I have found that I really miss sharing about our daily life on the blog - and we have missed so much over the last three years! Once we stopped traveling and landed in the UK - and I went back to working full time - I stopped making time to write for the blog. It was one of those things that just kept getting pushed down my to-do list until suddenly lots of time had passed and I hadn't written anything!
The author Gretchen Rubin has an aphorism that says "Something that can be done at any time, often gets done at no time." I have found that to be so true for me! I work best with deadlines and schedules. So, I am giving myself a schedule. At the bare minimum, I'm going to blog once a month with a monthly review that recaps everything we've done in the previous month. It won't be as in-depth as my old daily posts, but I figure it's better than nothing! And who knows, maybe if I get back in the habit I'll find (or make) more time for it.
So, what happened in May 2023? Let's find out!
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Normally in the UK, the month of May has two bank holidays - the first and last Monday of the month are official days off. When the royals are up to something, we get an extra bank holiday!
So we kicked things off with bank holiday number one, in which we went to Bristol to play mini golf and eat at a Brasilian Grill. The mini golf was absolutely amazing - probably the best course I have ever played. It was King Kong themed and was one of the most elaborate themes I've ever seen! There was a downed helicopter that smoked occasionally, a crashed jeep, and an interactive water feature, amongst other things. I plan to do a full blog post on the place when they open up a second course later this summer. If you are local, you can check it out here!
I mentioned if the royals are up to something we get an extra bank holiday...and up to something they were! On Saturday May 6th the country celebrated the coronation of King Charles. At least, some people did. It is a bit of a divisive topic, particularly as the UK, like many places, is struggling with a cost of living crisis. We had Steve, Tom and Rachel over to watch the coronation with us on the big screen in our cinema room. I enjoyed following the ceremony with the program they made available online -which was 50 pages long! It was fun to see the fashion and, of course, we ate some good food. I had planned to make some of the official coronation recipes but I ran out of steam so we bought sandwiches from the local shop instead. Luckily, Steve brought some Coronation Chicken sandwiches (a recipe from Queen Elizabeth's coronation that is popular here) so we were covered for official royal food.
Right after the coronation, we kicked off Eurovision week for 2023! If you don't know what Eurovision is then, hello fellow American! We had never heard of it until our friend Steve introduced us way back on our road trip in 2018. I've written a more in-depth post about Eurovision that you can check out here, but the quick version is that it is a European song contest that takes place in May every year. It began after WWII as a way to bring Europe together, and continues as the most fabulous song competition in the world! (In my opinion, anyway.) Ukraine won the contest in 2022, giving them the right to host, but due to the war, the UK hosted on their behalf. The contest was held in Liverpool, and since it was so close, Steve actually attend in person this year! Joel and I were content to watch on the big screen and have Steve tell us all about his adventures afterward. Everyone was hoping Finland would win with their crazy party hit "Cha Cha Cha" but Sweden took home the trophy just in time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ABBA's win next year.
If you listen to Finland's song out of context you will probably wonder why on earth I'm obsessed with this song. (I'll link the Grand Final performance here.) But if you watch a YouTube video from a channel called "Overthinking It," you'll learn about some of the depth and meaning to this song that makes it even more fun. (You can watch that video here.)
If you want to hear the winner from this year, "Tatoo," sung by the artiste Loreen, who also won Eurovision in 2012. (Here is that video.)
I could say a lot more about Eurovision, but I will leave it at that! It's one of my favorite times of the year!
All throughout May, Joel and I were busy binge-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for oh, at least the fourth time? This is because at the end of the month we had tickets to a show called Buffy: Revamped in which a comedian playing the character of Spike retells all 7 seasons of Buffy in 70 minutes. As avid fans of the show, this comedy re-telling was pure gold. I wish I could watch a recording of it as I'm sure there are jokes I missed when I was laughing so hard at other ones. We had to drive all the way to Eastbourne (3.5 hour drive) to see it, but that meant we also ate some yummy Thai food at a place Steve recommended and took a romantic walk on the beach on the way back to our car after the show, so it was well worth it.
We got home from Eastbourne at about 2:00 in the morning, and I got about six hours of sleep till it was time to get up and head out with Steve to the Big Church Festival! This is an event some church members introduced me to last year, and I wish I had written about it then. It is a music festival hosted at the Winston Estate, attended by 30,000+ people, and there are 5 stages throughout the grounds with live music from amazing Christian artists all weekend. The big names play on the main stage, but I've figured out that I prefer to park up at the Garden stage all weekend and just watch whoever comes on. If I sit super close to the speakers I get to be in the shade most of the day, winning! We camped Friday and Saturday night, and I was woefully unprepared for the temperatures to drop to 3-5 C overnight (37-41F). It was a crazy experience to be boiling in the sun during the day and freezing my everything off at night! This year on the garden stage I got to see several Gospel choirs, The Brilliance, Philippa Hanna, Rebecca St. James, The Goudies, and more. If I had to pick a favorite it was probably the Welsh Male Voice Choir - what can I say, I love the music of my adopted country!
I probably owe the Big Church Festival a whole post, but we'll see if I can get back into doing more of those soon or not. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of a particularly enthusiastic Welshman who brought his giant flag!
We got back from the festival late Sunday (probably technically early Monday morning) so for our third and final bank holiday of the month we slept in and hung out with Steve, introducing him to the mushroom-y apocalypse HBO show The Last of Us. If you haven't watched that yet, I cannot recommend it enough. As much as I am a fan of binge-watching, however, I think this is one worth spacing out so you can really absorb each episode!
Then the very next day, we met up with some friends of ours who were in the country only about 2 hours away. Amber is a friend of mine from high school, and she married Luke, a brit, in 2010. So they come back on occasion to visit his family and we are always delighted when they can squeeze us in, too. We drove to the gorgeous hotel they were staying at in Wokingham, went for lunch at a Thai place, and then spent time chatting in the garden. It was a short but sweet visit and so good to catch up!
I don't think every month will be quite this exciting. We keep marveling at how fast May went and now looking back, I can see why! It was so packed full of activities the time just flew by.
I'm not sure I remember how to sign off blog posts anymore so...I guess this is goodbye for now!
XOXO, Bethany