Isle of Anglesey - Wales

Way back in April we drove to the Isle of Anglesey with Inge's Aunt Abby to visit some more of Ben's recently inherited "relatives in law" (if there is such a term) in the Cronin's (Mike, Charmaine, Connor and Emma). First I must apologise for taking 3 months longer than Charmaine to post anything from this weekend, but as you can see in our previous post, Sky is to blame for much of that!

Anyway, we had a wonderful weekend and some lovely weather (did we get Summer in April???!!) and it was great to meet some more family - thanks for the big friendly welcome and wonderful hospitality. Ben also enjoyed hiring a car and attempting to make Abby and Inge sick by practicing his racing lines through the winding mountain roads of Wales! It was dark most of the way up fortunately so they couldn't see the large drops from the edge of the road!

Here are some photos taken of the weekend. Ffor Charmaine's photos of the weekend, see: http://the-cronins.blogspot.com/2007/04/abby-inge-and-bens-visit.html. Our first excursion was to the nearby Beaumaris Castle with some fine modelling work by Connor, Mike, Abby and Emma and Ben finding himself on the wrong side of the camera...

Next on the agenda was a nice lunch where Inge and Emma got acquainted and then a wander
through the town where Abby found a doorway where even she'd bang her head!

Next up, a bit of wandering around the neighbourhood and a chance for Ben to take a few
landscape shots:

We then wandered to the local church which has been there since 630AD - people must have
been much shorter then (or severely hunched over) as again, Abby had to crouch down to fit
under the doorway! It also seems in Wales you don't need to go far to find a Jones - unfortunately
this one was dead but shares the same name as my Uncle so I felt compelled to photograph it!
There's also no shortage of slate in these parts - hence everything is made from it!



Sunday was fabulous weather wise and Ben had enjoyed the previous evening watching
the Aussies win the Cricket World Cup, much to Connor's disgust as he'd gone to great
trouble to design and print a go Sri Lanka poster! We took a tour around some lovely
gardens at Plas Newydd (Mum - we managed to get some use out of our National Trust
memberships!) and enjoyed the sun (something we haven't seen in a while!).






So Cronin's, thanks again for a lovely weekend. We hope you're well and that we can find
the time to head back your way soon!

Ben & Inge

Sky Broadband in Just Ten Easy Weeks

Well, before we begin writing posts for all the things we've been up to recently, I just need to give a right public bollicking to the completely useless effing twats at Sky Broadband who somehow managed blunder after blunder (usually the same one repeated) to turn what should have been a relatively simple task of transferring our internet connection from our old flat to our new one (less than a mile apart), into a 10 week odyssey whereby the good people of London are lucky there isn't easy access to automatic weapons or Inge and I may have gone postal on them.......... glad I got that off my chest. So sorry we haven't been on Skype, emailing much or updating this blog to keep you all updated - you can blame Sky and tell everyone about it - Rupert sucks!

Ok, so here's a nice calming ocean shot from the Caribbean to get me back on track - a post on our trip to the World Cup Cricket with Chris and Karl sometime this weekend I hope.

But first, we need to cast our minds back to April and the Isle of Anglesey as I have less photos to go through of that trip.......

Ben & Inge

Photos from London

Well we hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. It was very sunny and warm here, which was fantastic. We had a few photos from past weekends so thought we'd just dump them in for everyone to see.

Arsenal vs Reading at Emirates Stadium

Ben went to his first football match on a ticket he scored through a work colleague. It was Arsenal v Reading at Emirates Stadium. As usual, Arsenal tried to blow a good lead late in the game but unlike previous matches, they held on to win! Here's a couple of photos from the match.



Hyde Park & Kensington Gardens Outing

On one of the rare sunny days we decided to go for a walk through Hyde Park so Ben could get his camera out and we could soak up some sun. It was a nice day out, especially as while Inge was standing around waiting for Ben, she met an old friend from Adelaide uni days, Scotty Dawkins. It was great running into someone from home in the middle of Hyde Park, and we've caught up a few times since.


Inge in front of some statue Ben liked! The sun was on a coffee break....


Inge & Ben at the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk


Ben being artistic & the many daffodils that have been springing up!


