A christening, and some good and bad reviews !!

This weekend Jim and I were off to Anglesey for my little grand daughter Ruby Jo's christening. My son Ben and two friends were coming from Birmingham to pick us up, first spending the day in Blackpool, on their way.

Saturday night we went out for a meal in Lancaster at The Keys in Lancaster I cannot rate this place highly enough. The staff were very polite and helpful. The meal was superb, and the portions more than ample for even the biggest appetite.

 Sunday saw us off to Anglesey for a couple of days, for the christening and meeting up with more of the family that had also travelled up from the Midlands. The christening was lovely and Ruby was smiles all the way through the service even when the vicar splashed her with water at the font lol. The weather was beautiful, even though a lot of the uk was fighting floods, we were bathed in sunshine, apart from a few drops of rain early in the afternoon.

 Monday, although some of the family were fighting hangovers (not me *smirk*) from our usual sing song and heavy drinking session the night before, we went off to Moel y Don beach. After being dissapointed that our usual session at the go carting centre was a non starter as it wasn't open Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. We spotted a sign for RibRide Adventure Boat Trips, this would be a great alternative ..we thought. How wrong were we, because the boss was apparently away for a week, the guy that answered the phone said they could only do trips out for 7 or more people and that worked out at £24 per person. That was fine we had 7 once my daughter finished work, and my youngest son Billie had been collected. So we rang back to confirm it, only to find they couldn't find the guy that usually drives the rib !! But he'd ring us back before 3pm to let us know one way or the other, that didn;t happen so we'd sat around for ages waiting for nothing.

My son said there was another place in Menai Bridge that did rib rides, Porth Daniel Leisure Ltd so we rang that instead. Yes they did rib rides, but couldn't do another one because it was after 3pm, and they weren't doing any more till the Weds. You would think that with recession being as bad as it is and businesses closing down all over the place they would welcome being able to get the rib filled with one family, but apparently not !!

 Resigned not be having any kind of adventure on this trip, we decided to go for a meal before we left for home. We chose to go to a place called Parc Britannia Pub Restaurant locally known as Table Table as we'd heard good reports about the standard of the food. Well, I don't know if we hit them on a bad day or what but the main meal was horrible. The pies had very little meat in them, the plates were boiling hot but the chips were cold. My son who's a chef said the lasangne was horrible and left half of his. Jim and my daughter had the 6 oz burgers, both of them were over cooked and dry. We were extremely dissapointed and despite the starters being lovely, we complained and got our drinks for free. I'll put some photo's on in few days when I've sorted them out.

Best made plans and all that

With the best will in the world, the delay in writing my blog wasn't actually my fault this time ..... well not directly !! After having a fantastic week in Lancaster with my fella Jim, and meeting two of his lovely girls and some of his grand kids.I suddenly started feeling unwell. Expecting to be able to shrug off whatever had struck me down in a couple of days, I ignored it as I usually do. In this case that wasn't the best idea at all. I became really poorly and a kidney infection was diagnosed and antibiotics prescribed.

At one point I hadn't eaten for almost a week, had such a high temperature I thought I was cold when I was in fact burning up, and visa versa. When the antibiotics didn't seem to be working, both Jim and I were getting pretty worried, I decided I needed to get home and see my own doctor. With a lot of effort from my son Ben, he managed to get one of my other sons Dan to come up from the Midlands to Lancaster and brought me and Jim back to Anglesey, and an appointment was swiftly made for me at my doctors. She agreed with the previous diagnosis but said that she was going to give me another antibiotic as sometimes some infections become immune to them.

Another two days of tablets and I was still really ill, I couldn't eat or drink anything, and I had visions of me ending up in hospital. Then finally they started to take effect and I was able to eat and drink something at last. Even now the infection has gone, I'm still feeling very tired and haven't got any energy. But that will sort itself out given time I'm sure.

I honestly don't know how I would have coped without my lovely Jim. He was there constantly for me, and nothing was too much trouble, so I want to publicly say a huge thank you Jim, love you loads.

Once I was well on the mend, we decided a breath of fresh air would do me the world of good, and for once the weather was on our side. So we set off to the nearest beach that I can get to on my scooter and Jim cooked us breakfast on the beach. We enjoyed ourselves so much we decided as the weather was holding we'd go off on another trek the following day too. This time we headed down to Menai Bridge, taking the scenic route. I'm ashamed to say that Jim is already more familiar with pretty ways to get to places than I am !! We had a 5 mile round trip in the end, and on the way saw some amazing fungi, a view of Menai Bridge that I hadn't seen before and had lunch at the pier this time.

