The End of Southampton

 April 2019

Back in gloomy Southampton, I soon interviewed for another library role in Cardiff, this one just outside the city in a village called Rhiwbina (which is not pronounced Ribena like the drink, trust me). It was only a part-time role, however they promised it had a high chance of going to full time. I was shocked to discover out of over 600 applications, they chose me. I was ecstatic, and promptly quit my archaeology job. 

The role didn't start until May 20th, so I had over a month to kill, but I couldn't take the fieldwork any longer. Not only were the team unpleasant, but the pouring rain, muddy conditions and rats (I wish I was kidding) had gotten to me. Working on my knees on concrete for just over 2 months had left me with aching knees, and I couldn't imagine what 10 years of it would do. 

We gave notice on our awful flatshare, Ben handed in his notice for his job, and by the time this had all sorted out, we had managed to find a housesit for a long weekend in Cardiff at the beginning of May, to give us time to start flat hunting. 

This gave us about ten days between our flat agreement coming to an end, and our housesit starting, but as usual Joy and her family came to our rescue. 

We organised to go camping with Joy and her little family for a couple of days in the nearby New Forest, they would be driving down, so we could therefore pack up all our stuff, and go back to Crewe with it all at the end of our trip. 

From there we could get rid of anything we had accumulated and didn't need, and move down to Cardiff with only a suitcase each. It was brilliant. 

Our camp setup was epic, we were able to borrow a little tent off Joy, and they had the larger one for themselves. They brought a little coal fire too, to keep us warm as it was still early in the year.

We went for a couple of day trips and walks, including passing by this interesting factory; we eventually worked out that the enormous parts were for the wind turbines you see up on hills sometimes. Our guesses had ranged from airplane parts to bits for oil drilling rigs in the ocean, so thank you google!

We had chosen badly with the tide, so the usually pretty port was mainly mud and beached boats in the boiling sunshine, but it was nothing a nice cooling pint in a pub couldn't fix!

As always, a million thank yous to Joy and co, who never failed to rescue us, help us move, and generally be lifesavers whenever we needed help. The sun had set on our chapter in Southampton, and we couldn't wish it away faster. 
Onto better adventures!