TLDR – I came back again.
As the general plague situation around here improves with the numbers going down, we’ve got more options to get out and about again … So last Monday, the various shops opened up again, as did the border across to Wales.
I like Cardiff. It’s got a lot more interesting places to look in than Bristol does. Oh and there’s the sweet shop and …
Yep. Found myself outside the Lego shop again but there were a few more places on my list of shops to visit.
The trip happened on Friday, for a few reasons … Work’s one of the big ones. We’ve been busily sorting things out plus I was in catch up mode after having the previous week off. So I held off until Friday mostly for that. Friday tends to be a half day, balancing the extra hours spent logged online during the week. I have lots of flexi credit to burn at the moment …
There were other reasons too. If the cabin fever was getting to me, it was going to be affecting all the other people too. Apparently Cardiff was busy on Monday and Tuesday (Lego Shop Lady was chatty). Things had a chance to calm down a bit by Friday.
There’s also a factor of wanting to have a decent amount of time to wander and see the various shops. Kinda failed on that one on Friday. You really want to be disappearing from Cardiff around 4pm at the latest on a Friday and earlier is better. Even 3.40pm was starting to push it. There’s a good motorway going by Cardiff, the issue is getting to it. The roads out aren’t great and get clogged up very easily. (I need to find another way out of the city instead of the one the satnav likes !)
Oh ! Reasons for going into Cardiff :
Antics Model shop – I’m highly likely to get a radio control car before the Summer really kicks off. The trick will be what to get and I need a lot more knowledge and information before I commit any money there.
Wally’s Delicatessen – has sweeties … more later.
Music shops when I find then – I’m always on the lookout for more albums to add to the collection. There is an HMV in Cardiff but it’s a bit out of the way. I’m still hunting for places to browse though.
Troutmark Books – found them again ! They were open. Happy feels. I didn’t buy any books on Friday though. The foggy mask tends to put a dampener on the book browsing but they do have a great selection there.
Oh and the Lego shop too. Loot happened …
The assorted sweetie supplies will hopefully last a little while again. I couldn’t resist the thing in the big box at the back (Lego Space Shuttle) and my eyes were gradually increasingly opening up as Lego Shop Lady kept getting more things out of the cupboard. Yep, the ice scene, plane, helicopter bag and boat bag are all freebies. They’ll take a fair while to put together :-D.
One has already come together. I quite enjoyed this one last night.
That’s the Amelia Earhart model that was available to Lego VIPs. Nice model, the VIP and Creator kits have lots of nice touches and a great finish.
It was good taking the car out and about too. I’m learning its quirks and what it can do. The voice command thing feels like it has improved, although I have no idea how much I’ll use that. It also logs the journeys and uploads them to a server, which I can check to see how I drove. (Although it has a km/h vs mph bug that I’ve reported back on).
I have an idea for a place to take the car too that’s away from the beaten track. This one comes from Friend BionicDwarf who takes fantastic pictures of the sky. Yep, place is well away from overhead lights that hide the stars. I’ve been making progress in Game too, heading round the galaxy … Leg 3 is complete, next direction is towards the south of the galaxy.
That’s Searching for Dragons looking back from the galaxy’s edge. There’s a system tagged Void’s Brink there, which has a single Earth Like planet about as far out as you can get. We can see the Milky Way galaxy stretching out before us there. But it’s not quite as far East on the galaxy as you can get … I had to give up on this trip before because I didn’t have the range or materials to get me out there. However …
That’s Magellan’s Pub, a fleet carrier that someone has based out at the most eastern star we can get to in our galaxy. A good place to stop off and …
That’s me stopped at a planet at the edge. I think that white smudge thing is one of the Magellanic Clouds, a sub galaxy off the edge of our one. But I need to know more about the geography of our local galaxies to know that for sure. I couldn’t get the info from asking Google yesterday.
It’ll be good to head back and see the stars.
Time to hit post though. Keep your guard up against this plague (maybe 50:50 of the people out on Friday were Special People who don’t believe in keeping their mask on) and hopefully soon we’ll see each other out and about and at places like cinemas again.
I miss cinemas. Not been to one in 14 months.
Stay safe everyone, be well.