Posts Tagged ‘norman’

For Norman’s 30th, we decorated the house, made him a cake (and by made I mean his mum made it but Cara carried it from the kitchen to the dining room) and even sang happy birthday with a guitar accompaniment.

A couple of years ago, Norman charged George and I with planning a suitable celebration of his 30th birthday. So, in February this year, we began planning a trip to the Scottish Highlands. Seven months and a thousand miles of driving later, and our mission was accomplished.

It is a mission to get to. It took 11 hours to get up there and 10 hours to get back. It was worth the drive though (I say now the back pain has faded). We got incredibly lucky in that we had no rain all week and enjoyed sunshine for most of it. The cruise staff were very keen for me to stress to everyone that I had to use sun cream in the Highlands!

Amazing weather, amazing company and an amazing setting – what more could you possibly want from a holiday?

The view across the loch. The town on the right is Ullapool.

Norman swimming in the loch. I only made it to the river that ran down beside our house into the loch and that was absolutely freezing.

Corrieshalloch Gorge. The photos do not do it justice. It is 200 feet deep.

Our beach-side home for the week.

Best of all, spending a week with seven amazing friends.

Earlier this month, Norman was kind enough to host us for the weekend at his new flat in Cardiff. It’s a nice place and just round the corner from Cardiff city centre.

On the Friday evening we ended up having a meal at Chapel 1877, which was very good. On Saturday we went to St Fagans National History Museum which was an outdoor museum with some traditional buildings and a large manor house and gardens.

There was also a bird hide where we saw some mice. I should have brought my telephoto lens!

We had lunch at a pub just round the corner from St Fagans. It was a Vintage Inn, and lived up to expectations. Despite it being Cardiff, we actually had lots of glorious sunshine on the Saturday and it didn’t really rain (much) until we got back. In the evening we drove to Cardiff Bay had had dinner at a Turkish restaurant on the peer that I didn’t think much of.

On Sunday we spent the morning looking round Cardiff Castle in very heavy rain before heading to the fish and chip shop. I was very pleased to get fish and chips because I had tried to get them on Friday lunch time (they had run out), Saturday lunch time (their fryer was broken) and Saturday evening (we went to a Turkish restaurant instead) but you can’t go to the seaside and not have a fish and chips, even if it is a highly industrialised port.