The first three weeks of the holiday!

 Hello there!

Sorry for the radio silence of anything other than the most simple of posts. I was away and also fairly occupied.

School for the children finished on Friday  18th July. I spent time tidying my room at school and then headed off to the station.

CBC met me en route to drive us to Snowdonia for his friend Simon's birthday where we were joining his friends and family for a school camping trip.

We arrived around 11pm and set up camp in the Llyn Gwynant campsite, not really having any idea about where we were.

The next morning, we awoke to find we had incredible views of the mountains.  I also awoke to a cold! Grr to my colleague, the day before, who told me me had a cold 10 minutes after I sat down next to him!

CBC heated up the Jet Boil and we had some Dishoom Chai tea which he had been given the previous day as a present. I did NOT enjoy it but drank it! I also made a Hazelnut chocolate porridge!  We then met up with Simon and his lovely family and headed off for a walk to the Watkins path up Snowdonia which was home to the most incredible waterfalls and wild swimming opportunities!!!!

The camp shop didn't have any bread or sandwich filling so we didn't manage to make any lunch so we were grateful our friends shared some sandwiches with us.

We were swimming in the most wonderful natural infinity pools!  Despite my cold, the swimming felt amazing! I felt very serene.

CBC was invited to head up to scale Snowdon and then continue onto Crib Goch.  I was also invited but thank the Lord, I declined, as CBC told me I would have hated the scrambly, climby descent.

We headed back to the campsite.  I loved the company of some really imaginative children who almost made ME believe that wishing dragons were real!

Back at the campsite, I went and lay down to read as I was really tired.  CBC and Dan finally made it back around 8pm and we went and joined the others for food.  As the campsite shop hadn't got any barbecue food, I was really embarrassed to be sharing in the food of the others so kept what I ate to a minimum.  I went to go and wash up and then headed to bed feeling very tired  and snotty whilst CBC stayed up with the others.

The next morning, we had a slow start. I had really wanted to swim in the campsite's beautiful lake but the weather made it feel really chilly!  

We headed to Betwys-y-Coed and had amazing pizza in a super Orangutan-helping pizzeria near the station!

On Monday, I had to head to school for an INSET day whilst CBC got to stay at home. Grr.

We had some training and then I attempted to finish tidying my room before heading with very precariously packed panniers and bags swinging off my handelbars and arms for a rehearsal with my flute trio ready for our recital on Friday.

There were loads of chocolate brownies left from the Friday lunch which everyone had forgotten about/wwere too squeamish to eat 3 days after they were served so I took them home alone with lots of left-over salad (finished the last Brownies today on the 8th August and they were still fine!) .

Our rehearsal for the trio went well.

The next day, I went home and sorted out the house.

On the Wednesday, CBC headed to France in the evening. 

We were going to be spending almost two weeks apart.  He was going to France to be a check point monitor in the Pyrenes on the Col Du Tormolet  for the Transcontinental Cycling Race and I was going to my music camp.

On the Thursday, I began packing for my music camp and did some flute practice.

Friday was our recital.

I ordered a taxi to the station as I had 7 bags to travel to camp.  At Brentwood station, I met my friend T. I was incredibly lucky that T was also going to music camp and happened to live in the town where my recital was taking place. He was headed there earlier in his car so took the majority of my luggage except for my flutes and clothes to change into.

At the church, we practiced and then performed our recital which went incredibly well.

The audience had around 58 people in it which almost double the previous week. I was delighted that 19 people came who I had invited including several new and old colleagues, some church friends, CBC's colleagues, 2 of my pupils AND my cousin who crept in on her lunchbreak from work and left just before the end!

I then headed to music camp on the train! T met me at the other end to pick me up to drive me the 5 miles or so to camp from the station. He serendipitously happened to arrive at the exact same time as I did!

I had a great time at music camp!  

We played some brilliant music including Shostakovitch's 6th symphony which I was lucky enough to get to play 1st flute in. It has 3 exquisite, very exposed solos in the first movement!

The food was amazing at camp with plentiful vegetables. Usually, whenever I'm on holiday I feel starved for vegetables but we were amply supplied!

We had one afternoon where we had a massive working party to fix and mend parts of camp.

I and another lady were asked to laminate some old window panes to make them into safety glass which turned out to be surprisingly technical!

On the Thursday, a production was performed of Guys and Dolls which was hilarious.

On Friday, we had a ceilidh and I played fiddle in the band apart from Stripping the Willow at the end.

On both Thursday and Friday, I had only 1 rehearsal the whole day so I decided to go swimming and I managed to hitchhike with someone down to the Lido in town, some 5 miles away which was glorious. 

On the way back, I had to traverse public transport for the first time to get back to camp which involved 2 buses and about 2 miles walk along country lanes!

On Sunday, T gave me a lift back to Brentwood and I got trains home with my luggage.

Monday, I did some tidying and washing and then headed over to Mum's on the train and bike.

She cooked us a marvellous Spaghetti bolognese and we had an early night.

The next day, we got up, had tea and smoothies and then headed out to pick blackberries. We then bought bacon baguettes from a local sandwich shop and then we headed to a local country park where we picked absolutely stacks of different types of plums and cherries from the bountiful trees!

After this, I headed home and finished off the tidying before welcoming CBC home late in the evening.

The next day, CBC and I headed up to Holland Park, London to meet a friend who was over from Sweden.  We had dinner at a very nice Malaysian restaurant in Queensway.

Thursday, we headed to a place called Barleylands in Billericay to meet CBC's sister and his nephew to see some animals!

The next day, we spent the day at home doing gardening and largely vegging!

Today, we went for a quick trip to the beach, came home to have a new light fitting installed and then my old work colleague, her husband and daughter came over for the afternoon as they were here from the west country.

Finally, we headed to our favourite Thai restaurant for a 12th anniversary dinner!