One thing that has become more apparent on these two jaunts is how bad Anglesey's footpaths are for the disabled !! So maybe Anglesey Council should forget putting speed humps that they've got funding for and spend it on something that REALLY needs doing !!! On a couple of occasions Jim had to literally bump my scooter down off a path because I couldn't ride the scooter down. If I'd have been on my own, there's no way I'd have managed to do it on my own !!

Here are a few photo's I took while we were out and about.

Jim cooking breakfast on the beach yummm.



A huge fungi that was about 3 1/2 ft across



A lovely view of Menai Bridge



One of those arhhhhh photo's.

Blogger problems

I've been trying to write on my blog for just over a week now, and not been able to log in. From what I've been reading online there's been quite a few other people suffering the same problem. In all the time I've been using blogger this is only the 2nd time I've had problems with it. The only way I've managed to get on to my blog now is by using internet explorer, which is annoying really as I far prefer firefox.

It's been a bit of an odd time for me this last month or so, I haven't been able to do anything crafty for some reason. All my creativity seems to have deserted me, and the 3 mosaics I made have laid unfinished. The beautiful sunshine we had for weeks on end, has also vanished, and been replaced with high winds and loads of rain.

However the weather didn't stop a very good friend of mine taking me on an overnight drive through mid Wales. As it was a full moon that night, we were hoping to see a moonbow, similar to the one we'd seen years previously. For those that don't know a moonbow, is the same as a rainbow, but because it's night time and a full moon the moonlight shines through the rain and creates a pure white rainbow. Sadly the skies were full of clouds, and any hope of seeing a moonbow rapidly declined.

But that didn't dampen our spirits and we happily drove along narrow, very bendy dirt tracks singing our heads off, just incase my friend should happen to read this maybe I should rephrase that, and say he sang.... I warbled along with him lol. A lot of the time we were driving through heavy rain, sometimes fog with 200 or 300ft drops on one side. If I didn't trust his driving so much, it might not have been such an enjoyable drive. At one of the places we stopped at a big moth flew into the car, I've never seen such a big one, so I took the opportunity to take some photo's of it. After we watched the dawn come up we started to take a leisurely drive home, a good time had by both of us.

The photo's this time are, a photo of the big moth I've just written about. The 2nd one is a photo of a mural of Menai Bridge the same friend has recently finished in someones conservatory, and finally the 3rd is a photo of some young friends that popped by to see us the other day with their little girl Effy Summer.

Easter fun and car stresses

Just before Easter my daughter took her car into our regular garage as there was a knocking noise when she went round corners. The guy in the garage took the wheel off to have a look and found that the brake callipers were worn and rusty. So advised my daughter to go round to another guy that does car repairs to get him to have a look and see if he could get it done quicker. To cut a long story short, the brake callipers got sorted out, but much to my daughters dismay the original knocking was still there !! This causes so much stress as any car repairs are a major financial headache in this house, so she knew that even more money was going to have to be spent on the car. However lack of cash was going to stop the 2nd job from being done anyway.

My daughter was so het up about the car later in the day, she accidentally let it slip that one of my sons was planning a surprise visit with some friends of ours from Birmingham the next day !! Friday duly arrived and my son and our friends arrived a little fraught as the traffic on the M6 was terrible. After some discussion they booked into the Auckland Arms in Menai Bridge for two days. I felt terrible when they went to drop off their luggage and came back saying that the place was way below the standard they expected from the website. The kettles were filthy inside and had to be brought round to my house to be scoured out before being used. Not a good start !!! They came back and we talked quite late into the night catching up on each others news, and my son bought us a chinese meal for our dinner ...I had king prawn curry it was yummmmmm lol. Then off they went to their B&B for the night.

The following day they came round ready for a day out sightseeing. It turned out that things didn't improve when they got back to the Auckland Arms, as the beds were very uncomfortable, also the breakfast in the morning wasn't up to much either. It took ages to get served and even when it did arrive it wasn't very warm, the toast had been put on top of the disgusting tasting beans, making it go soggy. My friends were not impressed !!! At £240 for the two nights they were here they expected better, so I advise anyone looking for B&B's on Anglesey to avoid the one I've mentioned here. It's obvious from the link that follows that my friends weren't the only ones that found this place substandard either, just wish I'd found these reviews before they'd booked in there !! Trip Advisor.Co.Uk

It was a warm and sunny day, so we set off to Porthmadog's black rock sands, for a day on the beach followed by a trip through the mountains on the way home. Much fun was had by all, playing frisbee and football.My youngest sons huge 6ft kite was the most popular thing to have a go at though lol. My friend Mandy went off to the loo and was gone for at least an hour and half, we were all wondering where she'd got to when she back clutching a load of leaflets and telling us all to get in the minibus she'd got us an invite to a free bbq lol. She'd gone to have a look round a caravan holiday park and the owners had invited her and the remaining 6 of us to go to the bbq too. By the time we left there, there's no doubt in our minds that if she'd have had the money to buy one of the holiday homes there and then she would have, she was so impressed. After that we took a leisurely drive back through the mountains to get home. We were quite surprised how much snow there was still on the ground in places, some of it quite thick.

