(no subject)

[essayel]

COmtnLady wanted to know if I was still alive so - er - yeah I am.



Okay so the dog is fully grown now and tonight was outraged by my daughter and I spraying flea spray on his nether regions.

He sulks rather nicely though, and it's astonishing how such a large animal can pack down so small. This was a night or two ago when he was sulking because it was cold and the washing in the basket had just come out of the drier.

Tonight Jen informed me that she had learned something important at school. Naturally I asked what and she said that she had learned that no matter how kindly intentioned and well crafted it is, no school teacher likes to be given their own signature tune on entering a class room.

"And I worked so hard on it too - three verses and a chorus," she said.

Mike is alive too and under strict instruction NOT to put this mobile phone through the washing machine. He has a new girlfriend with the delicious name of Amber Phoenix [all fan ficcers's Mary-Sue alerts start to bleat] whom he intends to bring home with him shortly. Apparently she's a vegetarian so I'll have to hide the bacon.

Paul's still alive too and is fed up with teaching.

Which more or less brings us up to date.

Comments

[writerofictions.livejournal.com]

AWWW. The dog has gotten so big! I remember when you first got him!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Yeah he was about the size of his head then.

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

awwww, to Dog AND to Jen-- she's turning into a lady-- despite the red nose....My heartfelt sympathies to paul-- I too am disgusted with teaching. This year and next school year to go and I am SO outa there.

I'm going to ENGLAND in the summer!! Don't know if I can get to where you are: there are four days between Warwick Festival and Sidmouth, though....

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Warwick - Abergavenny - Sidmouth? Sounds possible to me.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

I did like Abergavenny. Worth a visit to the area for sure.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

You came to Abergavenny? Did you come to the castle, because if so I could have waved.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

I used to live in Blaina, in the valleys. Worked for British Steel in Ebbw Vale, back in the day!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Dear me!! You wouldn't recognise it now I'm sure. All that industry gone and replaced by a shopping mall - sort of.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

So I´m told. It had the park and the outlet center when I was there. I must get back there, maybe this year, to see people and see the place before I wouldn´t know my way around at all.

I never did get to the castle in Abergevenny you know!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

It hasn't changed that much then apart from most of the old rolling mill having been demolished and the site generally getting tattier and tattier. There's a good heritage officer for Blaenau-Gwent though [used to be my boss] and he's getting stuff saved and recorded before it deteriorates too far.

The castle's quite hard to find actually - it's all tucked away with contradictory signage taking to Monmouthshire County Council.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

Nantyglo tower was the other one.. never got there. Used to have a great tourist trail up and over the mountain from Blaina to Brynmawr and then down into crickhowell and back up over the beacons into Blaina again. Showed you everything about the valleys from what happened to them, to what they probably looked more like before it all started, to the bleak empty treeless hills (now) and back into the industrial landscape of the valleys. You luck out being in the artsy and stylish cosmopolitean metropolis of Abergevenny. I got to a point once where going to Abertillery was a real day out for me!!!

But I would love to see it all soon. Glad to know someone is taking care of the records, but if memory serves there was an active industrial historical society in the region, especially with the big pit just over the mountain. ( I have photo´s from the time team dig and all)

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Active but amateur, though that's really where the passion lays so there's nothing bad about amateur. But now they've got lottery funding and are setting up little but good local museums to collect what they can and make it available for people to visit. Abertillery, Brynmawr/Blaina, Ebbw Vale and tredegar all have their own museums and the Nantyglo Tower has been listed as a world Heritage site.

Also Blaenavon is good to visit because one of the guys from Hay on Wye has triggered and explosion in bookshops up there.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

It was up thye mountain to Blaenavon of course, not just Brwnmawr...

hmm, perhaps I should sleep?

But anyway, glad to hear they got funding. And I saw something about the bookshop/Blaenavon connection but thought I was dreaming... God it´s agood thing that happened after I left. i used to lose enough money on the rare trips to Hay as it was. (I used to go into Ebbw Vale for lucnh on a work day, with a fiver in my pocket and stop into the charity shops and come back with no lunch but about 20 books bought for 20p or so each!

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

Ooh, could we? (I'll havea friend with me but he's harmless)

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

that's the region I went too 9 years ago. we stayd there fora week and then went off to Devon which is also nice. Dad promises me something like atrip to cornwall next year, which is..also nice. what i'd really want is n oldfashioned grand tour of britain because i want to see EVERYTHING. I MEAN YORKSHIRE, AND IRELANANDAND...
um..yeah.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

That would be a grand holiday. There's so many odd little corners to poke around.

You could do a 'literature' one and go to the Yorkshire Moors where Heathcliffe chased his Kathy, or Dartmoor where Holmes and Watson battled the Hound, or Lyme Regis where - um - senile moment, can't remember which of Jane Austen's girls hurled herself off the seawall into the arms of some officer or another. But you get the idea.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Can still do that in Aber - though the books are more like £1 each. We've got nine charity shops though and another one planned apparently, but it's great fun bargain hunting.

In Crickhowell - where they are a bit posher - and Monmouth - where they are a LOT posher - the charity shops have designer rails * boggles *

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

i shoudl first read those books before vistiingthose places. o nthe other hand if you stumble upon a story that's taking place in a region you've been too it's enhanced somehow perhaps.

help1 jane austen! if you mean a main character i won't know. i've onl yread emma and prideand prjudice (oh and sense and sensibility) and i' mdefinitly mixing al lthe girls up. :P

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Oh so do I, though there are some of her heroines I want to smack more than others.

I have a feeling it might be Persuasion. Suppose I'll only know if I read it again.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

Crickhowell always was a bit ::posh:: and I never did much more than drive through Monmouth. I always remembre Crickhowell as the palce that had no place that took plastic to pay for food and no place to get money out of the bank so if you didn't carry cash they didn't serve you.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

Can I be totally evil and point out that Ireland isn't in Britain?

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

Eh sorry about that. Let me just say i deleted a lot more babble-in-caps and forgot to tidy the rest up. I should have just caleld ita tour of the uk and irelandand scotland anyway. Sometimes i get abit fuzzy on what falls under which collective name and so forth.
So your'e not evil. I was jsut havign a vague thought of 'try notto step o nanyone's toes with this-one'.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

No, I knew that. I was just being evil. But if you do get to visit YELL and i might be able to give you a tour af some places and a what's good guide to a few others.

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

ooh i 'll keep that in mind. :)