Black to Blighty – June 2025 (Month 3)

Hello again folks!

Settling in

I’m writing this on the 1st June so it’s three months since we arrived in the UK. And Klaus is really starting to settle in – he has finally sampled a proper Pickled Egg from a fish & chip takeaway.

Because Klaus is missing German cakes I made a proper German-style cheesecake for him which was a bit of a success.

It had a second purpose too as we had our Mozart Requiem concert and there was a 3 hour gap between the final rehearsal and the actual concert. This wasn’t long enough for a couple of the other tenors to go home and come back so I invited them to my house for the gap – and Penny and Dawn came along. I was able to supply them with proper German cheesecake too!

I didn’t actually take any photos during the concert or indeed at the restaurant meal afterwards but I did take this one as we were setting up in St Mary’s church, which is a huge church right next to the cathedral in Bury.

I really enjoyed singing the Requiem and it went well. Klaus was in the audience and really appreciated it too.

The following Wednesday the tenors met at our local, The Rising Sun, for beers.

I’m really enjoying the social events with the Tenors, everyone is very friendly. We had a second pub event at the end of June and agreed then to do a walk together (which would be led by the youngest Tenor who’s a bit of an outdoors type) and also to have Afternoon Tea at my place sometime over the next two months.

I continued my tradition of drinking either tea or water at the pub, and Tim (one of the other tenors) had once again brought a pint of milk for the bar as they don’t always have milk. It’s very sweet of him!

Above are the empty glasses of the others, my mug of tea was still in use.

A visit to Wales

My sister went to Uni in Wales, married a Welshman and lived there for 15 or so years before returning to Southend after her divorce. I used to visit Wales quite a lot as my parents had a holiday cottage there, but hadn’t been for a good 20 years. So Klaus and I decided that for the week of my birthday we would do a north Wales Road trip.

We decided to take my SLK so we can have some open top driving (although the forecast was a bit rainy for the first few days). This meant we had to fit all our luggage in the boot with the Boot Separator in place so we had to pack fairly lightly. We had our walking boots and walking poles as I had a vague plan to walk up Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa.

Aberystwyth

The first night would be in Aberystwyth and so we set off heading towards Welshpool. As we had done for our trip to Edinburgh we changed drivers every hour and a quarter which kept us fresher. We stopped for coffee at a Costa in Rugby Services (Klaus’s favourite) and then a very decent sandwich lunch at Berriew on the A483 heading westwards.

We stopped off at Devil’s Bridge Waterfalls and had a walk around there, dodging the showers.

Driving from Devil’s Bridge to Aberystwyth was on a lovely wiggly road and Klaus really enjoyed the SLK on that route.

Our hotel was right on the seafront at Aberystwyth and we rather surprisingly had a ground floor room so could see everyone going by.

After a bit of a rest we went for a walk along the promenade to see what Aberystwyth had to offer.

We wandered around to find somewhere for our evening meal and ended up at a Caribbean restaurant recommended to us by Gwyn Williams, the former husband of James’s aunt Anne who lived in Wales (James was my former husband). So basically Gwyn and I are in no means related but have kept in touch (he is excellent at sending Christmas cards) and I got in touch with him to see if we could meet up whilst we were in Wales. Spoiler alert, we did – later.

Anyway, the Caribbean restaurant was very good and we enjoyed our meal, then walking back to the hotel.

Breakfast the next morning was a little disappointing for a hotel with so many guests – and this was once again a bit of a theme. The choice of breakfast buffet items in the UK is not as good as that in the average German hotel.

Cricieth, Pwllheli and Nefyn

We had a total driving time of two hours today but had a few stop-offs on the way. First of all we headed north from Aberystwyth towards the Lleyn Peninsula and Klaus enjoyed the road and the scenery.

I had originally thought we might stop in Porthmadog but we didn’t in the end, we went straight to Cricieth as we were feeling a bit peckish.

