Of Dragons and Puddings

It is perhaps no secret that the husband and I really love castles, and one of my favourite documentary series to watch is Dan Jones’ Secrets of Great British Castles. I watched the second season in December, and decided that, since we now live on the island, we have the ability to visit these marvelous castles, and our first visit was to be Cardiff Castle.

As I travel a fair bit for work, I have managed to accumulate some loyalty points with a hotel chain, and decided to haul us off to Cardiff for a quick getaway with a night in a hotel paid for by said loyalty points, as a way of celebrating my birthday at the beginning of the week. We were fortunate enough to be upgraded to an executive room with a fantastic view of Cardiff Castle and it was simply breathtaking.

We spent some time on Monday walking around Cathays Park and surrounding areas, and had lunch at the wonderful The Owain Glyndwr.

We woke up on Tuesday morning to a very rainy Cardiff, so we postponed our castle exploration until later the day, and went to the movies instead to watch The Last Jedi again.

Luckily the weather cleared up while we were in the movies, and we got to explore the magnificent Cardiff Castle.

It is well worth a visit, even if you just visit the house for its spectacular interiors, especially in the Arab room.

I visited the lovely town of Knutsford this week for work purposes, where I unfortunately did not take any pictures, but, as I will be visiting again several times over the next few months, I will surely have some more opportunities for photos.

We ended the week off with an outing to St Albans yesterday with our friends, where we had some pudding for breakfast at The Pudding Stop and then stopped for drinks at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks (which claims to be one of the oldest pubs in England) while walking around Verulamium Park to look at the ruins of the city walls and gate which can be found in this park.

I end this week feeling incredibly grateful and wonderfully loved. I’ve had the best birthday I’ve had in years, and feel truly blessed to have so many friends who are willing to spend a day with us. It is these moments that make it easy to get through the darkness.