I think when I last left you, I had just been to an awesome pub and had been laughed at by a Glaswegian man for saying the name of my new home town wrong (actually I didn't put that in my post because I was too embarrassed to put it in, I'm coming clean now). Since that we've done quite a lot, there's been three separate visits by different friends and each time we've taken it as an opportunity to explore a little bit more of our new home land.
First up we had Michael's good friend from Doncaster, Dan and his lovely girlfriend Helen who we took for a very long walk down the canal, across the very high Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (yes I did have to google that to get the spelling right) and then up a massive hill the wrong way to a 13th century castle called Dinas Bran which overlooks nearby Llangollen. I had to hop over a barbed wire fence to get into the castle, and scraped my leg whilst doing so which led to a mild 'I've definitely got tetanus' panic in the days after and a visit to the local doctors surgery for the nurse to basically tell me to grow a pair and stop wasting her time. By the way Llangollen is wonderful, if we could we live there but it's quite difficult to get to (no trains, buses are few and far between here too and no car) so we're staying in Ruabon for the time being.
Secondly my friends Ben and Becca travelled up from London in their new VW camper van, they had timed it just right as that was the weekend that England played Wales in the rugby so we decided to hop on a train over the border to lovely Chester and sat in a pub to watch the match for the afternoon/evening. Things got a bit blurry after that, I can remember standing in a Jamaican themed restaurant at one point and the next memory is laying on the floor of a train as I thought the drivers cabin was a toilet (I needed to be sick) but after realising it wasnt a toilet to throw up in I then decided the next course of action should be to lay on the floor and moan. I think we got told off by someone, I got clapped at by some lads on the train. I went to bed at 9pm. I woke up feeling awesome after having 11 hours sleep, but now knowing that I just can't do rounds when it comes to drinking with other people in the pub. I prefer to spend time over my drink. And that's the way it is.
Our last set of visitors visited this weekend past, in the form of Amy and Anthony. We took them to a nearby disused slate mine/quarry where Michael has been working to restore a public footpath through the area. The land is owned by an elderly lady who used to take people on trips down the mine when her husband was still alive, now he's not, she's shut the whole place up and can't really look after it herself. When you walk into the quarry it's like walking into the set of Jurassic Park, it's so dense and over grown, plus there's a flock of Peacocks which the old lady keeps on the land - such a treat to see some in a forest! It's also a treat to try and imitate them! Michael, Amy and Anthony were brave enough to walk into the mine for a bit, I was way too scared (later that night we watched 'The Decent' which I have never seen before, I will never go near a mine again).
We've also had a bash in the garden, and started to turn over the soil and get rid of all the crap grass and weeds. We were really getting somewhere, until it snowed...
...and snowed..
...and snowed...
...and snowed...
...and snowed...
A LOT.
LIKE NOT A LITTLE BIT THEN WENT AWAY AFTER A FEW HOURS, IT WAS UP TO MY KNEES (nearly) AND DIDN'T GO AWAY PROPERLY FOR ABOUT TWO WEEKS!
Within this time I had a birthday, I can't remember there ever being a time when I had snow on my birthday!
We escaped the comedy capers that the snow had brought to our walking abilities by going to Manchester for my birthday. I've never been to Manchester properly before, and we had a right blast! Independent cinemas, the best meal I have ever eaten in a veggie restaurant called 'Greens' in Didsbury (run by celebrity chef Simon Ritter don't you know), white russians, record shopping, going to a Smiths photography exhibition by Kevin Cummings (!!!!!) and going to the Peoples History Museum for a well enjoyed historical education!
We also managed to pop back to my first motherland, Northallerton, to catch up with my family for Easter, especially my sister who is expecting her first child at the end of August. Her bump was just beginning to show! Such a strange feeling seeing your older sister pregnant! It honestly only feels like yesterday that we were running about in the house, annoying my mum and making mud pies together (some say that was actually only yesterday, I'm not saying anything.) Next time I see her it will be bigger and I have promised to help her tie her shoelaces (I'm just going to buy her some Crocs.)
As I have more time on my hands, I've now started some kind of exercise routine. 'What's that?!' I hear you scream? Yes, it's very grown up of me I must admit, but after sitting in the same chair for 8 hours a day now I work from home, and then not having a commute - you do feel a bit restless and lazy! So I started to go running up the road and back, and unfortunately it didn't go very well. First of all it was a bit of a dodgy road - very dark with people racing past in cars at 40mph (we've come to realise that this area is a bit of a racer boy hotspot), secondly I also got laughed at by some really mean 14 year old girls. So these two things combined with the fact that the cold air was killing my lungs, I reached into my bag, pulled out my wallet, and bought a treadmill from Argos online. HA HA! I hear you laugh. But. You would be suprised. I'm very much in love with my new treadmill. I can run solidly for half an hour on my treadmill, something which I found impossible outside as I was distracted by cars rushing past me and not being able to breath properly with the cold air in my lungs. I don't get laughed at on my treadmill, only when Michael sees me slip up and nearly kill myself (which I have done a couple of times but he has yet to witness). I feel so much better now having half an hour every day were I can fight the stresses and the multitude of things whizzing around in my head, into submission by running in the same place in the front bedroom. I've also managed to watch the following things whilst running: Insomnia (a thriller with Pacino and Robin Williams which I have already seen but I quite like as Robin is a bad guy in this one and he's very good at playing bad guys), the Beyonce documentary (only saw half an hour of it and couldn't hear it properly over the sound of my own running and panting - so really just watched Beyonce dancing, laughing, crying, flicking her hair, being pregnant and looking fierce all to the sound of my own feet heavily hitting the treadmill) and finally Enemy of the State (again another film I have seen before, but there's something about watching a Will Smith film - I can't help myself. In this one, Will looked stressed, sad, sweaty, indignant, worried and threatened, all to the sound of my running). I need to work on the film sound to running feet sound ratio.
And thats about it, I realise this is a massive post! There's probably tonnes of other stuff I've missed out on, like Michael putting up a spice rack and a pan rack in one evening or buying a plastic greenhouse for the garden or getting to know our neighbours a bit more (them knowing us a lot more than we hoped) but I will save that all for another day.
Kate xxx
