Goodbye August.

Wandering the forest and catching ' withdrawn' absolutely loved this art installation

Heading off for a long weekend to my own little piece of heaven

Failing at getting my seaside ripple finished, but still loving it...

celebrating with friends and family for hubs 50th

staycationing in our home town

visiting the zoofarm

Braving the welsh gales

 and just enjoying the local walks and family time

August has been a lovely month, spent with family and friends. 

It seems fitting that today we close the month in the same way, meeting old friends down at the Harborside, goodbye August you have done us well. 

Walking......

We dithered about yesterday, not knowing quite what to do.

No 1 son still has a lingering cough/cold about him and wasn't up for much of anything,  no 2 son was happy to do what ever. Barry Bongo still needed post holiday sorting and the awning needed a blow out. So after Barry was sorted and awning put up to air we decided to take the hound up on his offer of taking him to the beach for a walk, he hadn't been for a few days!

The tide was in when we arrived so we went the other way rather than down onto the beach itself , it was a tad blowy but still able to walk with just our t-shirts on. The hound wasn't happy as he had to stay on his lead on the paths but we had a lovely walk along the front right under the bridge that had earlier in the week taken us to Wales.

 As part of my 'lets try and shed the bulk', I downloaded a pedometer on my phone, current guidelines are 10,000 steps pr day, I know for a fact I don't get anywhere near that, especially on office days, so was interested to see what our regular dog walks count as, [ he gets 2 walks a day of vary lengths] so that I can try and get somewhere near enough steps just by walking the hound, it will be good for him too! 

 The screen shot at the end of the walk, 45 mins and 4,600 steps, not bad, almost half of my daily goal, it wasn't a fast paced walk as hound likes to sniff, we also detoured off the path so he could have a run off lead, but generally pretty pleased with that, am going to use the pedometer on my phone to get a rough estimate of all our walks so that I can factor those steps in. It looks like a good winning combination, hound and I have a lovely daily walk, it's free, healthy and hopefully will help shrink the bulk.

Today were still on 'holiday', its our anniversary, but as our plans changed, we were still meant to be in wales, not quite sure what we are going to do, the sun is out so maybe a drive down to a 'real' beach with the hound, or a walk without the hound around the harbourside and grabbing some tapas? who knows, sometimes its good not to have plans, I am getting better at this whole spontaneous thing, I haven't wrote a list or made concrete plans for almost 2 weeks now, wow....shame I have to go back to work next week....

Dismal....

Well what can I say, we didn't even manage 48 hrs away from home, I should have taken the huge hints fate was throwing at me before we went, but so determined was I to have a break I didn't take note. We set off on the Monday, due to no 2 son not feeling too good.

It rained all the way over, 

but luckily by the time we had reached the campsite it had stopped.

not a bad site, very wet underfoot and hardly any campers, wonder why?

pitch chosen, camp set up, settled down for a quick G&T to realise that there was an invasion of wasps...what to do? pack up and move or deal with them? we stayed and dealt with them!

The evening wasn't too bad, we played cards, walked to the club house, which was deserted, then went back to the van to eat. The weather wasn't' too good overnight, awake early due to the wind playing with the awning!

Tuesday Morning was cold and damp, we did manage to get out for a walk before the weather closed in

Tuesday night the weather really came in, it hammered down and the wind picked up, quite a few tents had been ripped loose, our awning was taking a battering but was holding out, about 4.30am we had to get junior out of his roof bed and put the roof down, then the awning came away from the van, everything inside the awning was soaked,  I had to hook one of the guy ropes over the wheel! it was dismal, luckily we were snugged up in the van some poor souls were actually packing up at this hour! 

our poor awning, let loose to the elements, this was my view from bed after we had secured the roof and awning!

Due to the flooded awning and everything being soaked, decision made to come home, no fun being cold and wet and having no clean dry clothes to put on...

would you believe it, as we drove out of the  site the sun came out !

Such a shame that the weather was not kind, it really was dismal over there, 

lessons learned though, don't pitch up because it has a good view, think logistics ! think a bit more about the location of the site, there really was nothing to do/go to if the weather was that bad [for junior], make sure there are some places to go to eat to within walking distance, and stock up before you go in case you cant find a supermarket!! 

We also worked out more logistics about using the van in bad weather,which hopefully will help us overcome the drowned rat look next year... today I am not feeling the need to take Barry for an overnight for a while, on a positive note we still had an adventure!