Wales - Cardiff

23rd May 09 - 25th May 09

Bank holiday weekend and that too a bright warm sunny one! This one was blessed. Drove from Reading on Saturday morning and reached Wales in 2.5 hours amidst slow moving holiday traffic and our growling stomachs.
Spotted a blessed Mexican restaurant -Chikitos which calmed our tummys :)
Set out to drive though the city after unpacking our luggage at our hotel.
Later enjoyed some good and leisure shopping for home in Ikea. (after a long time!)
Cardiff is a big city with modern and huge buildings - not a typical UK style architecture.
Set out to Cardiff Bay in the evening and strolled through the restaurant and shops amidst a lively festive atmosphere with a large crowd relaxing, drinking and singing in the nice warm weather.

Day 2: Day of activities! Drove to the Quad biking centre which is 7 miles from our hotel. There were around 30 robust, macho bikes with 4 huge wheels designed for rough and rugged mountainous terrain. Sum opted for a 250cc bike and I got a 90 cc one :(
I struggled for the initial 10 min to manoeuvre the heavy handles but was great later when I got used to it! The instructor drove us through rough and bumpy rocky terrain and on hills and wide open grasslands too..It is in these grasslands that you can speed through down and the mountains in the highest gear. It was great fun and adventure which lasted for an hour. I enjoyed it thoroughly...looking forward eagerly for another trip as soon as possible!!

Had lunch and headed for speed power boating expedition. This too was a bumpy and rugged trip on the waves and the driver made sure there were lots of fast and quick turns and twists. The weather and wind were enjoyably pleasant and fresh.
This was good, but Quad biking was better!

Though keen on other activities like Gorge walking and Sky Rope, these had to be pre-booked :( .....anyways next time!

Dorset

26th Feb - 1st March

2 days off from office for our 4th yr wedding anni, we set out early on thursday-26th and drove to Bournemouth (pronounced as Bone-muth) which was approx 2 hour drive from Reading. For once I was glad we were not driving again on M4! M4 to office, to London, to Bristol, to Bath, to Stonehenge...sick of M4! A33 was good :)
Bournemouth is a beautiful city, quite unlike typical UK towns. It has a different look and feel, broad roads, many trees (a particular one reminded me of namma South end road :) ), huge houses (not the usual bricky ones), lots of space around, that too with a beach...lovely.

Our B&B was between the highstreet and few min walk to the beach...convenient. Thursday was just for relaxing, watched tv and enjoyed being a couch potato after a long time! Had really yummy singapore noodles for lunch, which reminds me...got to find the recipe! Did some shopping for Sum in M&S, had a nice cuppa then back to couch in B&B.
Later, drove down to nearby village-Poole and watched Revolutionary Road...was a sad movie :( Back to B&B at 12

Friday: Ready for the usual english bf then drove to Burley to rent a tandem cycle. Cycled for 18 miles in the New Forest!! Phew....was very tiring in the tough forest terrain, but enjoyed the experience. We chose the Deer track and could spot many of them. Took a half-way break for lunch in Minstead village pub. Altogether, took us 5 hours. Back to Bournemouth for a heavy Italian dinner with Tiramisu for dessert..yum

Saturday: Again english bf :( wanted to have something like avalakki for a change!
Decided to go to Durdle door-Jurassic beach. For this, we had to take our car on the ferry from Sandbanks to Studlands, then continue driving to Durdle door..that was cool.
Beautiful country side flew by, tempting us to take many breaks to appreciate it.
Durdle door beach is awesome, very impressive. Seems dinausaurs inhabited this coastline in the Jurassic period. The term Durdle door is coined since there are series of huge rocks extending into the atlantic ocean from the beach and is shaped like a door, due to wind and water erosion. Looks like a dinausaur which has dipped it's head into water to drink!
Had lunch in The Red Lion pub in Wareham village on our way back to Bournemouth

Sunday: Its already sunday which means back to office tommorrow...on the way back to Reading, had one of the worst monday blues ever!

Snow!

Monday, 2nd Feb 2009

7am-alarm rings and I bang it to shut it up...another monday morning blues..anyways i kicked myself out of the bed at 7:20 and sleepily saw out of the window.. It was snowing heavily and continuously! Never seen heavy snowing before...was as if loads and loads of white cotton balls were floating smoothly to the ground. It was damn exciting to watch and absolutely beautiful. Time was racing and I had to get ready for the office and reluctantly shoved myself away form the window. All ready and out of the house, myself and Sum stood wondering before the heavy snowfall and figuring out where the pathway/road was and more than that, how in the world could we drive ! Just then, i received a call from my boss telling me to take a day off coz of the heavy snow! What a perfect monday morning!!:) Holiday! kewwwl....
Seems it was 18 years since it snowed so heavily in Britain! All day long I stood by the huge windows and never stopped gazing out...was totally mindblowing and exciting
All the schools were shut for the day and so were most of the offices! The next few days were snowing as well, but on a lesser scale.
Britain, I read, is not used to handling snow in such massive scale...it is hard to keep the roads and highways clear of snow and to grit, though gritting lorries were trying their best to do their job

Roman Baths

Saturday, 24th Jan 2009

Bath-the town where Romans had their public baths is a pretty and lively town situated within an hour's drive from Reading. It was a nice outing for A, K, Sum and myself. We spent lot of time walking around the crowded pretty town, watching street plays, going around in the tourist bus tour, etc before visiting the Roman baths which have been preserved well.
I was impressed to see hot water springs and how they are generated below the earth's surface at 90 deg celsius. By the time this water reaches the surface, it cools down to 46 deg celsius, but still hot enough to stay steamy and boiling. Millions of tons of hot water is generated naturally. Romans have sanctified and built temples around here and the water was supposedly used to cure many diseases.
From here, we drove to Bristol suspension bridge...looks pretty during the night, but of course couldnt see the beautiful scenery around.
10pm-back home