Cricieth is where my sister lived for several years and Gwen my eldest niece went to school. They used to live right near the castle you can see on the photo above.

We stopped off at a café for lunch (lunch scone, in my case).

And then despite being full and only having had a short walk we HAD to have a Cadwalader’s Ice Cream.

I showed Klaus where Anna used to live and also the former home of Mair and Idwal (Gwen, Hari and Val’s grandparents) just around the corner. Klaus and I then went to visit the grave of Mair and Idwal, Anna’s former in-laws, at the request of my niece Gwen.

Next stop was Pwllheli where we parked by the marina and had a bit of a walkabout.

We then headed on to Nefyn where we were staying in a local pub which had rooms above. Nefyn is tiny with nothing much there except a cracking beach, and also the beach in the next bay of Morfa Nefyn is lovely. We booked a restaurant table at The Cliffs in Morfa Nefyn and decided to walk there and back.

This was wonderful with the sunset over the sea. We probably passed a maximum of 8 other people on the 3km walk each way. The food was good too!

Caernarfon

The next morning we were heading to Caernarfon, a short distance away from Nefyn. We drove there through the village of Llithfaen where my parents used to have a holiday cottage – I pointed it out to Klaus. I have lots of good memories of Christmases there.

We had decided to visit Caernarfon Air Museum and as there was no breakfast with our room in Nefyn we went first of all to the café at Caernarfon Airport for breakfast cake.

After this we went to the museum which was small but had lots of exhibits. It was rather dated in places but still very interesting. Klaus, as a newcomer to the UK, did not know what the below item was.

After a look around the museum we drove to the beach at Dinas Dinlle and climbed up the mound which was an ancient site.

The views from here of the Rivals (the mountains near Llithfaen) were good.

We then went to Caernarfon and checked into our quite posh hotel. It had a swimming pool which I made use of!

We then went out for a walk and enjoyed wandering around inside the castle walls where there were some good cafes.

We had lunch there and then later on in the evening we ate a very good pizza by the marina. We had spent a lot of time nosing around the marina earlier.

I had made contact with Gwyn (the former husband of the aunt of my former husband James) and we had arranged to spend the next day together. We were overnighting in Beaumaris so another very short journey, but I wanted us to visit Llanfair PG.

Plas Newydd and Beaumaris

We set off first of all to Gwyn’s house in Y Felinheli and we then drove in convoy onto the island of Anglesey – which I had never actually visited before. We stopped at a lay-by to look back and photograph the Menai Suspension bridge (designed by Thomas Telford).

Here we are with Gwyn.

We then parked our car at the station at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (yes, foreign readers, that really is the name of the town), If you want to know how to pronounce it, here is a recording of Gwyn saying the name (click below):

Gwyn had recommended that we take the train to Bangor as we would then go over the Britannia Bridge and see the colossal stone lions either side of the bridge. Gwyn’s partner Tracey picked us up from the station by car and returned us to Llanfair PG.

We then went in convoy to Plas Newydd which is a National Trust house where Gwyn and Tracey volunteer. We had a NT Café cake stop and then walked around the house – all very interesting, especially Whistler’s huge mural.

When we came out it was rather unexpectedly pouring with rain. We went to the Hide to try to see red squirrels – some people told us there was one within the squirrel box and I did see changes in light and shade in there so I conclude I did indeed see a red squirrel.

Despite the rain we had a bit more of a walk around the gardens and then it was time to head off to Beaumaris – after having lunch in the NT café again with Gwyn and Tracey. It had been lovely to spend time with them.

Our hotel in Beaumaris was old but posh. It had some very interesting rooms downstairs but our bedroom was rather shabby. There was plaster flaking from the ceilings into the bathroom sink, the floor in the bathroom was a bit spongy from all the showers that had defeated the shower curtain and it all looked in desperate need of a tidy up. However, the location was excellent and we found a parking space in the car park.

