The Welsh Experience

For the first long weekend in May we took the kids off to Wales. We drove up to Cardiff on the Saturday morning. The children have developed an aversion to travelling in the car anywhere that is longer than 30 minutes away. To overcome this aversion they need to be packed into the car with pillows, iPods, snacks and cuddly toys. The aversion luckily seems to pass once we get to the selected destination.

On the way there we stopped at the seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare for a morning tea snack. The town is one side of the Bristol Channel and you can see Wales across the water. Facing the Atlantic ocean it was very windy and we parked at  a local indoor shopping centre to get out of the wind. Sometimes I don't think the children understand the concept of travelling somewhere new. They could have spent the whole day at this shopping centre looking at the same shops that we have in Weymouth.

After they had been dragged from the shopping centre we were off to our intended destination for the day - Caerphilly Castle.

When we got there it was very busy because of a local food festival, which had resulted in lots of road closures. Personally I only saw stands selling hot dogs and hamburgers and another stand selling deep fried potato spirals on sticks - not the sort of food I would be holding a festival to celebrate.
We drove around looking for a car park; this was made more stressful when someone at the back of the car said they felt the call of nature. After doing a couple of laps of a car park I felt like we were back at Chatswood Chase. We eventually found  a car park and then had a nice lunch at a pub overlooking the castle moat. For a bit of variety Ben and Ella had fish fingers and Simon had pizza.

Replenished from lunch we walked around the castle. Simon and Ben enjoyed the replicas of the siege machines.

After the castle we drove into Cardiff. Sarah had booked us into a hotel right in the centre of town. It was a short walk to the St David's shopping centre. Luckily all the shops were closing. We had dinner at everyone's new favourite restaurant -- Yo Sushi!.

On Sunday, Sarah's school teacher instinct kicked in and off we went to the Museum of Welsh Life. I couldn't complain because entry was free. The kids enjoyed the playground and we looked at a collection of houses and buildings that had been moved to the site, including an old shop.

This was Wales -- they don't have heating in their old shops.

I tried to sign up Ella, but she was too young.

Simon in an early Welsh House!

We stayed at the museum until lunch time, when the lure of the shops in Cardiff was too great and we had to return for a pizza lunch.

On the Monday we went to visit Cardiff Bay, - Cardiff's answer to Darling Harbour. There was an interactive science museum, which the kids loved and we also enjoyed because we could sit in the cafe while they ran around.

After lunch it was back to Weymouth. The school was actually open on the Monday but we gave the kids a special treat and let them miss a day - What great parents we are! Afterwards we realised we could have had a child free day together but we weren't mean enough to do that to them. Although, Simon paid the penalty for missing school as his History teacher (aka the Headmaster) punished the children who weren't at school on Monday by forcing them to do work in their class later in the week while the 'good' kids got to build WWII models. (Simon's favourite activity!) What a low blow!