Sat just looking at my iPad one morning a couple of weeks ago before going to work. I heard a distinctive noise of a gas burner going off on a hot air balloon. Grabbed my camera and went outside to the sight of beautiful hot air balloon floating over the campsite, drifting along wherever the wind would take it. It’s something I have always wanted to do, along with a lot of other things, more of that later.

We are still very busy at work and the end is in sight for this year now. Tomorrow we are off to Tredegar house in South Wales to work for a week. The site is in the grounds of, yes you guessed it Tredegar house, a national trust property between Cardiff and Newport. It’s not far from where my gran and grandad, my dads parents used to live and I visited as a kid many moons ago. Will not have time to go and find their old house this visit but we are going back to the site on our winter trip so will make an effort to find it then.

We have had some more end of season assessments at work to do with the machinery. All to do with the two year training program and pleased to say we both passed. Good job really otherwise we would not be able to work.

We have had three stealth B2 bombers flying around a lot also. They have been based at RAF Fairford and are doing some training, but a bit different to our training. Fantastic planes they look like batman when in the air and I was so pleased to see all three as they flew over leaving Fairford.

It was Nikki’s birthday yesterday and we had some friends come up to see us so we all went into Cirencester for a drink and a bite to eat like you do. Had a really nice evening. Today is just a chill out day.

The trees in the Bathurst estate and around the campsite are all changing colour now and starting to drop their leaves. The Bathurst estate are doing a lot of tree work at the moment because a lot have disease or have come to the end of their life. Some really big trees like chestnuts have been coming down. Hundreds of years old. They are going to replant a lot of new trees to take the place of the old ones. The colours are fantastic and should get better in the next few weeks.

Now for some fantastic news. We have been told where we are going next year. We are going to a site called Coed Y Llwyn, don’t ask me to pronounce it because I can only just spell it but I will learn. It’s in the heart of Snowdonia in North Wales. About 8 miles from Porthmadog which is on the coast. The site is in a small village called Gellilydan. There will only be one other couple with us and it’s a much smaller site.

Going back to what I said earlier about things I always wanted to do, next year I will tick one off the list. Less than hour away is a old slate quarry which they have put a zip wire in, its one of the longest in the world and you reach speeds up 100 mph. It’s called velocity 2 if you want to check it out on You Tube. There is also a place called surf Snowdonia which is a lagoon with a wave machine in it for surfing. They can alter the size of the wave depending who is using it. I’m sure if I give the bloke an extra fiver he would crank it up a bit.

About twenty minutes away is a forest called Coed Y Brenin where there are lots of different mountain bike trails. From the site you can walk around a big lake called lake Trawsfynydd. And of course there is Snowdon itself to walk up, another thing I plan to do. Nikki is going to catch the train up and wave as she goes past sipping her G&T. And to top it all off there is a pub at the end of the road from the campsite. So looks like it’s going to be another busy year next year.