The photo below is just a corridor we walked through to go downstairs.

Whilst we were in Beaumaris my niece Gwen was just 40 minutes away, in Llandudno for a work training event. Unfortunately the times just didn’t work out for us to meet up for dinner.

Klaus and I ate dinner in a pub that Gwyn had recommended and then had a walk around Beaumaris which is small but nice. And had a big castle.

Looking over the Menai Straits towards Conwy and possibly Llandudno.

The village had loads of lovely painted houses.

We also saw that there was the old gaol that we could visit (although it was shut in the evening of course) so we decided to do that the next morning – Gwyn had recommended it.

The exterior had no windows but the interior had an exercise yard.

People were put in this gaol for months or years for stealing a rabbit or an apple. And were often then transported to Australia.

The cells were often damp as the building did not warm up at all.

The prison governor’s bit of the building was nicer (had carpets) but was clearly an awful place to live. The prisoners were made to do lots of work as well, including working a treadmill for hours on end. It was sobering.

We left Beaumaris heading for Llanberis where we would stay two nights. It was my birthday on this day.

Llanberis and Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa

The Royal Victoria Hotel in Llanberis was really nice albeit a bit of a maze to find our room, which was on the third floor with a view over towards Snowdon.

We went out for a bit of a walk and decided to take the steam train around the lake.

On the way back it stopped for a while at a café where the engine master added more water and coal.

This was a fun little trip, there were lots of dogs also on the train. Not sure what they thought of it!

We then went for a bit more of a walk around, looking at Padarn Lake.

As mentioned above, this was my birthday and so we went out in search of birthday cake in Llanberis. Disaster! There were no cake-shaped objects available anywhere! I had to settle for a Brownie and this was rather disappointing.

That evening we had our meal at the hotel in their main restaurant which was very good.

For the next day my plan was for us to climb Snowdon. I did it once before with friends but I couldn’t remember then which route I had taken up and down and could remember pretty much nothing about the whole event. Gwyn had recommended we take the bus from Llanberis to Pen-Y-Pass and take either the Miners Track or the Pyg Track from there.

The next morning we had a good breakfast and then headed to the bus stop to get our ride to Pen-Y-Pass. We had our hiking boots, walking poles and more water that we had bought from a shop the night before as the weather forecast was for a hot sunny day.

We arrived at the starting point at Pen-Y-Pass and decided we would take the Pyg Track which was 3 miles, rather than the Miners Track which is 4 miles.

The Pyg Track is considered one of the harder routes as it is fairly steep the whole way up but it has great views. Our plan was to walk back down the Llanberis Track which is longer but not as steep and arrives directly at our hotel, so we would get our views on the way up.

This is the route we took.

It was pretty rocky with lots of sections which were like climbing a steep staircase. I was making lots of use of both walking poles.

We stopped after about a mile for a long rest and to decide whether to continue on as it was pretty strenuous. After a good 10 minute break, eating some energy bars and drinking, we decided to keep going.

The track looks down on several tarns and the Miner’s Track below. There were sections which were more difficult as they were smoothish rock – the ideal route was also not always obvious and I would definitely not have wanted to do this in the fog. But there were always other people around, it was fairly busy, but people were all cheerful. Loads of other people were taking lots of breaks to catch their breath, as were we. We kept bumping into the same couple, a lady from Australia and her English chap. They walked slower than us but took shorter breaks – I think we probably had pretty much the same total ascent time.

The last half mile or so was very tough as it was steeper and you could see exactly where you were going and how high it was!

We stopped for another break after we hit the ridge before the summit and were amused by yet another school trip. There had been several as we were climbing up and I was very impressed by the teachers leading these groups – encouraging them, having fun, making jokes. There were also some fit-looking army types going down quite fast. We had also met a chap coming down who said that the café at the top had been closed as there was a special event with the Welsh women’s football team having a pre-World Cup event – and they had closed the loos too! He said that the event was now over and the loos and café were now open again.

