After an unrewarding meeting at Oxford & Cherwell Valley College last Friday afternoon, met Claire at the Hobgoblin where we met up with some friends of her boyfriend, who has recently returned home to the US. The Hobgoblin is a small, quirky pub, very real ale-oriented and with a strictly-enforced rule about not using your mobile phone inside - one girl near me who tried to received a bellowed "Outside, please!" from the American barmaid. A number of people seem to have their own tankards behind the bar - unfamiliar with this but I guess it goes on. Spotted one woman sitting at the end of the bar with a handle-free tankard with what looked like Elvish runes on it. Probably sums up the clientele. I had a pint of something quite nice that I've forgotten the name of.
Had lovely long weekend with Mum on another UK city break, to follow on from our trip to Manchester last year. Cardiff was this year's destination, suggested by me as I thought Mum might enjoy visiting her hometown; also not too far to travel. We met at Cardiff Central station mid-morning on Friday and went straight to The Plan in the Morgan Arcade for a second breakfast. We t
hen went and dumped our bags at our hotel, the Premier Inn Cardiff City Centre, before walking back into the city and picking up a map for the Cardiff Centenary Walk, which began with St John's Church (where we were accosted by an enthusiastic young woman asking if we wanted her to pray with us) and then moved on to Cardiff's indoor market which 
still has rabbits and kittens (among other things) on its upper level. Resisted the urge to a) become extremely depressed; b) buy all of them and take them home with me. The route also took in the Animal Wall that runs alongside Bute Park (apparently a programme to restore the animals kicked off in July of this year, which will include restoring the anteater's missing nose) and the exterior walls of Cardiff Castle. We gave the Great British Cheese Festival a miss as it was £8.50 to get in - you'd want quite a few free cheese samples for that.The walk then took us to Cathays Park via a quick peek at a little stretch of water that was the dock feeder for the defunct Glamorganshire Canal - the pedestrian underpass that leads under the main road was formerly part of the route of the canal. Apparently the towpath is still visible, but we couldn't see it. After a look at the impressive civic buildings at Cathays Park we went to visit the National Museum of Wales, where we tried to find the leatherback turtle that
Mum remembered from previous visits, but discovered on enquiring that he was in one of several galleries closed for refurbishment. We were able to admire the impressive entrance hall and staircases, and have tea and cake in the ground floor café.We had dinner on the Saturday evening at Giovanni's, a long-established Italian restaurant that Mum had heard good reports of. Kitschy decor, largely involving Giovanni in poses with assorted minor celebrities, and over-loud music which Mum gamely asked them to turn down (which they did, ever so slightly). Had a delicious seafood pasta.
Sunday was mainly spent visiting Cardiff Bay - we decided to walk from the hotel down through Butetown, which Mum remembered as an area of densely-packed terraced housing but which apparently underwent a massive clearance and rebuilding in the 1960s. The area to the west of Bute Street still looked depressed to us and as though it hadn't been significantly uplifted by the new Bay development. After some difficulty we located the Butetown History & Arts Centre, which appeared to be undergoing a refit and consisted of only a smallish number o
f books and photographs, but did come complete with a chatty elderly man who regaled us with stories of the history of the area before talking Mum into buying a book. We went for lunch at the lovely Bosphorus overlooking the Bay before walking out along the Cardiff Bay Barrage Coast Path to have a look at the Barrage, and then back to Mermaid Quay (the main hub) to catch the Waterbus back up the Taff into the city. In the evening we went for a curry at the Juboraj, which apparently enjoys the 'very enviable position of being at the pinnacle of Bangladeshi and Indian cuisine in South Wales today'. Hmm. Meal was nice enough though we were the only diners in the restaurant, which never adds to the atmosphere. Made our respective ways home on the Monday morning after another breakfast at The Plan.
My Book Group has just romped through Part 3 of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, which seems to have been a major hit with all of us except Claire. We are, of course, all completely in love with Blomkvist - which I can't help now pronouncing musically Blooom-kvist after seeing the Swedish film of Part 1. Also had a surprisingly OK Singapore chow mein from the Chinese takeaway across the road from Lesley's.
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