Thursday 19th August 10

The forecast was rain but later in the day, so before it started I went to find a bit of firewood for later, as I anticipated needing the stove. Gill rang George and Rhona and discussed whether to meet up at Plantasia in Swansea today, but George said it was expensive and good for younger children, and the Waterside Museum was better and free. He offered to come and collect us, Gill couldn't persuade him to let us get the bus in. So he dropped Rhona off at a cafe in the Marina area, and came to pick us up.

When we got into Swansea he parked near the new and controversial tower block ... which I quite like and find attractive... and we walked past this and looked at the bay, and then walked quite a long way around the Marina, past the statue of Dylan Thomas and into the Waterfront Museum where Rhona was waiting.

Due to our long walk it was after 12.30 and some of the group were hungry, so we had lunch here, then had a leisurely wander around. It is an excellent museum; I could have spent much longer here but some of the group were ready to move on. But it was now raining, so George took us to the Leisure Centre where there is a good swimming pool, flume, water slide, river ride and much much more. We went to the viewing area and watched... but neither of the boys wanted to be bought swimming trunks and get into the pool so we just watched for a few minutes.

It was still raining hard but we needed to get back. Gill had seen George and Rhona talking about how to get us home, as George's car only had space for four passengers. But we said it would be perfectly easy for us to catch a bus back to Mumbles, and this is what we did. We got a purple FTR bendybus as far as Brynmill Lane and then, our luck was in, the 2B to Limeslade came in just 2 minutes later! We'd got a family day rover for £8 and this got us all the way to the stop really near to our house, with no hill-walking needed. I lit the stove as soon as I came in and dried off a bit, then took the umbrella and walked down into Mumbles for bread, milk, potatoes, baked beans, mushrooms and chocolate.

I got back extremely damp but with all the provisions and peeled potatoes whilst Gill did a mix of onion, green bean, courgette, mushroom and baked beans, and then the boiled spuds were mashed and plonked on top.... a very filling and wholesome nosh.

We watched a DVD of Toy Story, the first one, which I'd not seen before... it was great!

Then we watched a programme about the wildlife of the Himalayas and then another hour of archaeology. Whilst this was doing, I decided to do the washing up without the use of fossil gas, and put two saucepans of water on the woodstove, and when they were hot, poured them over today's plates, bowls and cutlery. I refilled the saucepans and got another batch of 'carbon neutral' hot water to pour over, and this meant I was able to do an 'ethical' wash up.