A Welsh-English Camper-Van New Years.

First off, let’s make something clear. I haven’t been away. I’ve just been lazy.

Secondly, I’ve been away. As in physically not at “home.” I’ve been living in Calgary. Why? To live the Alberta dream, of course. The reason I’ve not been blogging is because I’ve been too goddamn busy eating beef, ten pound turkey legs, and wearing cowboy hats.

Don’t act like you aren’t impressed.

So here’s the thing. I still have a bunch of stories to tell. I have an entire catalogue of blog posts that have never been blogged, or posted, or posted to this blog. And it’s making me just a wee bit upset with myself. And while I’ve discovered during my pause here in Alberta that while that you can do a whole lot of adventuring without your passport, I’ve also discovered that I want to get back to documenting my travels on my blog. Blogging and posting. Posting and blogging.

So here we go. Here’s a little gem from a couple years back that I recently found stashed in the brain box of my computer…

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So I welcomed 2011 from the inside of a camper-van on the Welsh border, it’s not like you expected anything less.

Erin and Rob drove down from Shrewsbury to pick me up in Blackheath on the 30th. It took nearly 4 hours driving to get to the countryside, and when we did it was so foggy we could barely see anything. Pea soup. Mmm, pea soup.

Went for some dinner (I ordered “stuffed peppers” – and when my plate arrived, it was literally one overcooked green pepper with the top sliced off and perched on top like a jack-o-lantern. Stuffed with dry risotto and some awful, oily mushrooms). Needless to say I ate most of Erin’s meal.

New Years Eve day and I accompanied Erin to meet the photographer for her wedding. Seems like a very, very nice and easy-going guy. He’ll be great for the job. After, a quick tour of Shrewsbury and a coffee with Bob and Leila, the sweetest old couple I think I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Leila’s first five words to me were, “You have such beautiful eyes!”. They called me brave (I think perhaps I’m just a little bit crazy) to be doing all this travelling on my own.

New Year’s Eve. We drove with The G (Dave G, coincidentally enough, though not the same awesome one from North Vancouver) to Tim’s cottage in a small village near the border with Wales. We brought in 2011 alongside The G, The P (Paulford, don’t ask me his first name because I have no idea – does it matter? didn’t think so), The P’s Girlfriend (Lulu?), Erin & Rob, Tim and his girlfriend (Cath), and I think that about sums it up. Countdown in the cottage, followed by a rave in the camper-van parked in the muddy lane down the road.I stepped outside to watch the ducks vs the swans (I’ve henceforth discovered they’re not swans at all, just white geese, biggest letdown of my life) for awhile, it was awesome because they were having a standoff, white geese on one side of the river vs mallard ducks on the other side, and they just sat there, quacking at each other. Quack quack quack.

We drank all night (return of the calimocho, I’m happy to announce, alongside too many but also other delicious bevvies as well) until about 5:30 in the morning, and then cat-napped until someone woke me up at about 9am and told me it was time to go. Erin, Rob and I left, knocking briefly on the camper-van to say goodbye to those passed-out inside, but no one answered. Drove back to Rob’s mum’s house where I proceeded to shove down a piece of toast and sleep on a random bed for as long as I could until someone poked me again and said it was time to go to the train station.

I can’t believe I’m still writing this bs. I took a train home (and by “a”, I of course mean 4 different ones) and to be honest I’m surprised I actually made it back to Blackheath. Four trains and four hours later, and now I’m watching “All about Steve” and waiting patiently for my Kraft Dinner to make itself.

Happy 2011!

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Only 3 and a half years late. Nice work.