How Did We Spend Our First Wedding Anniversary?

Dearest lovelies, 

Those of you who are on Facebook will have seen us post all sorts of lovey-dovey messages and photos about our first wedding anniversary. We can hardly believe it's been one whole year since this...

So how to celebrate? 

Maddy is a huge fan of Royal anything, and Paddy likes to keep Maddy happy so...

Behold, the royal receiving wat where up until 1975, the king of Laos graciously received his visitors...



Unfortunately we had to put our handbags and cameras in lockers so no photos of the amazing rooms and exhibits, but the bit that we were allowed to photograph was a very impressive wat within the grounds, which reminded Maddy of the ballroom in Sound of Music actually! 

The very intricately carved ceiling

 

Looking through the royal carrying box....

Help! I'm stuck in a gold palace!

For our special anniversary dinner we chose to eat at Tamarind, which is a restaurant which introduces Westerners to Lao food with taster dishes, and explanations given by the super friendly waiters. We had read rave reviews about it, and as soon as we walked in and met the manager Rudy, it was a hit for us! 

We drank champagne, toasted the future and ate delicious food. We highly recommend the Laos taster plate and the stuffed lemongrass - om nom nom. 

Thank you for all your lovely messages of congratulations and love from all our lovely family, friends, and all the support we receive from Balanced View! 

We love you too!

Maddy and Paddy xxx

Eco homes and late night sunsets in St Dogmaels, Wales

We're going to skip back a little bit now to May to tell you of a beautiful place...

On our recent unexpected trip to England we had the chance to visit friends who lived in Wales who we haven't seen in years. We know them from Goa 1010, where we'd all been involved in a very lovely band called Love Bubble. Never made it to the Top of the Pop charts, but we know that Wales has Talent and that talent is endless! Since then, our friends Mike and Suzanne have had a baby, who we have never met, and so it was that we rented a car and drove over to St Dogmaels, otherwise known as a stunning little village on the west coast of Wales. 

We couldn't stop snapping away at the lovely views of the landscape...

The old Abbey ruins...

Whilst we were there, we invited ourselves to have a look at a house made of straw! Really, straw bale walls, three storeys high, and actually won Grand Designs on Channel 4 2009! It's so amazing to see what a bit of imagination and courage can build, a wonderful way of showing what really can happen up when you ignore Mr Rightmove and the many property breakfast TV programmes, there actually is another way to live! The owners took years to build the place, but it's so unique inside and out, and now they advise others on how to build eco-homes. They have a website here and a Facebook page here. It is genuinely inspiring to see. 

We had a lovely time drinking local beer and eating homemade curry in the late night sunset and brought a huge sense of renewal and peace.

We are very lucky to have friends who live in such beautiful places! 

With lots of love

Maddy and Paddy xxx

Babies and puppies and cats, oh my! Our month in England

So, as many of you know we recently had to fly back for an unexpected trip for a month in England. 

We met and cuddled babies...of various sizes, shapes and smells. We managed not to drop any, so high fives all round!