1 Year Anniversary

It's finally happened.....married for one whole year. They say the first year's the hardest, but I think it's gone a smooth as a gentle sea breeze. :)

In any case, the Hubby and I had a wonderful time for our anniversary. We went down for the weekend to a little Seaside town in the Gower(Wales) called Mumbles.

We stayed at a small B&B that was a short walk up from a private little cove. The room, for a B&B, was very modern and nicely decorated.

View of our bedroom, in the Langland Cove B&B

Tea Tray in the room.

The bathroom, simple beach theme.

The Cove, was only a few minute walk down the street and it was mostly empty the whole time we were there cause it was just a small little cove, unlike the main beaches/piers around mumbles. It was especially interesting to see the cove at the different tide times. It’s amazing that the sandy area where we layed out on the beach, could be completely covered in water a few hours later.



Before the tide washed in....This was taken down by a huge rock at the side of the cove(below on the right) Notice here how much sand there is, and then gray rocks closer towards the staircase.



At high tide....This was taken from the side of the staircase in the above picture, ...now look how little sand there is and how far the water has gone in(noting that at low tide, the sand extended past those rock clusters on the left and right.)



On the first day Rob and I just took a walk around the area. We started walking along the coast, stopped at a beachside café/restaurant for a drink, then continued walking around the coast towards town….only we had no idea how far it was and got caught in a massive rainstorm. Luckily, I brought my umbrella.

But unfortunately, on the way back to the B&B, it POURED down on us, and my umbrella broke in the wind, so we got absolutely soaked by the time we got back to the B&B.

After a quick shower and change of clothes, we DROVE to an Italian Restaurant called Castellammare. Lovely place, the food was great. I had an earthy-tasting Veg Medley pasta, and Rob has a real fishy seafood pasta—you could REALLY tell how fresh everything was in it.

Finger lickin' good. ALLLLLLL gone.

Besides being rainy, our first day in Mumbles was pretty good.

Saturday, the weather was more in our favor. The rain had stopped for most of the day(which sort of sucks, because I bought a new dome umbrella to replace my broken one and barely got to test it out), with a few showers throughout, but it was still overcast, with little peaks of sunshine later in the day. Perfect weather for meandering about town.

First stop on our journey around town was the shops. We went through a lot of the town center shops and managed to find a few things for my cupcake business, to decorate a market stall (including a mug that says “keep calm and eat cupcakes”. Perfect J )

Next was a local Arcade, where we played a game called “Stack ‘em” and won a few consolation prizes, played a few rounds of air hockey, and ran around like little children with coins in our hands, waiting for the next game we could play.

We went to a local ice cream shop across the way which I think is 2^nd on my list of top ice creams (1^st  would by Cold Stones). …we ended up having “Joe’s Ice Cream” 4 times throughout the weekend. It was goooooood.

We wandered along the pier and saw boats,

.......ate at another Italian place for lunch(this time is was food court sort of style)...

Pizza, with 4 different toppings, but instead of mixed in each of the 4 slices had a different topping on that quarter of the pizza.

 Pasta with cockles(like mussles)...Yum yum!

...played mini golf at a local park—a fiver for both of us (Rob won)...

 ....visited the local Oystermouth Castle(for only a fiver as well)...

Through the grand window pane of where the church in the castle used to be, you can see the ocean.

ON the second floor of the castle, instead of rebuilding the flooring so tourists can walk around, or leaving it completely bare and missing all the detail in this room(the parish) the national trust put in these glass walkways so you can see all the left over artwork on the walls.

They had re-enactments the day we went to the Castle.

Archery! My favorite!



Crawling through secret passage ways underneath the castle.



....we went to the Mumbles Pier, won tickets/prizes at the mumbles pier arcade(we got a fridge magnet and it only cost us about 7 pounds worth in ticketed games), and walked along the beach before the tide came in.



View of the beach/pier from the castle. Mumbles peir is all the way at the top to the left.



Shells on the rocks on the beach.



