It was a topping for toast. It was next to the bowl of honey and has about the same consistency, but it’s pale brown and gritty and partially crystalized. It tastes like brown sugar melted in butter. — — UPDATE — — I have been informed that it was honey and the other stuff is golden syrup. …
…except that my only pair of long pants are drying on my radiator because the Aberdare dryer chose the middle of the snowpocalypse to break down. The Cardiffians appear to be too snowphobic to come outside long enough to realize that 80% of the white stuff on the sidewalk is salt.
We’re apparently getting a blast of arctic air from Siberia. London is panicking. Schools are closing. There’s a very light dusting of snow on some of the hedgerows…SNOWPOCALYPSE!
This bed and breakfast is wonderful! It’s five minutes from Tintagel Castle, and in the off-season, it draws not just tourists but locals. The rooms are plain but comfortable, the pub downstairs is a classic with decent, reasonably-priced food, and the atmosphere is cozy. But the best part is undoubtedly the people. Wally, the manager, …
Let me just apologize up front for the egregious pun. It will all make sense in a minute. I asked Wally the bed-and-breakfast owner what I should do today with no car, mediocre walking shoes and a student budget, since the castle is closed and, thanks to off-season, so are half the shops in Tintagel. His …
I thought I’d make a post for Cornwall in general, separate from my Tintagel Castle and St. Nectan’s Glen posts. For the geographically challenged, Cornwall is the southernmost county in the UK. It’s a favorite vacation spot for summer holidays, owing to the beautiful beaches and relatively warm climate (which was nowhere in evidence this …
And now, the post you’ve all been waiting for… I made it to Tintagel Castle today. This is the castle I have wanted to visit since my freshman year of high school when I began writing The Sword in the Circle. After five years of on-and-off internet research, the real thing felt both very familiar and …
I did promise you a juicy post. So Tintagel is a principal setting in the novel I wrote my freshman year of high school. Both at that time and during five years of subsequent revisions, I did extensive research on both the history and present appearance of the site. But there are some things you …
It was dessert again, theoretically. Fiona said it looked like a zombie, which is one of those things you can’t unsee. It was mucus-colored, stringy and slimy, with some kind of grave-dirt topping. I have been informed it was rhubarb crumble, but it tasted like…zombie.
There was chocolate cake for dessert in the dining hall tonight. It’s the first chocolate I’ve laid eyes on in Aberdare, and I immediately fell about replenishing my chocolate cells. I ate one piece, waited till 6:15 when we’re allowed to get seconds, ate another piece, and sat there looking hungry until Dora gave me …
…and by strange, I mean there is no canned pineapple in it. There does, however, appear to be apple, curry powder, cold steamed spinach, raisins, and peanuts.
I’ve spent the last several weeks being passed from arm to arm of the Cardiff University bureauctopus as I try to get access to my Cleopatra course materials. International House, the history department, my professor, the tech department and the Cardiff module approver all seemed to think that one of the others was the source of …
It was dessert…I think. It looked like bark, tasted like hazelnut, had the consistency of chocolate mousse, and according to the allergen information, contained pear. ——Update—— I have been informed it was flan. I remain skeptical.
I *think* I reduced the size. Is this picture blurry? …yes, but that’s because I was like, this picture is 3024 x 4024 pixels…Let’s make it 3.02 x 4.02! Note to self: Upload pictures as normal. Hit “Edit.” Go to “Aspect Ratio.” Go to the two little boxes that have four-digit numbers in them. Put …
The UBC Service Desk explained to me why my storage space is full after only a little over a hundred photos. It’s because they’ve been uploading as ginormous hi-def files. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have no idea how to make them smaller. Update: Okay, I think I figured it …
You may have seen the news about the 4.4-magnitude earthquake that hit southwest England yesterday. Tremors were felt as far as Cornwall. The epicenter was in Swansea, Cardiff’s biggest rugby rival. Even though Cardiff is closer to Swansea than Cornwall is, no one I’ve spoken to in Cardiff felt a thing. As a Portlander probably …
It is the power to summon the bus I need by walking away from the bus stop. After my Caerphilly visit, I needed to catch Bus 26 back to Cardiff. After standing at the bus stop for forty minutes, I gave up, figured the Bus 26 runs different routes on Saturdays, and started walking to …
I finally made it to Caerphilly Castle today. Caerphilly is the second-largest castle in Britain, built in the 1270s by the Marcher Lord “Red Gilbert” de Clare (a very nasty character according to Wikipedia). King Edward returned from the crusades, having hit upon the brilliant idea of building a castle with concentric defenses, only to …
I apologize for not doing anything egregiously stupid lately other than losing my bat skull zipper pull. In lieu of amusing commentary, here are some more Cardiff pictures. Here’s Pettigrew Tea Room, which is in the old Victorian gatehouse at one end of Bute Park. If I wasn’t a.) broke and b.) pathetically alone, I’d …
I was really trying to rough it this semester. I figured there’s no point accumulating a bunch of things I won’t have room in my suitcase for at the end of the semester. But after three weeks of institutional lighting, I finally broke down and bought an eight-pound lamp for my room. Happiness is a lampshade that …