A Birthday in Wales

 May 2019

Saying goodbye to Joy and co, we left Crewe by train, with only a suitcase each (which was quite enough to lug around thank you). They had kindly let us leave our excess stuff in their attic as we had accumulated too much in Southampton. 

We arrived at our housesit, and greeted our hosts. Their house was small but cosy, and the best part was their lovely garden, where the husband had built a truly epic pub in the garden shed.

We used the time to go house viewing, and try to get to know some neighbourhoods. 4 days wasn't long, so we also booked a cheap airbnb room for the week following on, very close to Cardiff central to buy us more time. 

We couldn't wait to leave the housesit. The issue was the Westie, who might look cute, but was a demon dog. He. didn't. stop. barking. ever. It drove us completely insane. 

He clearly had separation issues or was possessed. It was constant, and drove us totally mad. We were soon thanking our lucky stars we were only there 4 days, not 4 weeks. Look at him, looking so innocent. Demon dog!

The Airbnb room wasn't much better, though the lack of barking made it a welcome respite. The location and price seemed to be too good to be true, and we soon found out the reason was due to the neighbourhood. The apartment building had a number of rooms all let out to different people, and a basic kitchen. It was very run down but servicable. However the area, Grangetown, was certainly not somewhere we would want to live. 

The nice part about being so close to the city however, was how easy it was to explore the town and surrounding neighbourhoods. It was in this way we saw a bunch of places for rent, and learned which neighbourhoods we liked and didn't. And see a bit more of the city itself of course! Including the fancy goverment building posted below.

Initially we had hoped to find our own place, but with me on only part time work, and Ben yet to find something, we decided it wasn't financially viable, and looked at spareroom instead, which is a website advertising rooms in rental houses, both from agencies and private landlords. 

Heartily sick of the run-down accomodation in Grangetown, and knowing I would be starting work soon, I treated us to a slightly more upmarket airbnb for one night, to raise our spirits.

A converted garden bungalow on someone's property, it was still reasonably priced, and absolutely adorable, modern and well thought out. They also provided us with a lovely little breakfast.

Spirits buoyed, we ended up finding the short term solution of staying in student residences, in an area called Maindy, while they were empty over the summer. We signed on for the time they had available, which was up until the end of July (after that students started moving in so they no longer had vacancies for us). 

We now had 3 months accomodation sorted - plenty of time to find something else - we hoped. 

The room was large, modern and clean, and we had our own little private bathroom with a shower (that actually worked - take that Southampton!). In other words, we were in heaven. 

It felt incredibly safe with 24/7 security, however the annoyance with this was how our fobs only sometimes worked on the security gates, the gates locked for good overnight between certain times, and there was a concierge desk where you had to check in guests if you wanted visitors.

 It certainly felt like a student residence as it didn't have the freedoms we were used to, but we wouldn't be there a long time, and it was just nice to have a clean, safe space. 

The flat we were in had something like 7 rooms, so it could have been horribly busy, but luckily only two students were staying over the summer, and they were very studious and busy, so we hardly ever saw them. 

We dumped our suitcases, and went to Primark and Wilcoes, our go-to cheap stores for basic furniture and goods. The room was furnished, so we just needed towels, bed sheets, pillows, and a lamp for the room. We tried to be as minimalist as possible as we weren't sure what our next place would have, and didn't want to accumulate too much again like in Southampton. 

Exhausted from the move, we treated ourselves by stopping by 'Nata&co', a bakery in the city that specialized in pastel de nata, Portuguese custard tarts.

We were only in our new home a few days, before it was the 7th May, the day before Ben's birthday. Money was tight, so we couldn't do anything too exciting (like go to Disneyland Paris, or Venice, both options we had hoped to be able to afford at some point). 

So instead I decided to plan a small surprise trip in our new home country, and book an airbnb deeper into Wales. We took the train to Pembroke dock, for the simple reason that the Airbnb was ridiculously cheap, the train actually ran to there, and it was close to Tenby, a super pretty village in Wales.

 I had hoped to find a place in Tenby itself, but that was far beyond my price range. 

The Airbnb was clean and cosy, and we had the whole place to ourselves. We cooked up a lovely dinner, played board games, and planned our day trip the next day to Tenby. Largely, it was just wonderful to get away to our own place for a bit, without having to share with anyone.

Tenby was ridiculously picturesque, a tumble of brightly coloured houses on the hillside, overlooking the sea. The trains ran regularly too, so we knew we had the flexibility to stay as long or as little as we liked.

The tide was out when we arrived, and we could see people walking down on the beach, so we assumed quicksand wasn't an issue and joined them. 

Tenby prospered greatly in medieval times, as a trading hub and port, but fell badly into decline in 1650 due to half the town's population being wiped out by the plague.

By the end of the 1700s, half of the town was in ruins and abandoned. However it had a change of fortunes in the 1800s, when it became a health resort for Victorians looking for sea-bathing baths (because apparently that's a thing).

Nowadays of course it's largely a tourist town, full of knick-knacks and fish and chip shops, but undeniably charming, and in my opinion, well worth a visit. Overall, a wonderful little adventure away!