Cars and Cardiff

I recently got an email from a friend that said 'I think you're doing the right thing by consolidating with jobs and settling in over the winter but you're absolutely right to do the tourist thing on the weekend. My advice is never to give this up - this is after all the reason you went there in the first place and jobs etc. are essentially the means to do this with some comfort and security' and then he went on to say'the first year was establishment THIS year you mean BUSINESS!!' and all this from someone who made the same journey to us but in a different direction and is now enjoying living in Wellington, telling me of the sunshine and what a lovely city it is!! Why am I putting this in the blog? Its because we are now at the stage when we no longer feel like a tourist. When people ask us how long we have been here (we still have that kiwi accent) we can say 7 months and it no longer gets the reaction 'that's not long' . We are no longer getting lost everywhere we go and sometimes we almost forget the camera and Caramello. Life over winter can get a bit of a routine, work and coming home in the dark, settling down with a good book or dvd for the evening. It sems so easy to stop seeing new things, or to not see new things when we pass them while shopping or travelling somewhere else. We don't really believe in new years resolutions but I guess we don't want to stop being excited about being a traveller, we want to make more friends and to get involved in some activities outside travellling (that don't impinge on our weekend travelling). That does sound a bit like a new years resolution after all. And we have begun the right way ....It was an interesting week.

• We went to Mamma Mia at the Hippodrome and enjoyed toe tapping and singing along (with our hoarse voices)
• We learnt how to skype and now are in regular touch with Mike and Becks in Brussels - let us know if you are on skype as well and we can email you our address.
• We had our first snow in Bristol - I seemed to be the only one excited about it at work - so much so that I had to send a couple of emails to friends to tell them. It snowed all afternoon but didn't really settle on the ground due to the rain. But when we arrived home - little Pierre looked very cold and white and so did lots of the other cars on the road. It was a bit cold biking home but the traffic was pretty much at a standstill so quite cruisy on the bike. I am knitting myself some leg warmers to keep soome of the winter chill out.
• Haz managed to crack a filling this week and when he rang up the dentist down the road it was the one I enrolled in back when we moved here (funny I thought it was close to our other flat across the other side of town) - I must have known we would be moving (a little bit of forward thinking there!!).
• Sir Edmund Hilary died - and this was headline news over here - it made us proud as kiwis to know that he had such recognition here - he achieved so much in his lifetime.
• We found some cheap airfares to Budapest so heading there in a few weeks (the temperatures in the minuses so it is not surprising the airfares are cheap) - will have to buy a Hungarian language book and enjoy finding out places to visit on the web
• And we found a reasonable Indian take away not far from here. This weekend Haz and I took off to different parts of the country. Haz to Birmingham to the International Auto Sport Show 'a cocktail of static displays and live racing' and a 'chance to get close to stars of the track, formula one drivers David Coulthard, Jensen Button, and Mark Webber' as well as rally champion Marcus Gronholm'. Haz and his work mates were in their element as you can imagine. He was intrigued by the number of specialist supplies and so much that you could buy to improve the performance of a race car (Pierre doesn't fit quite into that category much to Haz's disappointment). Every type of motor racing class was represented from formula one to the most basic club type cars and road cars (from kitset cars to Ferraris). He enjoyed watching the live action arena where cars raced around a hall on a slippery surface. Kids drove the go-karts, a range of cars including a 8.5 litre V8 drag car. The special show would have seen heaps of envious bystanders I imagine. The National Exhibition Centre is impressive and expansive complex which apparently holds a number of other shows like the British International Motor show (wonder if I will see Haz over summer?).

To get him there for the 9.00 opening we were up and out of the house by 6.45 (the new scraper for the window works well) and after dropping him at work I drove to Newport to see Anne. After another breakfast (needed to wake me up after such an early start) we headed off to Cardiff - a city we had passed a few times but I have never explored. It is probably now on the top of my list of 'nice cities' and I need to go back to explore it more. Anne and I first ventured into the shopping mall (a number of streets have been made into malls and the markets) and then went to the museum to see the 'Red Lady'. The skeleton of the 'Red Lady', complete with jewellery and a mammoth's head grave marker, is regarded as one of the world's most important archaeological finds (they reckon she is about 29000 years old!!). She was discovered in 1823 at Paviland Cave on the Gower but removed from Wales shortly after. Originally she was called the 'Red Lady' because she was 'red' as the ochre and iron she had been buried with had that effect. They later decided she was a small male of special social stature probably a chieftain but the Red Lady tag has stuck. What we saw was bits of a skeleton laid out like a human sleeping and no jewellery. There is a campaign to get her/him permanently back to Wales (from Oxford where she has lived since her discovery) a bit like the Maori heads that our government is trying to get returned. I have begun to realise there is something important about allowing them back into their home country - its hard to put into words but for me its about 'spiritual importance and letting them rest at home'. A museum official (one of those that stand around all day making sure we don't steal or touch exhibits) recognised our accents and said his inlaws lived in Rotorua - he was so keen to go to NZ to visit the wildlife etc - but was just too busy. It made me a bit sad that he had a dream but he wasn't going to make it happen.
We visited Cardiff Castle in the centre of town and not far away from the new Millenium Stadium. The Castle was built in the 1800's on the top of some Roman ruins and is quite spectular. The building was owned by the Marquis of Bute (who owned 15 other properties) and came here for his 6 week summer holiday each year. Most rooms were done in ornate Victorian era decorations (some with paintings of the 12 zodiac signs, four seasons, statues of the family - gold and silver leaf) while one room was done in Georgian style, plainly painted and with large paintings of the family. We stood in the first room ever to have electricity in Cardiff, found out that the hole in the dining table was not for the umbrella but for the grape vine to grow so you could pick your own grapes, and saw an ornate monkey statue that when you squeezed his cheeks the head butler arrived (the monkey looked a bit like Gladstone - rather a derogatory gesture as the Marquis family were Conservative). The ladies had their tea in a room surrounded with stained glass windows and prisms to give light effects as the sun moved around the room. The guide told us that the current Marquis (Johnny Dumfries) was a Formula One racing car driver - but Haz didn't think so - onto the net to see who was right. He was a Formula One driver for Lotus in 1986, he also won Le Mans in 1988.
It started to rain sometime during our 'coffee break' and so we drove around the docks (so like Wellington in that it seems to be the hub of the town - with lots of lights and restaurants, Welsh Assembly, Millenium conference and events centre) and its claim to fame is that Doctor Who is filmed here. You can see why as the conference centre looks like a huge space ship. Anne takes off for New Zealand in a few days time, and other friends leave not long after her. The kiwis are returning, some for good and some for a holiday - we just can't stay away.