Having not been to Rhossili Bay (Llangennith beach in particular) for donkey’s years and given that my family has never been there, today was an ideal opportunity to change all that. But before getting to Rhossili we made a flying visit to Broughton Bay and the very quaint village of Llanmadoc.
Now not being a regular to north Gower, I was struck by the natural unfound beauty of it all – probably because the majority of visitors seem to head for the more popular (better advertised?) southern area of Gower.
When we arrived at Llangennith beach and parted with our £2 parking fee for Hillend Caravan Park (no plug intended!), the family weren’t disappointed with the view that met them. Despite the overcast and somewhat breezy conditions, the beach was as I remember it – vast and glouriously sandy. The majority of people on the beach were either sand sailors (I think that’s what they’re called!) or young families – such as ours.
We decided to make our way home via the Mumbles and ended up getting some chips from ‘Yallops’ on Mumbles road and munching them in the car park at Bracelet Bay – with the lighthouse in full view.
Did my usual weighing scale trick today with the end result showing 17st 1lb – so I’ve gained a 1lb on last week. Not bad considering the lack of rhedeg (that’s running in Welsh) this week.
Congratulations to the Shrimpers of Southend who booked their place in the Championship next season after a pulsating and highly entertaining 2 all draw at the Liberty Stadium today. It was a cracking game with the Swans playing better than I’ve seen them do for a while, perhaps the crowd helped as the atmosphere was electric. Unfortunately though, the Swans couldn’t hold on despite taking the lead twice – which now means we must beat the Spirites of Chesterfield next Saturday to guarantee a play-off place. All roads now lead to north Derbyshire!
One other thing worth a mention from today were the two women (I won’t call them ladies) who decided to have a blow-for-blow argument (blood noses to the fore) behind the East Stand during the half time interval, much to the amazement and amusement of hundreds of other people.
We decided to take an evening drive up Mynydd Gellionen, in light of the lovely evening sunset and we weren’t disappointed with the views over the lower Swansea Valley right down to Swansea Bay. DDWT Junior was also immensely impressed with the number (and variety) of ‘moo cows’ as he calls them that were wondering about the mountain road – much to our amusement!
Here are a few snaps of the colourful evening sky which I took at the top of Mynydd Gellionen.
Popped into the local hairdressers this morning a quick ‘short back and sides’ and was amazed that it cost me £7 for the privilege. Now not being a regular, I was just curious if anyone else out there knows if this is the ‘going’ rate? It was a nice haircut though, so I’m not whingeing too much *smile*
I’m afraid that my training has suffered a major setback this week, with me developing what can be best described as arthritic pain in my right knee joint. It’s been playing me up a few weeks, but on Tuesday it got to the stage whereby it was even uncomfortable to walk, let alone run.
I suppose it’s partly due to my rugby playing days and also the fact that I have a pin (from knee to ankle) in my leg after suffering a nasty leg injury some 8 years ago. Having said that, I’m still perplexed as to why it’s started to play up now. Mrs DDWT insists that I go to the docs, but I’m not a big fan of that idea, usually because you get the feeling of being ‘fobbed off’ with some “Ah, yes that’s probably it” kind of response when discussing the symptoms.
So off to Google I went in search of an answer and believe it or not I found one – which probably isn’t surprisingly given diversity of the web. My symptoms seem to match what is described as ‘Runners Knee‘ – now there’s a surprise not!
Anyway, with the bank holiday weekend ahead of me I’m going to remain positive and look forward to watching the Swans play the Shrimpers of Southend tomorrow in what can only be described as a MASSIVE game for both teams. The Swans have a play-off place to fight for, whilst a win for Southend will see them promoted to the Championship. With a near 20,000 crowd roaring the teams on it’ll be a cracking day I’m sure.
Today was the lovely Mrs. DDWT’s 35th birthday and believe me she looks damn good for her age. In fact, she looks more like a 28 year old (I know I’m biased) because she’s blessed with a young face, unlike muggins here. To celebrate the occasion, we had the family around and do what you do on most birthday parties – eat and drink, oh and blow out the candles on the cake of course.
A visit to Next is also now planned in order to alleviate Mrs. DDWT’s now bulging voucher wallet.
As for me, well I attended day 2 of my ‘Leadership and Motivation’ course and once again found the whole experience rather interesting and though provoking. We spent a lot of time going over the VAK (Visual – Auditory – Kinesthetic) learning styles and NLP (Neural Linguistic Programming) during the day and I must say both topics were very interesting and indeed useful.
I have taken a lot away from the last two days and shall look to use some of the principles and ideas I have picked up from the various theories and put them into practice in my current role as a web manager. It’s certainly opened my eyes to a lot of stuff which previously taken fro granted, so a positive start has already been made.
Today saw me attend a ‘leadership and motivation’ course and I must confess that by 4:30 this afternoon I’d lost all of my motivation and would happily be a follower rather than a leader!! It’s not that the course wasn’t interesting – in fact it was – but I simply couldn’t take any more theory.
For those of you ‘into’ that sort of thing, we looked closely at the traits and attributes of good leaders and as you can imagine various names cropped up. For me personally, I was more interested in the traits of a good leader (as opposed to actual leaders) and came up with the following as being essential – communication, honesty, flexible, optimistic, motivated and understanding. Ultimately, I guess everyone’s perception of what makes a good leader is different and that was very apparent today.
The ‘motivation’ aspect was a completely different kettle of fish and arguably more interesting – in terms of concept. This part of the course covered Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ theory and David Kolb’s ‘Learning Styles’ theory. It certainly proved very thought provoking stuff, but I suppose you could always argue the use and benefits for/against such theories in any organisation however big or small.
One other web site worth noting in ‘Business Balls’ which will no doubt provide me with some useful anecdotes for any future meetings I might organise/chair!
