My Part of The World: In Pictures

Here is a little look at my beautiful part of the world. There is nothing I love more than to go for walks in the late summer sun with Hendrix. Actually I think Autumn/Winter walks are my actual favourites so it's safe to say that I am looking forward to coming back home for a few days over the next three months just to walk in utter silence with but the birds, cows and sheep keeping me company as I look across the lush green landscape that we are so lucky to have here while being pulled in every direction possible, praying that my arm won't be ripped out of its socket, by Hendrix.

I know for a lot of people walking alone in the middle of nowhere is probably their idea of utter hell. I think we have horror films to thank for that one - thanks very (not so) much. However, I would find walking along a city street at night more scary. Saying that, I find most things scary so that doesn't really say much. Anywho, I digress. I have not really got anything profound to say in this blog post, I just wanted to show you some of the pictures I took while out on a walk earlier this week. So, I guess all that is left to say is - enjoy.

WEST WALES ADVENTURE WITH ELLIE

A few weeks ago my friend Ellie from university came over to my part of the world for a few days. I hadn't seen her for a month or so thus it was super nice to have a little catch up. From Monday afternoon 'till Thursday morning we traversed West Wales from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth and from Mwnt to Aberaeron.

I know I live in the middle of nowhere and I think Ellie was a bit shocked at how in the middle of nowhere I do actually live but we do have some amazing views on the coastline and this is basically what I showed her.

Monday
Ellie didn't arrive 'till around lunch time on Monday so once I picked her up from Carmarthen train station and we went and had lunch at Pethau Da which is located in Pethau Bychain  on King St. After a lovely meal we perused some shops, drank some coffee and then hopped over to the beautiful Llansteffan. We decided to climb up to Llansteffan Castle just to see the incredible views that looked out towards the horizon. A great way to end a Monday!

Tuesday
A trip to Mwnt was on today's agenda and boy was I happy about that. Mwnt is my favourite place in the whole wide world. It has an awesome little beach hidden away between massive cliffs which not too many people know about, except for the locals and a few tourists. On top of the cliffs, overlooking the beach and the sea is the most beautiful church you ever did see and if I ever marry, this is where I want the ceremony to take place. Before Ellie and I headed down to the beach where we would later eat lunch, read and have a bit of a sleep (ok, that was just me), we climbed the little mountain that is near the church and sat at its summit watching the dolphins and attempting to see the coast of Ireland.

On the way home we stopped off in Aberaeron where we went for a little walk, bought some chips and ate them on the harbour wall. Scrumdiddlyumptious.

Wednesday
Today we headed north to Aberystwyth, a nice seaside town where my brother goes to uni and where thousands of tourists flock to in the summer to smell some fresh sea air. We arrived in the town at around lunchtime so after buying a few things on our little shopping date we finally downed tools and ate some beautiful sandwiches at Agnelli's. My brother is in the middle of writing his Masters dissertation so he spends most days up in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth so myself and Ellie went up to visit the Library. It had a really cool Dylan Thomas exhibition which I loved. Once we had finished looking at all the exhibitions we went and had a coffee in the Library's caffe.

Thursday
As Ellie was heading home in the early afternoon I had planned to spend the day outside walking with Hendrix but alas the Welsh weather got the better of us and with rain pouring outside we gave the walking a miss and started our journey back down to Carmarthen where we had a nice little coffee before Ellie was on her way back to Somerset.

I really enjoyed my few days travelling West Wales with Ellie. I am just continuously baffled by the beauty that surrounds my home and I am happy that I got to show off my little corner of the world to Ellie!

IT'S PRETTY COOL ISN'T IT // MY AREA

I'm writing this on a sun longer as I sit (and occasionally lounge) in the glorious sun that we've been gifted with here in West Wales and, it seems, in the whole of the United Kingdom. It is on sunny days like these that I can begin to appreciate where I live. This appreciation was magnified this afternoon as I read the newspaper - uprisings in Egypt, teenagers murdered over smart phones, never ending wars in Syria and corrupted politics. It is at this moment in time that I appreciate that the only noise I can here is that of the screeching of a red kite being playfully attacked by another bird.

I understand that many, including me, at numerous times in their lives have disliked living so far away from everything. So far away from civilisation. As I now spend most of my time in an area where a less than ten minute walk can get you to a train station and a 35 minute journey can get you in to the English capital, I can fully appreciate how isolated we are here in West Wales. But, so what?

On Jeremy Vine a few days ago he was discussing and comparing newspaper headlines throughout the country with many urban areas sporting front pages with words such as "Two people stabbed in bus stop" whereas areas out in the country had calmer headlines that read "Dog found in shed". Some might find the latter pointless, laughable even but if you had to choose which area you would rather live in after reading these stories I'm sure I can guess which one you'd choose.

It's true we have nothing here. The nearest cinema is an hour away and so is the nearest shopping area but despite this we were never bored growing up. Who needs shops when you have rivers and who needs an arcade when you have forests. Simple.

Despite this I would not be able to live here throughout my years after university as I want to travel, live in those cities with such shocking headlines and to live between never ending streets of shops and cinemas. Although, I don't think I'd be able to live in places like London for long - too built up and busy. San Clemente or San Francisco on the other hand, well that's a different story! To live in California would be a dream - sea, mountains, desert, peace and civilisation. What more could you need?!