Another sunny day dawned on Sunday, and we'd arranged to go to the car boot at Mona. Much to my surprise my youngest son and his heavily pregnant girlfriend had managed to get up in time to come too. This son is not known for getting up early I might add lol. I was disappointed to see that there were only 4 rows of booters even though it was Easter, but I suppose as the weather had been so unpredictable earlier in the week, it wasn't that surprising. I managed to find myself some new books to read, a little tea light lamp and a cardi. My friends Mandy and Mart surpassed themselves and bought an X box and a motorbike lol. That's the first time in all the years I've gone to car boots that I've known anyone spend over £600 lol.

Once we'd got back to my house and had a coffee, my older son decided he wanted to treat us to Sunday lunch before they set off back home. As we all have healthy appetites it was decided to try and find a carvery not too far away. We found one in Pentraeth but sadly it was already packed to the rafters, so we carried on towards Benllech and found a little pub which didn't do a carvery but their food was gorgeous. I just wish I could remember the name of it to give them a plug but I can't :o( All to soon it was time was my son and our friends to start their journey back home to the Midlands again. The time had gone way to fast, but we'd all enjoyed it !!

Waitrose in Menai Bridge !!

A little bit of excitement on sleepy Anglesey, we have a new Waitrose supermarket opened up in Menai Bridge. Even though we don't enjoy shopping my daughter and I thought we'd go and give it the once over. The car park was busy as you'd expect, and no doubt the powers that be at Waitrose, thought someone directing the traffic there would be a good idea. WRONG ..... the only thing holding up the traffic, was the guy that was trying to guide people to parking spaces !! Maybe they should have thought of employing someone that could see over the tops of the cars, rather than someone who had to continually run up and down to see if there were any spaces ....dohhhh.

Once inside we started looking at prices ...OMG all branded items were at least 40p dearer than they are at the regular supermarkets. Even their own cheap brand was expensive, so it's back to good old Tesco's for us !! When we got to the checkouts, although friendly enough, the cashier was a little too sickly friendly if you know what I mean. I didn't really need to be told to check my change, or be told to have a good day or to be told to come back soon ...because I won't be lol.

Much to my surprise my daughter stuck her head round the door yesterday morning and asked if I wanted to go to Mona Car Boot ..did I ever !!! I got changed in record time and within 10 mins were off for some rummaging. How disappointing, only 2 rows of booters, my daughter kindly pointed out even if there were more booters, it was doubtful I'd have managed to walk round many more anyway :o( !! Still you never know what little treasure you might find. As it was the only things I bought was a keyboard for my pc and a couple of books. I was quite pleased with the keyboard, as I'd worn the letters off my one, but once I'd plugged it in I found out why it only cost me 50p !! It had some weird affliction which made it go up and down the pages all on its own lol. Being the frugal type person I am, I decided rather than just throw it away I'd pull off all the keys and put them on my old keyboard ...success !!!

So later on there I was happily surfing the net, when all of a sudden there was a bang and our electric went off. As the noise seemed to come from my daughters room I went to investigate. She confirmed that yes indeed something in her room had caused the bang. As our electric fuse box has one of those trip switches I foolishly thought I'd just have to flick the switch and normal service would be resumed. Wrong ... for some reason flicking the switch didn't work. While I was stood there wondering what to do next my daughter joined me, and we crouched down looking at the fuse box for inspiration as to what to do next. Then we made the biggest mistake of all we started randomly flicking switches up and down, completely forgetting to keep track on where they were in the first place. After 10 mins we were defeated, and as I didn't have a clue who to ring, I used the intercom system in all these bungalows. The guy that answered asked if I wanted him to ring Manweb on my behalf, not knowing any different my reply was ...If that's who has to be rung then yes please. About an hour later the Manweb man duly arrived, and with a few quick flicks he sorted out the fuse box and power was restored. As he was leaving he asked if the bungalow was council I said yes, and he told me that they weren't the ones that should have been called, apparently the council have their own emergencies contractors ...so I hope there's not going to be a bill land on the mat !! The one odd thing about the whole saga was, that I noticed when the switches are in the right place, the little indicator colour below the switch was red. Yet if you flicked it off then the indicator colour was green. Now to my mind that's the wrong way round surely ?

Anyway ramblings aside here's a couple of photo's I took yesterday.