Update from Pete including Cardiff

I'm just at the end of a busy few days & thought I'd send you all a few photos to bring you up to date.
First, a couple of pics of the Bray Weddies that were taken a few months ago when we went to a wedding - my, how our wee girls are changing. It's funny -- even now, they look as if they're older than in these two photos.





Back to this weekend - it started on Friday at 6am when I had to go in for the 10th birthday party of Ireland AM, the breakfast tv show that I do every week. I was a bit of a fish out of water - that sort of cocktail party chit-chat isn't really me - but it was fun in a weird way. I particularly like this one with the champagne bottle at the front - you can see from the expressions on folk behind that in between photos, everyone looks normal, like on the bus or something.





Anyway, after that, I flew over to Birmingham and took the train to Cardiff, for a vet conference that I had to write about. It was fun - you can read some of what was happening here - & I made a lot of useful contacts in the UK vet world - old friends and new friends. Anyway, I had an hour free at the end of the day, so I took a taxi out to 20 Lon-Y-Rhyd Rhiwbina, where we lived from 1963 to 1968. It was just as I remembered it (last there at the age of five) - still a pleasant cul-de-sac, the fence at the end with the stream flowing by. The house looks different - an attic conversion, and maybe other extensions? I don't remember how it was. It was funny being there - I remember walking up and down that road, I remember being on my tiny tricycle, but I wonder if maybe some of my memories are linked to cine footage that I've seen of it.
I knocked on the door, and a woman in her 30's answered. She seemed very scared of me. I said "I know this is a bit strange, but I used to live here 40 years ago when I was a kid & I just thought I'd knock on your door." She said "No". I said "It's very peculiar - as a toddler I remember falling down those stairs behind you", and she again said "No, No." So I said "Sorry to bother you, and I'm off now. Goodbye".
And that was it. It's a shame she was so frightened but then maybe I am a bit scary, especially when I put my mad grin on.
That's it - a busy but enjoyable few days - back to normal life in Ireland again now....