who is looking forward to it more the adults or the children. Photos from the day out will be on the blog next week.

Scott

Nunhead Cemetery

On Saturday 21st May we headed to the Nunhead Cemetery Open Day. We had a lovely time wandering around, taking photos, looking at the overgrown graves, listening to a tour, and generally enjoying the atmosphere of the place. The cemetery has been well maintained in the last few years after a period of decay. It's great to see the place being cared for again.

Blackpool - The Zoo

On our last day in Blackpool, Alex and I decided to visit the Blackpool Zoo.

The zoo is built on the former municipal airport site with some of the original hangars still used for animal enclosures. The zoo opened in 1972 and is now owned by a Spanish company and has links with other zoos within the company’s portfolio.

 

Our first point of call was an exhibit that worked it's way through the 4 prehistoric eras with models of various dinosaurs and a lot of sound effects adding to the atmosphere. Some of the exhibits looked a little tired, but all kids love dinosaurs (and adults too). And we were no exception.


Some photos taken during our visit:

 

Blackpool - The Sea Front

For Alex's Birthday we decided to go to Blackpool for the weekend. Neither of us had been to Blackpool before and wanted to tick it off the list of places we had visited in the UK.

Our hotel

Blackpool is a town that seems to be starting to undergo some regeneration work especially on the sea front. The sea front hotels however were looking very tired and in need of a lot of work to the exterior to complement the work that was going on along the sea front.

We spent a lovely couple of days wandering the sea front and because it was off season there wasn't a lot of tourists or hen/stag parties which made it quite peaceful. We even braved going to the Blackpool Pleasure Beach even though neither of us are really rides people.

The Grand National

So many roller coasters

On the last day before returning to London we visited Blackpool Zoo and had such a lovely time and took so many photos that it is deserving of a post on it's own.

Wales Roadtrip

With The Bothered Owl going to Wonderwool Wales in Builth Wells, we decided to take the opportunity to visit a couple of places in the North of Wales. We picked up the car on Wednesday afternoon, and was much larger than we'd booked. We were upgraded to a Renault Espace.

The Renault Espace

We set off extremely early (4am) to get out of London before the traffic got too busy, as neither of us had driven in London before. Other than the size of the car, we had to get used to having an inbuilt sat-nav which was a little disconcerting initially, but very useful! We managed to get out of London and on the road north easily. The drive to North Wales was very smooth, the only hiccup being when Scott nearly fainted when he saw how much it cost to fill up the car.

The Menai Strait

Our first stop was to the Trefriw Woollen Mill. We found a sign for the mill on the main road and decided to have a look. We saw a demonstration of weaving on their looms (they were making bedspreads). They had some gorgeous items to buy in their shop but we were very restrained.

 

Outside of the Trefriw Mill was a lovely garden where the  the plants were labeled with their uses in textiles and dyeing.

 

North Wales was beautiful and the first place that we travelled to was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch which is on the Isle of Anglesey. The name means "St Mary's Church (Llanfair) in the hollow (pwll) of the white hazel (gwyngyll) near (goger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrndrobwll) and the church of St Tysilio (llantysilio) by the red cave ([a]g ogo goch)". It was named in the 1860’s in order to have the longest train station name in the world. We had our pictures taken under the signs and had some lunch nearby. The station is not used very often and you have to hail the train if you want to board it. The third photo below shows a gentleman hailing the driver.

Afterwards we decided to head to Beaumaris Castle which is also on the Isle of Anglesey. Beaumaris Castle is one of the numerous castles that was built or partially built by Edward I when he twice went to war with the rebelling Welsh. The castle was never more than half built and fell into a state of complete ruin. Then during the Napoleanic Wars, when going on a Grand Tour of Europe was out of the question for English gentlemen, sites within the UK such as the Edward I castles became the destinations of choice, and a lot of restoration work was begun. 

Caernarfon was where we decided to spend the night and then the next morning as soon as Caernarfon Castle opened we were ready at the entrance to go inside and a have a look around. Scott was very excited to be visiting this castle as he had just finished reading a biography on Edward I and knew some of the history behind the building of the castle. Many of Edward's castles were built on the sea for ease of supply/deliveries. We climbed a number of the towers including going to the top of the Eagles tower and the turret that is highest point in the castle. Hopefully the photos will do the site some justice. Caernarfon is also the place where Edward II was born and was given the title of Prince of Wales. More recently Prince Charles was given the title Prince of Wales at this castle as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then headed to Wonderwool Wales for The Bothered Owl and the blog post on the show can be found by clicking here. Our friend Martina and Oliver of Yarn to Knit had parked in the grass and the

First stop after leaving Builth Wells was Hay-on-Wye. This small town boasts some 40 secondhand bookshops. Heaven! We were very restrained though, and only bought one bag full of books.

 

We then headed south to visit Avebury Circle. This is a stone circle but although the stones are not as large as the ones at the more famous Stonehenge, it was an impressive sight indeed. We did not stay very long as we were absolutely knackered from the two days at Wonderwool Wales. 

Our final stop before heading was Polly’s Tea Room in Marlborough which was recommended to us by Eirwen of Knitwitches Yarns and we had a lovely cream tea here before making our final journey along the M4 and into London.

It was a lovely break and we ticked a few more items off of our to do list before we move home in August.