Last weekend I travelled to Cardiff for Dawn's hen weekend. I'd love to say it was a smooth journey, but it wasn't. I Caught the bus from Salford, what should have been a swift 20 minute non rush hour journey into Piccadilly somehow turned into an almost 40 minute journey of taking the massive piss slowness. I then had to rush with my awful suitcase on wheels to Piccadilly train station, legged it to the platform with about 3 minutes to spare. To find that the train was not there yet. But before I could weigh up the chances of being able to visit a near by concession for journey supplies, the train approached so I thought, I'll get something to eat on the train.
Oh more fool me, Arriva trains don't provide food OR drinks for their almost 4 hour journey to South Wales. (although it was apparent from the litter around my seat that the previous passengers had had the courtesy of Arriva refreshments).
Luckily I had thought to pack wine & mints for the journey (and a cup!) so I drank that... and arrived at Cardiff to find that everywhere in the station was closed at 11pm also!
Wow.
Then I got in a taxi, and the driver had no clue where I was going, even though I offered the postcode for sat nav (as all the taxis in Manc have sat nav), but he just decided to ask other taxi drivers at the station... needless to say when Dawn rang me 15 mins later, I was no where near where I should've been. At this point, bright spark taxi driver pulls out the sat nav and apologises (for being thick or not using it in the first place? couldn't really tell), so yeah, get to Dawn's quite late.
Day 2: Wake up fairly early and sit in the garden as the weather is beautiful, Helen made pancakes for breakie (awesome)- I had mine with lemon and chocolate spread! then it was time to crack out the margaritas!
After a few drinks we headed into Cardiff which is a pleasant 20 or so minutes walk from James & Dawn's house,(although a quick stop off at the local junk shop for a kitsch Pope plate was in order).
We had a good wander around the shops before stopping off at
Zushi for some Sake and sustenance
I would say this prepared us for the walk home, but to be fair, we went to
Cuba where we had Long Island Iced Teas and then jumped in a cab back to the house!
Where we fired up the barbie for tofu kebabs as well as Dawn doing a fab spread of tabouleh, raita and general salady goodness
This was then washed down with more alcohol... probably margaritas as we managed to grab some margarita mix whilst out in town, plus a few shots of tequila!
After the barbie we got a wee bit dressed up and decided to head back into Cardiff for a few cocktails. First stop was buddha bar, we'd passed it earlier in the day when it was really busy and as we approached we thought they were playing some decent DnB, but alas, that was the flat above the bar...the bar itself was barren at barely 10pm. we asked for cocktails and the barmaid informed us they didn't do them, at which point a smooth talking bar man said he could make us a funky buddha which was blah blah and midori... only to find a minute later, they were out of midori so he would substitute it for something else... ahh well
Dawn & Helen looking very bemused when the final concoction was brought over, I know it had Blue Curaçao in it... hence the colour
After that we headed to Inncognito
another bar that does cocktails, which was also surprisingly empty, but still took the barman about 15 minutes to make a round of cosmopolitans because they had run out of Cointreau, but at least we got a discount. We sat out the back of the bar, where you could actually hear yourself speak... no idea who they were pumping the music to, as it wasn't the 10 customers.
After there we headed to Buffalo, but this bar was charging £4 a person after 11pm (although I completely understand why) it was no good for us hens who were only going to have one drink in there, so we headed off for somewhere else and ended up some place random, there were plenty of restaurants with outdoor seating so we ordered a round of G&T's and V&T's (after the obligatory tequila slammers)
Natasha had along with the lovely medals brought a selection of miniature plastic instruments including a Harmonica, Kazoo, Football rattle and Mini saxophone.
After this we grabbed a cab back to the house where we had left a few small potatoes on the barbie which were now cooked to perfection, and ready to dip into coleslaw and such. We sat out until about 1am when it got a wee bit chilly and Natasha had to drive back to London the following morning at 7am! Crazy lady!
Sunday am, we had a full cooked breakfast courtesy of James: bacon, eggs, hash browns and other meat n stuff... i was so full. Then Helen left to get her 8 hour coach!! (Crazy lady), then after a few hours of garden lazing (and apparently burning), I went home also!
Goodbye Cardiff, I was quite sad, could have happily stayed a few more days with that awesome weather :)
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