Ring the changes!

As we up at this end of the country are about to have a 'nice day' weatherwise, Keith and I may well be toddling forth to search for yet more wonderful eating places in north Wales, but meanwhile, let me spread the word.
For those of you who are currently prostrate in admiration before my new template and no doubt wondering aloud at my incredible talent vis a vis the old html etc, (like good old Yorkshire Pudding, for instance), I have a confession to make. Not that I'm going to admit to being thick rather than talented - oh no - rather that I owe it all to someone else's incredible talent (which could mean that rather than being talented, I am just your average, bog standard anorak, I suppose.)
Step forward Amanda, she of Bloggerbuster fame.
Get yourself over to her amazing site right now, click on 'Download templates' and Bob's your uncle. She has also written very detailed and easy to follow tutorials on how to transfer your widgets to a new template and other such delights. For those of you 'dahn sarth' wondering what to do on a wet and miserable bank holiday (Am I overdoing the crowing just a bit?), there are delights on this site to keep you busy for hours.
If you asked Keith, he might mention moments of extreme frustration and inordinate swearing while I was doing mine. It goes without saying that this would be gross exaggeration and character assassination, of course.

Back home

When I set off from Bristol this morning, the weather, in true bank holiday style was wet, wet and more wet, which got a bit boring after a while so, a few miles from Spaghetti Junction, I was interested to see a sign on the overhead gantry proclaiming to all and sundry that it would be wise to slow down as there were 'animals at large.'
"Aha!" I thought, "This should brighten up a dull journey," and I began to wonder what sort of animals I was about to see. Giraffes? Elephants? The odd rhinoceros? Well, I have been reading 'The Life of Pi' recently, hence the fact that my thoughts turned immediately to zoo animals rather than farm or domestic ones.
Disappointment! Apart from a Canada goose legging it smartly along the hard shoulder, nothing else was in sight. How typical - arriving when the show's over!
Mind you, later on, I did see a whole lot of lemmings hurtling back home from the car boot sale at Chirk but it was a poor substitute, especially as the resulting queue on my route was so long I felt I was losing the will to live.
Still, I arrived home safe and sound, just in time for Formula 1 on telly! So glad I didn't miss that.....(not!)

Anyone for a wedding?

Walking along the High Street and what should we see but this.

Message for E.D. Grandad says that, when the time comes, he will treat you to a car like this.

Nice to be missed

Phone calls from Keith when I'm away go something like this:
"I got up this morning and sat here for an hour waiting for my cup of tea, before I remembered that you weren't here."
"I've just looked in the fridge and all that's in there is a big echo."
In case anyone gets the wrong idea, he is only joking, but it is quite nice to be missed...

I'm not here, I'm there

Today I'm not here - I'm there instead, which means, I'm not at home, I'm on a short visit to see Dad in Bristol. E.D. recently bought a wireless router for Dad so that he can use his laptop in the living room rather than having to be in the back room on the desktop all the time or have wires all over the floor. She bought it ... and left it here for me to sort out, which I am trying to do - honest!
The problem is that it's a wireless router, not a wireless modem router, which would have made things easier. Keith decided to sort it out remotely and we spent a couple of happy hours trying to set that up, but it was refusing to co-operate, so we have retired defeated for today.
Oh well, tomorrow is another day...

Bollywood and Fairbourne

So what's the connection? I hear you ask. Patience and all will be revealed.
Keith and I decided to take advantage of the fact that, although not sunny or warm, it was nevertheless dry today and zoom off in the trusty Range Rover to the west coast. That's the beauty of Wales. Being fairly small and compact, it doesn't take long to get from east to west, and so off we went and, in the vain hope that some public spirited restaurateur would , by now, have taken over the sadly defunct Proper Gander in Tywyn (about which I have blogged before) that was our first port of call. It's still empty and still for sale, so we partially retraced our steps and set off for Fairbourne where we discovered that what had been a plain and simple cafe on Beach Road when we last visited, was now an Indian restaurant by the name of Cafe Indiana. Keith decided that he was game to try it, so in we went.
At the time we were there, we had the place to ourselves, but although it has only been open for four weeks, it apparently does a roaring trade on Saturdays and is well supported by the locals. The food was lovely, the service excellent and the owners very friendly and obliging.
Now, here's where it gets interesting. The husband of the owner appeared, asked us if we had enjoyed our meal etc and then we got talking. He told us that he and his family have relocated from London to Dolgellau in order to give their children a better quality of life and had chosen Fairbourne to open a restaurant in order to bring a new experience of Indian food to both locals and tourists. "Our idea is that we treat the customers as guests," he said, "so you eat what we eat."
"I'll mention this place on my blog," I said, not adding that this was scarcely likely to increase his customer base by any significant amount, but hey, the thought was there! At this, he disappeared to get us a business card.
"I'm sure I've seen him on television," said Keith, "talking about the restaurant trade in Dolgellau."
I looked somewhat sceptical but, on his return, we learned that our host was in fact Mayur Verma, also known in Bollywood circles as Raj, a Bollywood actor and television producer.
So, if you ever find yourself in Fairbourne, be sure to check out Cafe Indiana. You'll get a warm welcome and a good meal.
The crowning point of the day was that we then paid a brief visit to the beach and Keith was able to walk over the sand dunes and the pebbles onto the sand, which he hasn't been able to do for at least two years. Let's hope he's not in agony tomorrow.

The age thing again

I was on my Gestalt course yesterday morning and very interesting it was too, the theme being psychopathology and how different mental health illnesses fit into the interruptions to contact on the cycle of experience. That isn't really relevant to this post but I just wanted to make it clear that we don't just sit around navel gazing, just in case you thought we did.
At one point, our tutor mentioned a student on one of her other courses who started his counselling training at the age of 62 and is now a very good counsellor. This is one of the things I like about the world of counselling; one's age is not seen as a barrier to training or practising as a counsellor so I was a little startled to hear V. refer to this gentleman as an 'old age pensioner.'
Apart from the fact that it now has an old-fashioned ring to it and conjures up visions of little old men and women with fluffy white hair shuffling around on zimmer frames or with walking sticks, I feel that I am uncomfortably close to the possibility of being classified as such (I have been invited to apply for my state pension, after all) and I just don't like it!
"Could you re-phrase that, please, V?" I asked. "Could he be called a senior citizen?"
"Well, if you like," she laughed, but he's a couple of years younger than me."
(This from a woman who still works full time, loves every minute and has more energy and enthusiasm than many people half her age.)
The rest of the group, being well aware of my hang-ups on the subject of age, tittered.
"Maybe you need some counselling," suggested one.