Rocking Your World Tuesday – week 19

It’s that (variable) time of the week again – time to count my blessings and put a few more ticks on the grateful list

I’m feeling a bit fed up today – nothing major, just a bit run down, big cold sore threatening to erupt any minute, super tired, you know how it is – and so it’s a really good moment to do a round up of what’s been rockin’ my world – to stop me feeling so down in the dumps

And last week had a lot going for it – for a start it kicked off with a three day weekend – can’t beat a free day off work!! :)

On the Saturday we had a nice lazy day, mainly spent at home, the boys played on the Xbox and I worked on my Steve Tyler CJ entry.  Very chilled.  We did have a little walk into town when we dropped Connor off at his dad’s for a bit – and I bought three fab new colours of spray paint at the market – got to say I’m liking this MTN 94 stuff even more than my usual Montana Gold.  

And I was super excited on Saturday evening when I got an email from the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project tour to say that my travelling sketchbook had been checked out and viewed at the tour’s first stop in Chicago.  I hope you liked it, Angela B. :)

Crossing the Severn Bridge into Wales

Sunday was our day trip day – we try to have at least one big family day out every week, weather permitting.   The Sunday weather had been looking a bit sketchy in the forecasts around our usual haunts, so I tried a bit of sun chasing, and checked the forecasts for various different potential destinations, choosing the one with the biggest chance of sunshine.  And surprisingly the weather man chose Wales – usually renowned for its rain :)  So a trip to Cardiff it was….

The weather man was spot on and we had lovely weather all day.  First we went into central Cardiff to the city’s main museum and art gallery.  Very impressive buildings and lots of interesting things to see inside.  Also we got the chance to see a mother peregrine attend to her chick up on the clock tower (in the black Olympic ring in my photo…) – as the RSPB were helpfully stationed outside the museum with telescopes trained on the nest.

Next we walked what looked like a short distance on Google Maps, but turned out to be quite a trek, to find “Europe’s biggest sticker graffiti combo!!!!” – only to discover that someone had painted over the whole thing with dark green paint – boo.  Never mind, we still added our stickers to the mix.  Better three months late than never :)

Next we took a drive out to the Llandaff area of the city, looking for the Boiler House Graffiti Project gallery.

Which we found, but it was shut.  Pffft.  But never mind, the legal walls around the back of the gallery were all open and well worth a look.  I especially loved the “Silence in the Library” spaceman.

It was a short trip from here to St Fagans where they have a fantastic (and FREE apart from the car park fee) open air museum featuring original and reconstructed buildings from all periods of Welsh history, many of which have been transplanted here brick by brick.  The kids particularly enjoyed the olden days sweet shop (well, they would, wouldn’t they :) ) and having a wrestle in the cock fighting ring.  Connor also had a go at archery.  We were only here a couple of hours and I’m sure we barely scratched the surface of it.  Definitely a place worth re-visiting one day.

And finally, we popped up the road to the coast, and famous Barry Island. I’ve managed to get to the advanced age of 45 without ever visiting the home of Gavin and Stacey, but I couldn’t put it off any longer :)  The place is a bit tatty and a bit run down, to say the least, but it has a certain classic British seaside resort charm to it, and the kids had great fun on the rides.

And we even got ice creams from Marco’s Café, which I think features in the TV show.  (I have to sheepishly admit that I couldn’t get into the programme, only ever watched one episode and didn’t get it at all.  But I know everyone else thinks it’s really funny so it must just be me)

We got home at about 11pm, thoroughly tired but having had a brilliant day – and happy in the knowledge that we could have a nice long lie in the next day thanks to the Bank Holiday.

And we did exactly that – it was nearly midday by the time we struggled out of bed!  I cooked a big roast dinner – which I don’t often get the chance to do given that Connor is always at his dad’s one weekend day, and we tend to go out for day trips on the other day.  And then after we’d had our fill we walked around to the cinema to see the new Avengers movie.

I’d been looking forward to the film, and expected to enjoy it, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it as MUCH as I did – it was awesome!! :) :) :)

And not only for the eye candy ;)

(I have a new Avenger crush, by the way, Thor was still super cute, but oh my, Hawkeye! He had me all a quiver….see what I did there? :D )

Such a fun film – now I totally understand why people have been going to see it two or three times on the trot.  I wouldn’t mind another watch myself.

If you are one of the two or three people left in the world who hasn’t seen it yet, I can heartily recommend that you get yourself to the cinema pronto – even if you don’t think you like super hero films – you’ll enjoy THIS super hero film, promise.

For the rest of the week I was back at work but there were a few more fun spots:

- I made a kite themed bit of mail art for Vicki via Collabor-ART, and a birthday card for my sister – making stuff is a great way to unwind in the evenings

- My theme and free Prismacolor marker arrived from the Art House co-op for the Mystery Project (just need to work out what to actually make now…)

- The Apprentice had a street art episode set in East London and Bristol, which was highly entertaining – blimey this year’s crop of the young business elite are a proper bunch of twonks!

- Our Download tickets came!!  Can't wait!  less than 4 weeks away now :)

- and we booked our accommodation for our trip to Berlin in July - cool little apartment in the artsy part of town on the former East Berlin side - looks ace doesn't it, so excited :)

And that’s about it for this week

As ever I’ll be linking this up at RYWF Central aka Virginia’s blog.  Feel free to join in if you would like to spend a little time thinking about the high spots of your week….it makes a refreshing change from thinking about the downsides of life.  I can definitely attest that having written all this down, I feel a lot less sorry for myself than I did when I started :)

See you again next time!