What are you all up to

I think its time you tried a modern bus as you would be amazed. The ones we used recently on the Harrogate to Leeds route were exceptional - the upper deck consited on two seats on the nearside and just one on the offside. All the seats were leather recaro style.  Air suspension mean the buses just float along the roads. 

Travelling by bus to a city has major advantages:

the driver can enjoy the elevated views, no need to find or pay for parking in a strange city, no need to even explore on a circular route as you can get on the bus anywhere that suits. Don't forget that with modern technology, in most areas you can check what time the bus will actually arrive with live updates.

Obviously we don't have to drag (or push) a dog along and Wetherspoons are available for a pleasant toilet break - can't remember the last time I used a "council" public convenience.

Buses don't go everywhere so in those situations we obviously use the car.

Helo o Gymru! We are in our holiday cottage in Wales😁  Very nice, great views, Menai Straits and Anglesey one way, Snowdon the other. Had a good meet up with some friends on our way here this morning, then a wet and wild drive through through the mountains and Llanberis Pass. Water, water, everywhere…….. Cosy now, log fire, a birthday dinner, the castle visiting starts tomorrow 😁

Buses have improved quite a bit, I know. It’s air suspension that sets me off though. All our cars are stiff rides (Jeep, MG, Mini) when we used to go out with friends, if they used their Citroen I was boffing for England😱 I am not too bad on buses on motorways, but once the bendy roads start, that’s me done. I was hauled off to Airedale District General from the Bolton Abbey Club Site by ambulance one time, I couldn’t stand up, kept falling over. Diagnosis……extreme sea sickness, that was in our own MH.🤭🤢

Mr Wetherspoon is notoriously anti dog. So we reciprocate🤣 But it’s good that folks do what suits, we do use our local Sheffield trams and tram trains. 

We have had a great first night, and full day here in North Wales. Bit damp this morning, but it stopped raining mid morning. Gale force winds though. We decided on a scenic drive via Rhyd Dhu and Beddgelert down to Criccieth, and visited the castle and Cadwaladers ice cream shop. Lucky enough to see WHL steam train on line on way, photo is of Moel Hebog, the mountain that dominates Beddgelert. We last climbed this some 25 years or so ago. Winds nearly took us off our feet at top of Criccieth Castle, so we didn’t linger for long. Drove back up coastal route to Caernarfon, then back to cottage. Fire now lit, lovely and warm, still blowing a howling gale outside. 

Better still I checked out server error thread to post,I keep it open as a tab, as I do this thread, it's been removed 🤐 and I get road signs........ page not found

our Internet went out, so I changed devices. I'm on my phone now and the server errors again thread still gives page not found. But my tablet has the thread. Both Samsung devices! Its beyond my Ken. But that's not hard with tech 😳.

Reading all the posts on BT etc and digital phones. We have digital phones, given them by BT when we signed up on moving in 18 months ago.  Both upstairs and downstairs bases and handsets are just plugged into a socket. My complaint, they don't ring very loud, even on the highest setting. Impossible to hear through a closed door and often room to room with no closed doors. And if you move away from the base, the handset bleats that its too distant from its base. I'm talking one side of the double bed to the other! Our old phones could be taken into the garden and still be connected..... They call it progress 😡. We don't get a great mobile signal in the house and I prefer the handset rather than a mobile phone.

We noticed a couple of nights ago the typeface layout and colours had slightly changed on the TV guide. It now says EE not BT in the top left hand corner and the set top box on light has changed from pink/purple, my favourite colours, to green. We did have a letter to say it was changing but with general life we'd forgotten.

Hope you manage to get away soon Nellie.

We are just enjoying being together and being able to do some of the things we love. We both have lots of happy childhood memories of North Wales, as well as shared ones. Dropped on lovely with our cottage, I could live in this one permanently. It’s nice being out and about, despite the not great weather and the short daylight hours. Enjoying the Christmas lights around and about, and we came across some fantastic knit bombing in Criccieth, lots of knitted/crotcheted Xmas trees and toppers on post boxes and bollards. Best Xmas lights so far? Caernarfon Castle all lit up. Hard to beat that🤣 When the sea mist cleared, we could see the Irish coast this morning. Sea is a bit rough mind🤢

I don’t think I would have the patience to do one like that, nice though. Do you like the more nostalgic ones? I quite like the ones that show things like chocolate bars from bygone days. Probably because they are like little picture groups, so I can do a bit at a time, then walk away. I do have a couple of good ones that are a good bit harder….Battle of Trafalgar, and Charge of the Scots Greys. One is all blue and wood, the other is all Scarlet uniforms and Grey horses, so took some finishing. The jigsaws I prefer are those wooden Wentworth ones, very expensive to buy, they have some of the pieces shaped to reflect the subject picture. Found a couple of complete ones in charity shops for a good price. 

We have lived in the same quiet cul-de-sac for 38 years and no problems. A couple of months ago early morning 6.30am a young police officer knocked on our door (scared me, I immediately thought of the worst things) asking to see our outside cameras footage, unfortunately when OH checked, the battery had ‘died’ the previous night. The Officer then went to more houses that had cameras or door bell cameras. We later heard that 3 cars had been broken into in the surrounding streets. This morning OH called for me to look at the camera footage, which he checks each morning. 1.45am and 2 police officers checking neighbours drives with torches, they checked all around both of our cars on our drive. Down the road we could see a neighbours car lights flashing. Maybe more problems. Sign of the times sadly.

A lot of our neighbours have cameras now. Like us our Son has them all around his house he always watches who is coming and going and knows when parcels etc are delivered. They have 3 teenage kids and, bless them, they can’t get away with anything, he knows exactly who they bring home and exactly what time they get home from parties etc. however much they try to get away with coming home at 3am.