Hello my fine friends, Oceanic customers and cult members.........i mean blog followers. How are we this fine and warm April? Who needs to go abroad when you got great weather like this, Right?.......WRONG! EVERYBODY needs to get abroad as the UK's an absolute toilet bowl of a country.
Well 3 months have past since my last blog update so lots to catch up on as we have so much going on after April that i may have to do a monthly update, my poor little chipolata looking index fingers will be worn out.
So lets start with the Six Nations. There you go that's it for the Six Nations apart from to say Wales were a pile of shite and looked like a junior school team playing men, utter, utter CRAP! There is an upside to this though, we found a great pub where we booked a table with a great view of the giant screen for every game and ordered a 9 pint triton to the table, no cueing at a packed bar for us.
Don't need the glasses bar person we'll just drown our sorrows straight from the tap. DISCLAIMER: We didn't drown, we did have glasses and we did get merry.
Valentines Day and a huge surprise off Sian with a table booked at Giggling Squid, it is a great restaurant and the food is so tasty. We started off with Cocktails as it's the way to go when your having amazing food.
Then the food arrived and once again it blew us away. We had a sharing starter of Salt & Black Pepper Squid which was so good.
Then for our mains i had Honey Crisp Seafood and Sian had i think Paneang Curry
Honey Crispy Seafood
Paneang Curry
I was totally surprised by the meal as we went to Cardiff town centre and we were just about to walk past Giggling Squid and Sian dragged me back and in to the restaurant. It was an amazing surprise and loved every minute of it. I love you Sian Pinnell!
Now either this a hang over from Christmas or Christmas now starts in March. I kid you not, these Christmas packaged biscuits were in a certain well known supermarket. Now, if this is a hang over from over stocking at Christmas they would be reduced right? They weren't reduced, so from this i guess we're now starting Christmas in March. Later on in this update you'll see the first advert for Christmas in APRIL!!!!!!!
We like our weekends away. We try to go away somewhere at least once a month and go out most weekends so in March we decided to go and stay in Tintern which we found a lovely little place and of course Tintern Abbey is there, we also had a Six Nations game on the Saturday and booked a table in the local pub for it.
Only one hotel in the area of Tintern which i did consider booking but then found an apartment in the centre of Tintern which was perfect, spacious, clean, short walk to the pubs and Abbey and a great view over the River Wye.
View from the dinning table.
View from our car parking space, hope the cars amphibious.
We had a wander to the pub where we've booked a table for the Six Nations game on the Saturday and start a little pub crawl as there are only 3 pubs in the village. The Anchor pub was in fact a really good pub and bigger than we thought with a huge outdoor seating area right next to Tintern Abbey. Almost every table was taken and lots were having food which did look really good so while we were there we booked ourselves in for Sunday lunch, can't beat having someone else cooking a Sunday roast for you.
We thought that it said "The Anchor has a meal deal" when in fact you can see from the picture "The Anchor has a Mill Wheel". Sian knocking back a Cruzcampo, steady now, I've only got tuppence left which in these parts should get us at least pints of mead.
Next up is the Rose & Crown which is only 3 doors down from our apartment. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore". It felt like we were in another time and place. The Anchor we thought was a little behind the times with it's closing time being 10pm every day but that's nothing compared to the Rose & Crown. It's opening times are as follows:
MON - Closed, TUES - Closed, WED - Closed, THURS - 12-3pm 5.30-9.30pm, FRI - 12-3pm 5.30-9.30pm, SAT 12-9.30pm and SUN 12-9pm.
What is this place? The road going through the village is very busy, there are a few houses dotted around the village which seem to be quite nice houses and the population is around 1,500 so why are we in the dark ages when it comes to opening times? Jesus, can't a person get a beer around here? and Jesus will have a red wine while your at it. So due to the Rose & Crown being stuck back in time and was closed we moved on to the last pub. God help us! That's Jesus dad by the way. So what was Joseph in this story? I bet he was a bit peeved with people going around saying "He's the son of God" and then others with the rumours "He looks nothing like him". Lets not start down that track. A couple who are married and have a son without sin (intercourse) but that son is named someone else's son. Hang on, Moses was before Jesus and didn't God give him the 10 commandments? Number 7, Thou shall not commit adultery. Come on, he broke his own rule but it's not ok for others to do it. Dear oh dear oh dear God, what a tangled web you weave, you would have been better off saying "Jesus is my messenger" forget the son of God business, it sounds arrogant. Sorry, stream of consciousness there that i typed instead of just thinking quietly to myself, lets move on. To The Wye Valley Hotel for the last pub.
What a lovely looking little hotel, nice beer garden right on the edge of a main road and outside the windows of the hotel room, looks great lets go in.
Opening times for the Wye Valley Hotel bar are:
Mon - Closed, Tues & Wed 5-9.30pm, Thurs - Sat 11-3pm 5-9.30pm, Sun 12-3pm -9.30pm
Good grief, we're back in the 70's.