The Albert Memorial at Kensington Gardens

Easter Weekend

We had lovely weather over Easter, which was good as Inge's Mum and Step-Dad came to visit. They arrived Good Friday and we spent a lovely weekend walking around London. They went to see "Guys & Dolls" on the Saturday afternoon and we went to the Easter service at Westminster Abby (Ben decided to stay home and do some work!) and then we all enjoyed an afternoon in Kew Gardens on the Sunday, although John either had quite a well used London guidebook or there's been some steep inflation lately at the £12 per person entry fee was a little higher than we were expecting!!!

Photo: Mum and John arrive at Notting Hill

The family at Kew Gardens (Ben felt left out so took a photo of his shadow!)

Flowers at Kew Gardens - exciting stuff!!

Other attractions at Kew Gardens - all this and more for just 12 Pounds!!

Well, I think that was everything. The next update will be in a few weeks when we get back from the Caribbean and the Cricket World Cup! So hopefully there will be pictures of sandy beaches and sunshine. I apologise now for our pasty white English winter bodies!!

Inge & Ben xoxo

Gosh, we've been busy!

Well, we really must update this more often so I don't have to write an essay! But it's just getting the time to sit down and write it! So, since our last update we've done quite a bit. At the end of Feb, my best friend Claire was here visiting her sister. We managed to catch up and spend a day together and spend some time with our school friend Mich.

I started at my new job at Masterfoods. My first day was aboard the HMS Belfast for what they call an LSD day (and no that's not the drug, but stands for Learning, Strategy & Development). It was a great way to meet the whole marketing team, of course I couldn't remember everyone's name, I'm still having difficulties on that front!

It's been an interesting transition to Masterfoods, and after 5 weeks I'm starting to feel like I'm getting into the swing of things. I've managed to do some travel with work already, to Brussels, but that's going to be about it I think. I did manage to see some of Brussels other than the office which was good.

We had our first official visitor in March. Ben's cousin Claire came to stay with us for a week before heading off to Spain for 3 weeks of backpacking which we were most jealous of! She's tried out the sofa bed, has confirmed that it's quite comfortable, so for anyone else coming, don't be afraid of the quality of the guest bed (particularly when your alternative is a £100 a night hotel room)!!


Ben and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary by going to Paris for a long weekend. We were supposed to take the EuroStar over, but a fire at Victoria Station on the Friday meant that all trains were cancelled until the Saturday afternoon.



We managed to get some flights though, which meant instead of having Saturday afternoon wandering around Paris, we finally arrived at our hotel at 8.30 at night, with half an hour to get changed at to the restaurant for dinner. All of that was forgotten though once we were at the restaurant. It's called Sensing, and the name is very apt as it was an absolute taste sensation, and the atmosphere was fantastic.

Our hotel in St Germain was beautiful too, Ben certainly knows how to pick a good hotel. We spent Sunday in the Louvre and Monday shopping, which was good as the weather had turned and it was back to wintry weather after a week of sunshine. The language barrier was certainly no hindrance to Inge as she spoke the international language of Amex and manage to accumulate quite a few bags by the end of the afternoon. Somehow Ben suspects this may be the first of many shopping expeditions to Paris!

The following weekend it was back to France, but this time to Pau to visit my cousin Marianne as she was having a family reunion with her 3 children and their partners and children, and her brother descending down upon the tiny village of Rebenacq.



It was a lovely weekend, and we're so glad to have finally met Stephanie, who lives in England. There was a triathlon happening there, and on the Sunday morning we saw all these mad mad people, who in very cold weather, had run 18km from Pau to Rebenacq where they got on their bikes to cycle 35km to the ski resort to start the final leg of skiing. For a little village like Rebenacq, it was chaos having so many people come through!!

So now it's Easter and Inge's mum and step-dad are arriving on Saturday for the weekend before they fly off to Italy for a bit of a tour with her great-aunt who's coming from South Africa. It will be good to spend the weekend with them. Then, the next stage of our adventure is that we're off to the Carribean for the Cricket World Cup. Our brothers are there at the moment, and they had someone pull out the trip so they have some room on one of the boat charter legs, so we are joining them from the 14-23 April in Grenada to see Australia play NZ and Sri Lanka, and get a bit of sailing in as well as staying on a catamaran! But more of that later.

We hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful, restful break over Easter.

Inge & Ben xoxoxox