For now however, I am pretty happy with views like these.

SKATEBOARDS, BOOKS & SOCKS

Yes, it's christmas in the Thomas household. This year we had a very relaxed day without much fuss at all (just 5 of us and Hendrix). I woke up about an hour later this year than previous years (8am) had a shower and changed before anyone else had gotten out of bed. To continue with tradition I headed into Owen's room and we opened our stockings. In the stocking we get smaller gifts such as socks, mugs, puzzles and some jewellery. We then took our stockings into our parents' room and showed them what we got from Santa (yes, we are 21 and 18 years old)!

Once everyone was ready we had croissants and bucks fizz for breakfast. With only crumbs left on our plate we ventured in to the living room where Santa leaves the bigger presents. I received gifts including a Radley bag, Henry Holland jumper, Miss Dior perfume and a Great Gatsby poster. The best gift however, was the awesome Penny Skateboard that Santa brought. It's a blue 'Nickel' board with red wheels and white trucks. I have not gone a day without being on the board for at least two hours! Yesterday I went for my first proper outing on the penny (proper - meaning not going back and forth down the hall way!). It was a three mile ride and it was completely awesome. Living in West Wales it's very hard to find a place that is flat and even if flat it's hard to find a place that is properly concreted and not filled with potholes or chippings. So most of the journey was downhill which was scary, fun, scary & exhilarating all at the same time! I love this gift.

One of my other favourite gift was the Blog Inc. book I received which is written by Joy Deangdeelert Cho of Oh Joy! It's a must for any aspiring blogger or for an existing blogger who wants to know how to improve their blog both aesthetically and contextually. I haven't put it down since I opened it Christmas morning. Along with this book I opened many travel books which are just teasing me at the moment until I finish university in three years then they'll (hopefully) be my bible as I travel around the world :)

I hope you had a very merry christmas :)

p.s you might have noticed the new name and design of this blog. I thought it needed a change not only to celebrate almost a year of blogging but also to make it look cleaner and sharp. The name I changed so it'll be easier for people to find. I've lost count at how many times I've had to repeat my old blog name to people as they have no idea what I've just said and then I had to spell it out for them. Hopefully this new look & name will be easier for all of us (: Hope you like it! 

LIFE LATELY . . .

. . . this is what I've been up to in the last week or so.

Friday was such a beautifully sunny day, something that we haven't really experienced much here in Wales over the summer. Apparently, this has been the wettest summer for over a 100 years! The Olympics and Paralymics, however, did manage to bring us some sunshine! Friday was my rest day off the bike, so instead I headed out with Hendrix for a walk and waw, the views were awesome! I know I've lived here all my life and sometimes you dislike the place because it's sooooo far from everywhere else, but on days like these you seem to forget about that and just enjoy the birds singing and the sun shine!

After our walk it was time to head over to a friends house for supper. He had invited some friends over before we all leave for uni. It was nice just to relax and laugh with friends over a nice plate of curry and a couple of drinks!

I arrived home Saturday morning, had a shower, and I was soon out of the door again! My dad was filming a wedding and my brother was working so mam and I headed over to the Daffodil restaurant in Penrhywllan. Saturday was the same or even hotter than Friday! We were able to eat our lunch out on the decking looking out over the green hills and trees! Beautiful! Once we finished our food we headed to Aberaeron for some pudding! I had a coffee frappe and a piece of butterscotch drizzle cake! We ate our pudding whilst sitting on the harbour wall looking out at the crazily calm sea! For the whole summer I haven't seen it so still and calm! Quite relaxing actually! Saturday night saw the return of the fantastic comedy The Thick Of It and some more memorable moments from the Paralympic and London 2012 games.

Sunday. I really enjoy Sunday's. It's the kind of day when you can go for a 20 + mile cycle and then chillax for the rest of the day. Yesterday, I had planned on going on the bike but it was so windy and I didn't fee; 100% it just wouldn't have been fun. Instead I went for a 3 and a half mile walk with Hendrix and mam. This is another thing I like about Sundays is that you can finish a 3 mile walk in 2 and a half hours and not feel guilty or having to rush to get ready to do something else! The reason for the marathon time was that we were also collecting  blackberries and that takes forever! We had a poopie bag full of berries which we used to bake a blackberry crumble later in the afternoon. Yuuumie! Sunday night saw the end of an amazing summer of sport with the awesome closing ceremony of the Paralympic games. What an inspirational couple of months. The french film 'Heartbreaker' was on BBC Four when I went to bed (one of my favourite films!), a lush end to a relaxing day!

NATURAL BEAUTY.

Yesterday I didn't really feel like revising. I've already gone over the stuff so many times I thought I'd give myself a day off. However that's all I did was moan about how I should be revising although I didn't know what, but I was sure I should be revising something! After watching some rugby I headed out to the garden to do some weeding. This is how badly I wanted to distract myself from my exams and revision! Whilst I was out there pulling weeds out of the soil I saw a little ladybird on one of the plants, so I rushed in to grab my camera and obviously it had flown away by the time I came back! I though whilst I was in the garden I might as well take some pictures. It's quite nice just to sit in the garden, relaxing actually, with the birds all atweetin' and the trees all ablowin'.