There was a 10 minute queue for the cairn at the very summit and we waited behind a chap and his daughter who had walked up with their Dobermann and also this little Dachshund puppy (14 weeks old) who had gone up in a bag the chap was carrying. Meet Daisy!

And then we were on top with amazing views all round.

We had walked up to 1085 metres, although we started at 359 metres as Pen-Y-Pass is higher than Llanberis (which is at 110 metres).

The views were so great.

We went into the café/loo complex and had some lunch (sandwiches and a sausage roll for me, salad for Klaus) and bought more water. I also had a cup of tea.

There was another great bit of Yarn bombing on the postbox there.

I bought myself a little welsh dragon stuffed toy as a mascot for my car (we have a Loch Ness Monster from our Scotland road trip).

After about an hour at the summit it was time to walk down again. It was really hot now and we had seen a lot of sunburned people. It would turn out that I had not been effective with sun cream on my arms so they were a bit painful for a day or two.

The Llanberis path down stays fairly close to the railway track.

It was mostly fairly easy walking except for a 15 minute section of loose scree which I wasn’t too keen on and I took VERY slowly (I am very fearful of falling over).

There is a small café halfway down and I bought some more water there for us as we were running low. We hadn’t realised how warm it would be and were very glad to be able to top up the water. We both carried jumpers with us up and down the mountain that were completely unnecessary!

But we made it down to the bottom and walked right to our hotel.

In the map below of our walk we started on the far right (Pen-Y-Pass) and you can see where we walked up and the track joined the same route as the Llanberis Track down.

And here is the elevation profile.

And my statistics (given in km as that’s what Strava does).

It was a long day’s walk but I really enjoyed it.

Interestingly I had significant leg muscle soreness the next day and found stairs rather tricky whereas Klaus, who felt more pooped on the day of the walk. was back to normal the next day.

That evening we ate our dinner in the hotel’s bar (pizza each) and had slightly more interesting desserts,

I really enjoyed having done Snowdon again. It was also an impressive challenge for Klaus who hasn’t really done fellwalking apart from with me. We were both really happy with our walking boots and walking poles though – having the right equipment is key. We saw people walking up the Pyg Track in Crocs… but they were mostly young things!

The next morning my legs were really stiff but I managed to go down for breakfast and enjoy another bowl of porridge and some toast and marmalade. Klaus isn’t much of a breakfast eater so he could take or leave it but I really enjoy having brekkie (we do intermittent fasting at home so never eat breakfast there) as a treat on holiday – even if the scales are less keen.

Llandudno

Today’s drive was from Llanberis to Llandudno which involved a lot of the A55, a dual carriageway. There were queues for the Conwy tunnel as there had been a fire in the other tunnel (going the other direction) the day before which had caused massive traffic issues. That tunnel was now closed and there was two-way traffic in our tunnel which slowed things down a lot.

We arrived in Llandudno at midday which was too early to check in, but we were able to park pretty much opposite our Guest House. It was a really hot day (we had driven with the roof down) and so we went for a bit of a walk around Llandudno, also stopping for a jacket potato lunch. There is a lovely long promenade and we also found the shopping street and wandered around there. It did feel a little run down though. It was really hot and the seagulls were being quite fierce with chip-eaters (there were signs everywhere warning people about this).

We went back to the Guest House and checked in. The lady owner was lovely – and used to live in Bury St Edmunds! She also gave me a slice of lemon cake.

We were hot and tired from yesterday’s mountain climbing so spent some time chilling out in our room. I then went out in search of a decent cake for my birthday cake but again didn’t really find what I was looking for – this pastry slice was OK but it was no German Torte!

We booked a table at an Italian restaurant for the evening and had a very good meal. We then walked along the promenade in the other direction, enjoying the evening light.