Rob: "I feel like I'm on Lost!" Me: "You could be charlie, with your hoodie"
Hence....Charlie on the beach picture was born.
Me: "All we need now is a permenant market to write Love/Hate on your knuckles".
LOLZ

Climbing over the rocks on the beach causeway.

Hubby spreading out on the beach, on our new Store 21 Beach Towels! Mine has Ice Cream on it! :)



It was such a nice day, I got to wear my new sundress!



.......So much and all of this we did in ONE DAY! It was quite enjoyable to walk around town with no plan and just see something and say to each other ‘let’s go do that!’ like little kids at an amusement park.

After all the fun we had in the day, we had a late dinner at a bistro called CJ’s Grill….not the best food or service, but it was somewhere and it was cheap.

Sunday, our actual anniversary we took things a little easier and chilled out for half of the day, on the beach…I climbed rocks, Rob sat on them and watched puppies playing in the water. And I had my first Sunday Roast at The Oxwich Bay Hotel, where we were (although according to Rob, I still haven’t done a Sunday roast because theirs wasn’t good enough to be called traditional).

My first Sunday Roast.



Rob sitting on the rocks.



Me at the top of climbing on the rocks.

But the main event of our anniversary was a place called Worms Head. Essentially it is a 2 mile walk out to the ocean and back to the mainland, but it’s a very HARD trek. You have to pass 2 rocky causeways, which can only be crossed at ‘low tide’ which is about a 4 hour gap in the middle of the day). 

The start of Worms Head. Rocky Causeway(UpperLeft) moving toward an island(upper right).



...Then from the island, another rocky causeway(this one with death defying drops on some points), to the second and third connected island.



Causeway #1 in detail....Rockys, uneven footing and pits of seawater trapped even during low tide.



Most of the rocks in the causeway were covered in mussels.

Then part of the trek was just following a trail around a grassy mountain top on the two connected island.



Causeway #1 leading up to the first bit of island.



On approaching the island there was this sign that basically said, if the tide comes in and you get trapped here, ring the bell so the coastguard can come rescue you.



A closer view of the worm's Head and the second bit of island.



The hardest, but most enjoyable part was the death defying moments. At one point we had to cross a causeway of jagged, cliffy, volcanic like rocks, which if you missed a step could send you plummeting down between rocks or straight down into the ocean(127hours style).



Me sitting on a giant wish-bone-shaped Tree that stretched a little ways over the jagged death-trap rocks.



Towards the end of the trek, there was a lean (a slanted area of land/rock that was steep to climb up), and then about  15-20feet straight climb up to the top(which forced us to do a little rockwall-style free-climbing....really fun for me, scary for the hubby who's afraid of heights), which was a grassy open area on the very top of the ‘Worm’s Head’. Below us would have been a 200ft drop from the top of worms Head into the water. It was marvelous! Spectacular views, and I just about had time to snap a few shots before my camera died.




Panoramic view of the ocean and the way back to the mainland(aka, everything we had walked/climed/trekked across). If you can see the edge of the beach--the light brown in the mid-right of the picture. Right above there is where we started walking.

 



A closer glance at the trek....(from Top to bottom), Mainland....to a rocky causeway(hidden by mountain), onto the main island, crossing another rocky causeway, onto another island, and a climb up to the very top where this picture is taken from.



The Vidlers, 1 year together today.



At the very edge of the Worm's Head, Ocean in the background.

Dinner that night was at a seaside brassiere. Good food, and we walked from our B&B into town  and back with no problem and some scenic views.

Something funny that night was that we kept seeing cats on our walk home. Normally, that wouldn’t be that funny(interesting, not funny ha ha), but the days we had been there  we had seen LOADS of dogs….at the beach, in the coves, in town, on walks, EVERYWHERE! And Saturday I was complaining that I wanted to see more ‘Gower’ Seaside kitties and I hadn’t seen any. With the span of a 30min walk, we saw 6 cats…..4 of which were friendly enough for me to pet…the other 2 were too scared to pet. Here’s one of the cats that appeared out of some apartment complex on the walk around the bays.

All in All a great weekend getaway, full of childhood wonder(because we ARE the “Young at Heart” couple), and lots of love….and I even got to see some kitties.