Lodge Life :: November 2023

Hi there everyone 😀

I know this is a bit late but I am playing catch up with my Lodge Life posts.

The park is closed at the moment … it opens again for the season on 1 March and we can’t wait to get back … but for now here is what we got up to in November.

We managed a two week break back in November and it was a real mixture of weather and activity. There was plenty of relaxing, a birthday weekend visit from Jackie and Phil and a bit of exploring.

Our trip over was an interesting one, with not much visibility over the mountains …

… but clearing as we came down into Bala … with plenty of autumn colour …

We did our usual detour along the front in Criccieth to look at the sea … where it was wet but starting to brighten up a bit …

As usual we spent our first full day just relaxing into lodge life but decided to make the best of the weather on the following day …

We had a ride to Bangor for a walk on the pier… which is always a treat …

… and a sausage sandwich in the cafe …

We were lucky with the weather the following day too so just had a ride into Criccieth …

… where we did one of our favourite wanders …

… and had a look at the start of the Christmas yarn bombing …

It was then time to welcome our guests and we had a lovely few days. We had a big day out in Llanberis …

… followed by a day mooching round the Christmas craft fairs and shops in Caernarfon, with a trip for lunch at our favourite garden centre thrown in for good measure …

We even ventured out to Nomi, a restaurant we’d had recommended to us, for a birthday evening meal …

… which was followed by a late night Christmas shopping visit to a very nice and quiet Asda 😂😂😂

After Jackie and Phil had headed for home Martin and I went on an exploratory mission to a new cafe we’d seen … to check out the breakfast. It was a bit off the beaten track … but we thought it would be good when we saw all the white vans parked on the car park … and we weren’t disappointed …

After our breakfast we did a bit of exploring. Firstly a quick look at the reservoir by the power station …

Then a drive up some very narrow lanes to the Cwmorthin waterfall … which was stunning …

We drove back via Blaenau Ffestinniog, hoping to get a glimpse of the Stwlan Dam, which we did … from a distance …

It’s somewhere I would love to visit but, sadly, the road isn’t accessible to public vehicles. It is possible to walk up, but that would be way beyond our capability.

Our last big day out before heading for home was to Conwy …

… where we did a bit of mooching and had a good wander around the harbour …

… before trying out the Conwy Dylan's for lunch …

The day before we came home we woke to see our first frost and it just looked lovely …

We’d had a lovely two weeks away. It’s so nice to get to see places at different times of year. Everything really does look so different 😀

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A Productive Sunday

Hello again everyone 😀

Following my Saturday morning at craft group I chose neither of my options of baking or reading for the afternoon … instead opting for a nap in the chair.

Sunday continued with the productive feel. Martin went to do the weekly shop … it’s not normally a weekend activity, but with so much else on this coming week we thought we’d try and get ahead.

I had a quick tidy, watered the houseplants and made the beds and then spent an hour baking. I started with the flapjacks I’d been craving on Saturday and also ended up using up old rice crispies, out of date marshmallows and the last of the cocoa to make a chocolate crispie traybake … giving us a bit of much needed space in the kitchen cupboard …

Our plan was to spend the afternoon cleaning our back porch … well it’s not really a porch, more a little square space between the kitchen, the back door and the downstairs loo. It does tend to be a bit of a staging post for stuff waiting to go to the shed or the charity shop or projects waiting to be started.

It didn’t really go to plan but we did end up finding a home for grandad’s old fishing creel. It makes a nice hidey hole for bits and bobs next to the comfy chair in the dining room …

We also managed to do a bit of serious houseplant repotting, which has been building up.

The monstera now has room to grow … both outwards and upwards …

The money plant cutting that my neighbour gave me has now been potted on … after about six months on the kitchen window sill …

… and the spider plant in the birdcage has made its way onto the top of the dining room cabinet … that’s a bit of a throwback to the days when I used to have loads of stuff on top of cabinets. I’d kind of come away from that look as it was a bit cluttered and just created more dust … but I actually kind of like it. It makes it feel a bit like being in an orangery … with more than a little bit of imagination …

Anyway … it’s a bit of a change and makes room for more houseplants in the back porch in the window sill.

I then retired to the comfy chair to ponder over whether to have half an hour’s read before heading for a shower and getting something on for tea. 

Shower won … followed by a bit of a read 📚

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Finally … it’s February

Hi there everyone 😀

Finally … it’s February. We made it through January and I am pleased to say that things are feeling a bit more lighter … in lots of ways. 

After our slow and dreary start to the year we finally seem to be seeing the back of the lingering cough and have actually started to feel just a little bit productive. 

We are slowly working our way through a real spring clean of the house … which had really not seen much activity at all since before Christmas. By the time we have finished we will need to start from the beginning again … but at least we will know it’s all had a really good going over and that always feels good. 

This last week there’s been a bit more sneaking onto the calendar with some school governor activity and a food bank shift, squeezed in alongside the cleaning. 

We also had a day out on Friday at a family funeral and, whilst it was a really sad occasion, it was lovely to see family that we haven’t really seen since before Covid … so there was lots of hugging and catching up to be done. 

I was really ready for a bit bit of pure self indulgence and managed to rouse myself early this morning and make it to Craft group. It was watercolour painting this morning and I spent a lovely couple of hours with a lovely group of like minded ladies and came away with this from my efforts …

I can’t decide now whether it’s going to be the comfy chair with my book for the rest of the afternoon or whether I can build up to a bit of baking … I’m feeling the need for flapjacks 😀

It’s good to start feeling a bit more enthusiastic about getting cracking. This next week is a busy one with a day at school, another food bank shift, boiler services for us and mum and the dentist on the cards. I’m thinking it will definitely be time for a bit of a social treat very soon … so hopefully we can manage a lunch or dinner with friends the week after 😀

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