Hello? Hello? Anyone here? And if by magic from behind the bar appears the bar person like the shopkeeper out of Mr. Benn ( Please google you yuffs).
We were the only people in the bar but every table apart from the one we were sat at was reserved, how odd and there was about 12 tables in all.
Our table is the one on the left.
As we sat there with our freshly poured pints of Guinness ( who knows how long it's been sat in the lines ) people started to drift in, I say drift, I mean shuffle. I'm not being awful here but if there had been a large electro magnet the size of the ceiling everyone apart from myself and Sian would be stuck to the ceiling by their hips, you know what I'm saying, it was like the whole cast of Last of the summer wine had rocked up. In fact and this is not a lie they had a radio station on through the speakers in the bar that was playing songs from the 50's, I was expecting a live appearance from Vera Lynn.....What? She died in 2020? That's awkward, it must have been an old advertising poster then. To top it all off on the table next to us was an elderly couple with their daughter who i'm guessing was in her 40's and the daughter kept looking at Sian for ages over the course of an hour and then she asked Sian "Whats your name?" to which Sian replied "Sian" and the daughter then said "That's a pretty name". She then turns to me and asks "What's your name?" i reply "Kevin" and then with a roll of her eyes and nose in the air she says "OOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!" and turns away. "OOOOOOOOOOoooooooo" "OOOOOOOOOooooooo", what the bloody hell? What have i done to deserve that? I've been sat here quietly in this care home disguised as a pub drinking my Guinness, minding my own business and I get a snotty look and a "OOOOOOOOoooooooooo", I've only got 2 pubs to choose from and this one I've got a heckler in it. Drink up we're off. ENJOY YOUR SHERRY, LOSERS!
A short walk home in the dark and off to bed as it's a long rugby day tomorrow in the one and only bar that's the most normal.
We awake to another sunny day and it's off for a bit of walk around Tintern and the Abbey before in to the pub to watch the rugby all afternoon, what Saturdays were made for.
Tintern is a lovely little village that has a shop of rare books, couldn't find "How to be intelligent" by Donald Trump so that must be very rare. There is a model train shop or in my eyes 1 to 1 scale replicas, a lovely little coffee shop called Abbey Mill coffee shop and the weekend we were there there was a farmers market which we bought some lovely mango and coconut sausages.
The Abbey Mill Coffee shop where we had a latte and the most huge tea cake, it was size of a 12 inch plate, crazy but lovely.
Shop browsing over, coffee's drank and now on to the sight seeing of St. Marys Church which is on the side of a hill overlooking Tintern Abbey then Tintern Abbey itself.
A short hike up to the top of a hill and there sat quietly on the side of the hill is St. Mary's Church.
The view of Tintern Abbey from the Church.
On to the Abbey and to get in to the grounds of the Abbey you have to go through the tourist shop to buy you entry tickets but i got side tracked and bought 3 different flavoured bottles of mead and they tasted amazing when we got home on the Sunday.
It's a amazing place the Abbey which they are slowly and carefully trying to rebuild after Henry the 8th stripped the church of all it's lead, windows and valuables and left the building open to the elements which led to it crumbling away over hundreds of years, WHAT A GIT!
It is a stunning piece of history but even better when there isn't kids running around being a pain in the ass, we only saw one child which was bliss. We did take loads of pics but it doesn't do it justice, go there if you can, we enjoyed it. On to The Anchor just across the road from the abbey, YaaHoo!
Our tables reserved and we opt for a Blood Orange Cider and a Lemon Cider, these are a bit to easy to drink, this could get messy.
A couple of pints and a few shots later we're a bit peckish so its a plate of loaded nachos, just what our growling bellies needed.
A good 5 hours later and we're full up to the brim with liquid but need food and we got large pizzas back in the apartment to stuff our faces with while we crash out on the sofa, it's been a great day. Good job we brought the pizzas as there is no delivery services out there , no take aways and no late night shops, now i know what Tintern Abbey monks must have felt like and I do have the bald patch to be one of them.
Woke up to another sunny day and it's time to leave but not before we have our Sunday roast at The Anchor and what a huge dinner it was and tasted sooooooooo good.
A great weekend once again and it's amazing how lucky we are with the weather over all our breaks and holidays, our luck has got to run out at some point as it's been years now of great weather while away.
Guess who's got tickets to Lady GaGa? WE HAVE! In fact we've got 3 as we wanted 2 but it wouldn't leave a spare seat so I bought the 3 to make sure we had our tickets and this is the view from the exact same seat we have going spare. Its up in the nose bleeds but that's ok, Sian likes her music and i want to see the spectacle of the performance, i like well staged concerts and don't really know too many of her songs, only the songs from her first i know her singles from 2009 - 2011 so I'm not going to know that many but hey, I'm sure it will be great to watch.