The next day was our drive home. We started off by driving to the Great Orme (the hill on the right of the photo above, which is a peninsula) and having a little walk on the top. I had originally planned that we would do a 5 mile walk around it but my legs weren’t agreeing with this plan, so we let the car take the strain of a lot of the journey. We started with the roof down but had to put it up for the journey home as we then had a bit of rain.

Here are some views from the top of the Great Orme (which was a shortish walk from the car park but still quite an effort with my heavy legs!)

We waved goodbye to Wales and headed east towards Liverpool before joining the M6 and heading back to the East.

We swapped drivers regularly and I had my first proper-looking piece of cake since my birthday from Costa Coffee but of course it was rather an industrial cake. But it was cake.

It was nice to be home but we had very much enjoyed our tour of North Wales. And Samantha the SLK had been excellent.

Squirrel vs human

Once again our squirrel(s) has been proving that he/she is a match for our plans. Here he is in the squirrel-proof bird feeder, feeling very comfortable. He visits once or twice a day that we see.

u3a Choir

We sang Mozart’s Requiem at the beginning of June and two weeks later I had the u3a choir concert.

This was a mixture of tunes including a Tallis piece, Simon and Garfunkel, a Faure piece and some folk songs.

We were also asked to bring some food with us to share at the interval with the concert-goers. It turned out there was a huge spread and I tucked in too – including this very sweet little cupcake.

The concert itself went well enough. It’s a fun choir rather than a quality one and the standard isn’t anything special but it’s fun and a chance to sing so I enjoyed it.

After the concert the u3a choir has also gone on a summer break so my diary is a little less busy – but not much!

Bury St Edmunds/Kevelaer twinning barbecue

Bury is twinned with Kevelaer (near to Kempen) and there is a twinning group between the two towns, with largely ageing members. We have joined the group and were invited to a summer barbecue at the home of one of the members (who used to be the Mayor of Bury).

There were two other German people there but they had been in the UK for 40+ years. Klaus was the newbie!

It was his first chance to try Pimms. He thought it was OK but nothing special.

It was a nice afternoon with plenty of chatting but I think as we are a generation younger than everyone else, and we only really have the link due to visiting Kevelaer many times, I can’t see that it will continue on for that long as who else will take it up, Most of the people there had links with the RAF at Laarbruch (now Weeze), but that has been closed for years. We will keep taking part though.

Free cake

As mentioned above I celebrated my birthday this month and Dobbies Garden Centre (about 150 metres away from our home) sent me a birthday card including a voucher for two free hot drinks and two free cakes. So we went to have them!

The cakes were nothing special but the café itself was rather nice – I expect we might go there with visitors at lunchtime in the future.

Rambling

I haven’t done so much rambling this month due to holiday and other appointments/events but I finally managed to get out on the first day after the hot weather broke, so I had a walk in the rain with Newmarket Ramblers.

I discovered I need to add gaiters to my walking equipment.

Fortunately I had a spare pair of trainers and socks in my car and was able to. unzip the legs so I was wearing shorts when walking around Tesco Haverhill on the way back from the walk. I have a few more walks scheduled for next month as I have a bit more spare time.

So as you see this has been another busy month. Klaus has continued to work hard and is settling in further. We are really settled into the house now, enjoying regular barbecues (Klaus is the Grillmeister) and sitting out in the garden. We had to buy a new mattress for our bed as Klaus realised that the old very soft mattress was contributing to his bad back; we had that delivered and are checking it is OK but so far it’s seemed a big improvement.

July should be a slightly less variable month as we have no holidays planned. It will be a chance for us to settle in more and for me to pay much more attention to my food intake as I have put on 10kg over the last year or so (most of which was the free food on the ferry from January to March). I am knuckling down a bit more to the lower carb eating and tracking all my food, but after each success I go away on another holiday and eat all the breakfasts! Fingers crossed it will go a bit better over the next two months until my next holiday (a week long cruise with my sister in Norway).

Bye for now!