A Long time Wed

My blogs lately are a little bit retrospective I'm afraid, this is mainly due to the fact that I am no longer allowed to blog at work. Blogger has been deemed a Social Networking site and as such a tool of ultimate evil and is now banned at work, along with Twitter and Facebook.

Anyway I am gradually catching up. Saturday 13th February was my Grandparents 67th Wedding Anniversary. They were married in 1943 right in the middle of the War, my Grandad got a weekend pass to come home to Swansea to marry my Gran and then had to go back again the next day.

They were both just 19 but as with most photos from that era they look a lot older. They are now 86 and still going strong, although getting slightly frailer every year, it would be lovely to think that they will make 70 years.

St. Brides

Sometimes you just start to go a bit stir crazy in the house in the winter so last Thursday, after a brief trip to Haverfordwest to do a bit of shopping I took a detour to St. Brides.

St. Brides is a beauful little cove on the south side of St. Brides bay about 5 miles from where I grew up. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was young and it was one of my favourite beaches.


Right on the side of the bay is this gorgeous cottage that I always wanted to live in, could you imagine spending your summers right on the beach it was every childs dream and just like something out of the Famous Five.

Right by the beach is also a lovely Church called St. Bridgets (I always wanted to get married there but didn't live in the parish unfortunately). Close to the church is a big country house, now called St. Brides Castle, it was once the seat of the Earl of Kennsington and later became a TB hospital in the 1920's. In one corner of the grave yard are these seven simple little graves of child victims of TB ranging from 18 months to 13 years, I have always found them very sad.

It isnt a very large church yard but it does have one very imposing monument, to the Earl of Kensington, it looked quite spectacular against the beautiful blue sky.

It was a freezing cold day, but it certainly blew the cobwebs away and left me feeling strangely at peace and very chilled out... odd how graves can have that effect on you.

Bits and Pieces

As the last two posts have been been generally event specific, i.e. me escaping and us going out on the lash, I though I had better bring you up to date on some of the other bits and pieces that have been goin on.

Firstly my baby girl... that would be Erwin, turned 17 last week, and for the first time in 17 years she wasn't here for her birthday. Instead she went with Martin to Centre Parcs for a mid-week break. It was very strange not having her around for her birthday.

As she was going away she wanted money for her birthday which wasn't a problem, but we also bought her a candy floss maker, which we gave her when she came home. It was an instant success and she had been producing copious amounts of candy floss ever since. I was actually quite impressed how good it was, as I was expecting something a bit pathetic, like some of the chocolate fountains that you can buy cheap these days but it really does work and makes very genuine candy floss.

Another new acquisition was my new Blackberry phone. I have been due an upgrade on my mobile for while but I finally bit the bullet last week and went and got something high tech. It is surprisingly easy to use and I can get all my emails and Facebook updates straight to it and quite frankly I love it!!

I have also been able to copy all my ringtones and photographs to it so now I get advanced warning of who is ringing me... not that anybody other than Noel and the girls does actually ring me :o(

I have started four days off this morning so my plan is to try and catch up on some serious housework, unfortunately the hunt for a cleaner is still no further along, I am also trying to sort out somewhere for us to go on my next two weeks off, which is only about two weeks away.

Finally I shall leave you with this really cute photo of Skittles exploring one of the kitchen cupboards.

School Dinners

After work on Friday night I headed straight off for St. David's as we were going out with Chris and Julie to the Cwtch where they were having a "School Dinners" quiz night. We had been working on our fancy dress all week and really looking forward the night out.

Got to their house at about 6.20pm and after a glass of wine to unwind we all got changed. Noel and Chris had obviously been to the same school (St. Brutus's Correctional Facility for Exceptionally Naughty Boys).

Julie was obviously ex. St. Trinians and I was ex. Mallory Towers, or was it St. Clares?

We were going in a big party, some of whom we knew and some we didn't. When we arrived outside the Cwtch and glanced through the window we couldn't see anyone else dressed up and began to wonder if we were the only ones who had been brave enough. Doubt didn't last long though as up the road came four more "schoolboys/girls/transexuals".

