Living in Usk, Wales

Well we started out with plans to live in London, but happily have now settled into life in Wales, Monkswood, near Usk to be more precise. And what a lovely place to be it is.

We arrived in London on 14 July and stayed there for 3 nights before heading here on our first stop, in London we had beautiful weather and staying in Kingscross at the Bellgrove Hotel - across from Kingscross/St Pancras International tube stations. We arrived early and got the tube from Heathrow and travelled on the tube - experience with all our luggage, but made it. We went for a wonder around London hitting such sights as Oxford Street, Hamleys, The British Museum (a must to visit), walking heaps and navigating the buses.

We then came and had a few lovely nights here, not imagining it would be home soon. Visited some wonderful places, Tintern Abbey, White Castle, Bath - including going into the Roman Baths which the kids loved and so did we, Bath Abbey and more. We went to Abergavenny, Monmouth, Usk and many other lovely places. Then moved onto staying with a friend in Surrey to start the look for a home, spent some time looking around Surrey and then took the tube into Harrow to look for properties, have to say here that estate agents are the worst to deal with and seem not to care or want to help - this we found truely frustrating. Despite much searching and trying to get agents to call us back on properties we decided to give up searching here and rethink our strategy and home.

We were offered an opportunity a place in Leicester, great, went up there (after another stop in Wales) and had a look around - we managed to fit in a visit to Birmingham and from there to Bourneville where Cadbury World is ... need I say more, Nottingham (Robyn Hood country), Alton Towers - a fantastic theme park full of rides which the kids just loved. Looking around generally in Leicester with the help of some lovely friends of Amanda and Marks, walked heaps and more than that .... The house was in Hughenden Street about 15-20 minutes walk from the centre of town so not bad, but unfurnished, great location but unfortunately work not as wonderful so we made a hard decision to stay put in Wales ... which we did.

We are now living in a lovely cottage here near Usk on a lane, the kids should be starting school tomorrow but the council has all the say in when children start school and where they go and have not put the rubber stamp of approval on their starting so the school cannot accept them until then, they are both ready and fully uniformed up but unfortunately may have to wait a day or two after everyone else (it is the start of Term 1 tomorrow), the school goes from year 7 to 6th form so both are at the same school - basically our end of college.

How has work in Bristol and hoping to get more work locally, as well as me. So far this now permanent move has been great, we have been back to Bath (love that city) and How and the kids went on a river cruise, I went for a wonder around. Been to Brecon Mountain Railway in Merthyr Tydfil, Raglan Castle (wonderful place) in Raglan, The Old Tintern Station, The Butterful Zoo and Amazing Hedge Puzzle in Symonds Yat, Clearwell Caves and in Bath visited the original Sally Lunn house and bakery/cafe.

The school for the kids is in Caerleon, an old Roman Village, it seems to be a fantastic school. A school bus picks them up from the bottom of the lane and comes back and drops them off again - a dedicated school bus.

One of the favourites has been the Big Pitt, an old coal mine that you go under and tour around and like many museums and attractions is free. This was in Wales also. I might add that How is not good at navigating and when there are the roundabouts that they seem to love so much here everywhere it is not easy - seriously these roundabouts are huge they have a forest in the middle of them, not joking or exagerating. To get to our main shopping centre we go through over 12 of them in 20 minutes and you do not see the other side of these things and there are no lanes and everyone just gets on and off when they want never mind what you are doing.

We also spent time in Kington (about 4 nights with family) which is about 15 mins drive from Hereford, another lovely part of the country but over the border in England - just, at several points we visited we were shifting countries a fair bit. We visited Hereford Cathedral, Hay-on-Wye a town that has made itself known and on the map for second hand book stores (and other stores), went to watch Red Kite Feeding at Gigrin Farm. Fantastic walking area too, around lovely country.

We also visited Croft Castle a very regal old home. This was all around 5 August, Hows birthday, and his aunt and uncle took us to dinner at the Stagg Inn a michelin star restaurant in Herefordshire, Kington, and lovely food - fantastic night.

9 August we were in London and visited the Tate Modern, National Gallery (awesome art want to go back), Shakespeares Globe and more walking, 8th we went and had a look around Harrods, Hyde Park where we found the Lady Diana Memorial Fountain, a great loop of running water with obstacles to walk through, deep patches and small water falls to walk up - fun and such a hot day very welcome at 7pm.

I have just tried my first attempt at booking with Ryan Air .... got all the way through on a very cheap flight to Montpellier and then at the payment time it adds 40 pound for paying with a credit card, which I cringed at, but the How pointed out that is was only 4.04 pound for the return tickets for all four of us ... but then it suddenly went down for maintenance at the very end of entering all the information and date - not happy about that. Will try again tomorow.

Going to go now as want to search for a school jumper for Joseph on the net that we could not get today at the shop. I have to say that at least the school uniforms are not expensive, much cheaper and available most places even the supermarkets as are all pretty standard, except for the odd thing which has the embroidered logo like their jerseys and the tie's, hocket and rugby socks (both need to play).

Bye for now