September | 2017 | KiwiLeeks

I’m super behind with my blogging but never mind! Work was incredibly busy in late July/August and Aled and I both had project deadlines in the last week of August. Anyways! I will give a short update on the second half of the summer and leave our recent trip to the USA for another post.

So summer pretty much vanished as soon as school holidays started here in Britain (21 July 2017). There were several days of torrential downpour followed by several weeks of cool and damp weather — yuck!

We got out for a couple of trips on the drier weekends, including a visit to a very cool National Trust place called Aberdulais Tin Works and Waterfalls. It offers fantastic insight into Welsh (and British) industrial history.

Wiki advises that site was initially used as a copper-works in the late 16th century and later used as a tin factory. The water wheel is the largest electricity producing waterwheel in Europe!

Although the summer rain has been disappointing, it certainly made these waterfalls look amazing!

In mid-August, we headed out to Pembrokeshire to visit Nanna and Taidi. Here we are enjoying a sunny afternoon at Pwllgwaelod beach.

Morg loves the beach and is becoming quite the climber. Before I knew it he had scrambled right up this rocky outcropping… barefooted! He’s pretty fearless.

Dadda joined us after work on Friday (travelling to Pembrokeshire via train)and we took a boat trip out to Caldey Island, which is located just off Tenby in south Pembrokeshire. I’d never been and once my in-laws told me that the island was inhabited by monks… who ran a small chocolate factory on the island… I knew we had to go.

Boats run frequently from Tenby Harbour and the ride took about 15 – 20 minutes. It’s a quiet island and proved to be a fantastic day trip. For a tiny island, it had a lot of little sights, and was very easy to walk around.

I didn’t see any monks but here’s a shot of the monastery. Apparently they are up from about 3AM doing their first prayers. Yes 3AM — now that’s devotion!

We walked up to the lighthouse…

And then eastwards towards some beautiful cliffs. Morgy was really running around like crazy that day — we could barely keep up with him!

Here’s the cliffs — very pretty vistas!

Then past another church:

And then back to Tenby for dinner. Morgy is a very curious boy and was intently watching the propellers as beautiful Caldey Island disappeared in the distance.

We had a fantastic dinner in Tenby at a restaurant called Plantagenet House. It was a pretty fancy restaurant which we were kind of under-dressed for… but never mind. The food was fantastic and the service great too. Highly recommended if you are in Tenby. A picture here of Ann and Steve overlooking Tenby — one of my favourite spots in Pembrokeshire! Great beaches and a cute little town.

And then just to finish off our Pembrokeshire montage, a lovely hike up Dinas Head:

With beautiful cliffs looking westward over the Coastal Path. It’s hard to beat Pembrokeshire on a sunny day.

And now just a few shots of life at home with a three year old. One of my favourite parts of motherhood recently is seeing random things around the house that Morgan creates or leaves behind.

Exhibit A: Stegosaurus as train engine, an never-before seen connection between the prehistoric and industrial ages