They had stuck us in the back room at the Cwtch which was probably just as well as we turned out to be a right rowdy bunch. The table was laid with slates and chalk for us to graffitti with, and bowls of sherbert flying saucers to nibble on and as we had all dressed up we were each given a free cocktail, which was very nice.

The menu was the Cwtch's take on school dinners and three courses for £15. The starters were Leek and Potato soup, Fish fingers and chips or beef and onion pasties and chips. I opted for the "fish fingers" which were actually lovely homemade fish cakes with real chips.

Main course was a choice of Chicken Curry half and half, Cottage Pie or Vegetable Casserole. Most people went for the curry but I was different and had the Cottage Pie which was really lovely and very filling.

The wine flowed freely, the craic was excellent and some old acquaintences were renewed as it turned out the Noel and Colin had been in school together and had not seen each other since about 1979. School day confessions were exchanged, including my tale of getting my tongue stuck to a lampost in the playground in Aviemore when I was about 4. The was also an awful lot of singing and all this was before the quiz started.

It was a very lighthearted quiz and neither of our teams won, although we did beat the other side of the table with our score of 23 compared to their 21.

When the festivities at the Cwtch finally broke up we all headed to the Farmers for a night cap, but only the one as unfortunately I had work the next day and Chris and Julie were off to Yorkshire, but it had been an absolutely brilliant night out with fantastic company.... even if we did all look a right load of plonkers.

Pollution Training

Friday presented another opportunity for me to escape from the Ivory Tower. Fraser (our new recruit) is at the stage where it is best to leave him on his own to do the job without standing over him all the time. As there was going to be pollution training I asked if I could go and as this was ok I kitted up and headed for the jetty.


We were going to go out on the SEA SWEEP which is one of our two pollution craft, especially built to clean up major oil spills. Thankfully we have not had to use them in anger since 1997 and the SEA EMPRESS, but we still have to train on them regularly.

I was only going as an observer so luckily I could stay relatively warm in the wheelhouse and not have to freeze to death on the deck with the other trainees. We headed off from the jetty towards the east and away from the open water. We had to find a relatvely sheltered position to deploy the boom. We reached a point near the Semlogistics terminal and began to stream out the boom behind us. The boom is used to coral any oil on the surface of the water to make it easier to retrieve.


It took nearly an hour to get the whole 300 metres inflated and deployed but once it was out it trailed behind us like a long snake, making the SEA SWEEP harder to maneouvre as it acted like a giant rudder.

By this time I was frozen despite being inside the wheelhouse with the heater on so how the guys on deck must have been feeling I can only imagine. It was a really cold, blustery day, with showers between the sunshine and I managed to get this lovely shot of a rainbow landing directly on the deck of the BRO AGNES... I should have chased it and looked for the gold.


We finally headed back to the jetty at about 1200 and I couldnt wait to get back into Port Control and try to defrost, but it had been really nice to get out on to the water for a change. As I have said before the job does have its advantages.

Strange Night Thoughts

There must be something about being up at stupid O'clock that buggers about with your brain.

The wee small hours seem to distort things and result in rather silly thoughts. Tonight's random thought involves some sand dredgers which have arrived in the Haven. They are managed by a Dutch company call Van Oord... which to me sounds a bit like the Ood, so I was wondering if the crew are tentacley faced and carry their brains around in their hands.

As I said it must just be lack of sleep!!

What a Difference a Day Makes

Its surprising what a bit of sunshine can do to lift your mood. Today I feel much happier, I won't say the January Blues have been banished completely but I am certainly feeling better.

I also have a couple of good things to look forward to next week.

Tuesday we are going to Druidston for one of their "all you can eat" buffets (Italian) with Chris and Julie. I have turned down another overtime night watch for this, I couldn't face having another of my four days off buggered about with.

Then on Friday we are going to a themed quiz night at the Cwtch, also with Chris and Julie and several other couples. The theme is School days and it is fancy dress, so plenty of photo opportunities. The food is also going to be the Cwtch's take on school dinners, so that should be interesting.

So today the sky is blue, the sea is blue and the ships are pretty colours, my cooker is fixed, its Friday and I anticipate a kebab and a bottle of Pinot Grigio this evening with possibly a soak in the hot tub... thing are looking up when the sun shines!!