Birthday at Plas Llanmihangel

Madelene's birthday was on the 25th so I surprised her with a weekend at Plas Llanmihangel, an old Norman Knight's manor that was built in 1166. We struck it lucky and were the only people staying there for the weekend meaning that we pretty much had access to the huge place on our own. The manor sits about 30 minutes west of Cardiff outside of a market town called Cowbridge. The current owners bought it when it was derelict and it has taken them 21 years to restore. Ironically, now that they have restored it completely at their own expense the government has listed it as a heritage building and they now aren't allowed to touch any part of it without government approval. Gotta be happy with that.

We're still living in the cupboard in Cardiff but have found a number of bigger, better apartments to inspect this week so hopefully we'll be moving on up in a week or so. Unlike Melbourne there appears to be an oversupply of rental apartments and we've been told we can negotiate rent, lease length and bond quite easily. We also went out in Cardiff on the Friday night for the first time and discovered that it has an absolutely cranking night life. There were people everywhere dressed up as super heroes, pirates, cartoon characters and all sorts of things. When I asked someone if it was a special occasion they replied "Yeah......it's Friday". Awesome.

We're in Caerdydd

We're in Cardiff (Caerdydd), Wales! We've been here for just over two weeks and due to lack of Internet connection I've been slow in posting something on this site about it. So where's Wales? Wales is part of the United Kingdom and Cardiff is the capital. What does wales have? Well, it has the most castles of any country in Europe (photo taken from top of one of the Cardiff Castle towers), is apparently the birth place of rugby, has a team in the FA Cup Final this year in Cardiff City F.C. and has it's own unique language with words like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Seriously, that is actually the name of a town in Wales. Imagine the road signs. I'll get around to learning Welsh just after I tick Swedish off the list.

Why are we in Wales? Well, we wanted to try a few different places in the UK and I managed to get a job in Cardiff. I'm working with people who are intellectually disabled and also have a mental illness. Not the luckiest group of people in the world.
I'm working in a town 20 minutes north of Cardiff called Caerphilly and the second photo is a picture of Caerphilly castle. It's directly across the road from work and is what I look out on from my office window. Apparently it's the biggest castle in Europe, although I'm sure there's one bigger in Texas. In a nice contrast to working opposite the biggest castle in Europe we are currently staying in possibly the smallest apartment in Europe. To be forever referred to as "The Cupboard". The lounge/living/TV room is less than twice my arm span each way, so maybe 10ft x 10ft. The bedroom is in a loft so we have to climb stairs that are almost a ladder and there is a washing machine under the sink in the kitchen. Cosy. We're planning to stay in the cupboard until the wedding and then we'll either come back and get a decent apartment or leave Cardiff. Madelene is still waiting on her registration as a Social Worker to come through so she has plenty of spare time at the moment. In typical Madelene style she coped with spare time (read boredom) for a total of one day. So we're settled now for the time being and will start to explore Wales over the next few months. If the temperature ever gets above 10 degrees we might even go outside.