If someone does want the spare ticket i'm not being a scalper, I paid £81 per ticket so someone can have the spare for £100, think that's fair, after all it's a sell out.
Just a couple of weeks going out locally and then we were back off to Birmingham, we are so jet setters 😂
This Birmingham visit is because we have tickets for Only Fools and Horses - The Musical at the Birmingham Hippodrome and to visit our favourite pub "The Sly Old Fox" so off we go.
As usual, first it's our traditional Barkers breakfast before we head off to our train.
Sian had oats with fresh fruit and i had Greek thick yoghurt with granola, honey and fresh fruit.
We're staying in a aparthotel this time and i have to say it is one of the best places we've ever stayed in, the room had everything and was so comfortable.
If you wanted too the bed folds up in to the wall to then reveals a sofa, we didn't.
The kitchenette has a hob, coffee machine, microwave/grill, tall fridge freezer, iron with full size ironing board and a dish washer, WOW!
And not a bad view either.
Sunny warm day again so it's bags in, walk out and pub, pub, pub as today is a do anything day.
We start off at one of favs and regular pubs The Malt House. We first visited here when we came to Birmingham to see Depeche Mode and we've come here every visit since and i think this is our sixth visit. It was very quiet when we got to the pub as the lunchtime rush had all gone so we could get a table on the balcony overlooking the canal, it was so quiet you wouldn't have realised you were in a busy city centre.
This is the life.
A couple of pints in there and on to another fav The Lost & Found for a couple of cocktails and why not, we're on a weekend break.
Sian doesn't like squirty cream so she asked me to drink it off the top....it was deeper than i thought.
And the cocktails keep on coming and these had Bon Bon's on them.
Shots anyone? Don't mind if we do, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS.
We stop off for one or two more beers before we start to get peckish and fancy a bed picnic and what a great way to finish off the night and get a Popeyes bed picnic, mmmmmmmm, so much better than KFC.
After a great nights sleep and no hangover it's time to see Only fools & horses - The musical which was a matinee show as that was the last 2 tickets i could find on the in interweb but they were great seats only 10 rows back from the stage.
Rose wine in a plastic cup anyone?
The view from our seats. We were a little bit worried about the characters as there's only one Trotter family but the Cast who played Del Boy, Rodney, Trigger, Boycee and grandad (Paul Whitehouse) were amazing, the songs fitted in with the storyline which timeline followed Rodney meeting Casandra up to their wedding day. It was a great show and we would have seen it again the next night if there had been tickets available it was that good.
And here's a pic of a world icon, oh and in the background is the Trotters 3 wheeler.
Where is this in the world?
Yes it's Birmingham and it's still sunny and warm in the late afternoon after the show.
As we walk around deciding what to have for our evening meal we walked through the International Convention Centre and came across this.
Ok, so this is truly ridiculous, It's only 4th April, 9 months until Christmas, i'm fed up with it already, first the biscuits, now this advertisement. Aaaaagggghhhhhhhhhh!
We decide to go Greek and visit a lovely little Greek taverna called Mythos. It was very busy indeed with almost all tables booked out so we were lucky to get one on walk in.
A Mythos in Mythos.
We had a very careful long look through the menu and ordered freshly cooked sardines.....
And six other dishes for good luck, Tzatziki with pitta, dolmades, calamari, village sausage, saganaki and Greek oven potatoes. Not to much then.
Our seating area.
Stuffed and waddling we make our way to the best pub in Birmingham City centre, The Sly Old Fox.
OH MY BLOODY BUGGER, NOOOoooooooo! It's closed down. The pub has been open since 1891 and since we were here 2 years ago when we struggled to get a seat it has closed. We were devastated, the pub was cosy and comfortable, the music was great, the beer selection was excellent and we're stood outside an empty bar stunned. We asked around locally why it had closed and no one really knew, just one person said it wasn't busy but we know it was, it was packed on every visit and on every night. So sad.
We hope it reopens soon.....hopefully within the next 4 weeks as we're back up there for another event, a play, "The shark is broken".
It has been written by the son of Robert Shaw who played Quint in the original film and is about when Shaw, Scheider and Dreyfuss were on the boat during down time when the shark had broke and they were out at sea filming the scenes. Should be a good play.
And so to bed after 2 great full on days. We always have a great time no matter where we are.
Nigh, Nigh Birmingham.
And it's time to head home. We have our usual morning Starbucks, get on the train and homeward bound we are.
And there you have it folks, another lengthy update which has taken me ages and i am all out of the little grey matter i had.
As a treat for you in between updates I may post the first chapter of my memoirs that I've been writing with regards my time on Zakynthos. I know, I know, you've been reading this since 15th March 2007, that's 18 years, WOW, so you know all there is to know.....oh no you don't, i was on Zakynthos from May 2001 so there is another six years of memories i am writing about.
So until the next update.......
Serve All, Love All, Peace All......Kevlar, Mrs. P. and Squidly Out!
