Here's another snippet of my time back in my homeland.
After topping up the vitamin D, I headed back to Wales to spend some time with close friends.
I feel so lucky, so incredibly lucky that I still count my school friends as my close friends. We may not see each other for a couple of years yet we fall back into such a familiar chatter of conversation that as cliche as it sounds - it just feels like yesterday that we were together.
They are my cosy jumper and favourite pair of jeans friends.
The kind of friends that are always there, albeit thousands of miles away....
Those friends that you just feel so comfortable with.
The friends that are in all the photographs over the years.
A few of these special people I have known since Nursery days - that would be when we were 3 or 4 years old! Not worth thinking about how long ago that was...! Others, I spent those crazy school days with and some of us carried on to crazier days at Uni together.
So it has become a bit of a regular event that when I find myself back home we organise a get together. Four of us had managed an afternoon catch up the previous week (that was the tea, wine cocktails, back to tea afternoon I mentioned in an earlier post) and we planned a larger gathering for the bank holiday weekend.
M has hosted these gathering on quite a few visits and this time it was from her new place. M made the move across the border to England to study and then began her working life in London. Some years later Wales called her home and she moved back. At first the family lived just outside the city and then more recently they have moved to a property with land. It's a dream place.
The minute I drove past the pub and up the lane I loved it. Not hard to see why.
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| spot the happy dog playing in the water bath. |
Griff the dog came to greet me and he was in absolute heaven with so much space to run around, fences to jump, chickens to watch and sticks to carry.
The kettle was immediately filled and placed on the Aga and the inevitable observations were made on how much the 'children' had grown. I use the word 'children' loosely.... they are beautiful young ladies.
It struck me during this particular afternoon that in the couple of weeks that I had been away from Australia I had almost exclusively spoken Welsh. I had reverted back to my mother tongue without a second thought. That was a lovely thought.
As the afternoon moved into early evening more and more people came and sitting around the kitchen table was the place to be. Nothing changes does it? More and more bubbles were poured, stories shared and phones passed around to scroll through photos.
Conversation was easy. We moved from family and friends updates and working life into the benefits of supermarket home delivery! At this point someone pointed out that this was rather a "middle aged type of topic" so we quickly changed the subject! That was possibly the time that there was a moment of madness when four of us girls decided that it would be a good idea to have a go at a dancing thingy with the Wii. Actually, in hindsight, I'm pretty sure that I had nothing to do with the decision and I just found myself in front of a screen, holding a white control in my hand and singing (rather than dancing) to 'Fame'!
I think the under 18's in the house were in awe of the fact that we still had the moves....or maybe those looks were them being a little horrified at the sight of so much jigging and giggling!
The most worrying thing is the fact that it was all captured on video! It took a few attempts trying to re-watch the footage as the tears of laughter were blurring my vision! Please let me never see the sight of my behind like that again!!
Then it was back to the kitchen table....
Towards the end of the night we made it to the sofas. It was cheese and biscuits and singing time. My lovely talented friends had recently been on TV and I was treated to a showing of the programme. Biases aside - they were flippin' marvellous!
Next morning it was wellies on and I had a walk around the farm. I had already mentally moved into the barn next door to the main farmhouse when I was told about the potential for conversion...!
As we continued with the walk there was a funny moment when it was pointed out to me that I did not need to keep my eyes down as I trudged through the long grass - there were no snakes to look out for!
So with another great weekend under my belt I left with some fresh hen eggs and a head full of wonderful memories to tie me over until next time.
Diolch am noswaith arall o'r cyfeillgarwch gore. x
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