Caerdydd

As I sit here, eating the £1 bar of Galaxy Caramel, that has been sitting on my chair for 3 days now, I can't help but feel that I'm making all the right decisions at the moment. All of these right decisions are leading to a life I didn't think was possible a couple of years ago.

It all started off about a month ago I suppose, where I chose to buy a ticket for Sister Mitten's graduation from Cardiff University. On that day, I was home alone, with my Sister on her travels and the Parents Mitten on their holidays, and I have to admit I was severely undecided on whether I wanted to go to this Graduation ceremony or not. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just a couple of hours of a man reading some names out. What can be that special about it, unless you're the person taking part? However, I felt I must be there for my Sister on her special day so decided to spend 10 of my precious pounds to buy a ticket.

As we left for this Graduation on Thursday morning, at 11am precisely, I knew I had made the right decision. I was looking forward to this couple of days across the border, with the sheep, and I don't think I was disappointed. The journey there was largely uneventful, unless you count the bizarre stop off, where a girl, no older than 6, ordered a double macchiato with cream and the even more bizzare event of an incredible amount of emergency services attending what was no more than an incident involving a caravan that had rolled on its side. I have since learnt however, that 5 other cars and a truck were involved, although where they ended up I don't know. As we drove past though, they were nowhere to been, suggesting they had been cataclysmically blown apart by the caravan. It seems the only solution.

When we finally got there, at around 3pm, we parked in completely the wrong place and hauled our luggage to Lenny Henry's Premier Inn, where we were welcomed by a young lady who had the strongest Welsh accent imaginable. She checked us in, and before I knew it, I was in my own room, 306, on the 3rd floor, lounging on my huge, delectably comfortable double bed, watching the TV. I think I may have dozed off for 20 minutes before receiving a phone call from Father Mitten inviting me down to the bar, with the promise of Live Test Match cricket on the idiot box. What we were greeted with however, was BBC News on a widescreen, so after a brief walk around the city centre, that included trying to find a single person who actually spoke Welsh, (of which there were none), we made our way back to give ourselves plenty of time to prepare for our posh dinner that evening.

That particular dinner was, interesting. We got the small train to Cardiff Bay and eventually found the restaurant we had booked, Bayside Brasserie, and were shown to our seats by your stereotypical Frenchman, and were then greeted with the largest menu's you are ever going to see. Seeing as we were ordering from the 'Graduation Special Menu', this seemed rather needless. If you would like to know, I had the Ham Terrine with Fruit Chutney, (good), the Steak Burger and Homemade Chips, (very average) and the Chocolate Fondent dessert, (incredible), before we were being ushered out to make room for more graduates and their families. I guess they had a busy night...

I was SUPPOSED to be going out with Sister Mitten that night to enjoy a few drinks and to see what Cardiff, (or Caerdydd), had to offer, but I was absolutely cream crackered. Even the promise of 50p Jagerbombs from some place failed to change my mind, and by 9.30pm, I was flat out on my incredible double bed, out for the count. Somehow, I woke up at 2.30am, answered a couple of texts from people who were expecting me to be ruined, and went back to sleep, with the alarm set for a very solid 7am.

I've never had a better night's sleep than I did last night. It felt like I was sleeping on a cloud, and having to get off that cloud for 7am was quite possibly the most difficult thing ever. Sitting on my own bed at the moment, feels like sitting on a slab of concrete. Or maybe sitting on Alan Sugar... However, the breakfast that was waiting downstairs definitely made up for that, and I fully indulged on what was practically a free-for-all on the breakfast bar. Cereals, croissants, muffins, yoghurts, crumpets, toast, sausages, eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, more muffins, a never ending amount of fruit juice... It was... amazing. I lived up to my reputation of being a, "fat git", and then we had to get changed into our suits and smart attire for the main event, which I have to admit, was fairly dire.

A lot of waiting around happened, as Sister Mitten got our tickets and then her Graduation gown and then a lot of messing around with her hair, after she noticed her ears were sticking out. Before long though, we were seated right at the back of St.David's Hall ready for the ceremony. Now, I don't know how many of you have been to a Graduation ceremony, but they do... Go on a bit. Seeing as this was Wales however, it went on even longer, seeing as everything was said in English THEN Welsh. I still maintain that no one in Wales, actually speaks Welsh, begging the question, "What is the point in the Welsh language?", but there we are. The ceremony took forever. I was nearly falling asleep, only being entertained by the poor announcer trying to say names from obscure places in Asia and Africa, and students with 245 middle names. A lot of hanging around then happened after, with only the photos being taken the only activity I really got involved in.

However, we eventually found ourselves going back to the Premier Inn, and after a baguette that we waited nearly half a century for, we were on our way home, through the Friday night traffic, back to Bedford.

That wasn't the end of my day though. Oh no. As soon as I got home, I was off out again for Master Kettle's birthday celebrations that didn't exactly go to plan in my own head. My "strategy" for the night was to try and get drunk as quickly as possible, so I could ignore the tiredness so obviously plaguing me after such a tiresome couple of days. This worked to an extent, before we reached a place called Hi-Fi, which was as dead as Michael Jackson, and all the alcohol, (including 9 out of 20 Jagerbombs bought by myself and Marriott), plus the tiredness, all caught up with me at once and I just wanted to go home. I am a bit ashamed at how I left, sort of feigning being stupidly, stupidly drunk, (yep, sorry!), but I didn't want to just leave Kettle's birthday on a whim. He was enjoying himself anyway, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have minded too much! I got a Subway with Magic Man and got a cab home.

Yep, that was 90 minutes ago, and I still find myself awake. My brain is a strange, strange place, but I have enjoyed the majority of the last couple of days immensely, and I'm very, very pleased I went to my Sister's graduation in the end. The ceremony itself might have dragged, but otherwise we had fun. A full weekend of cricket awaits, and with the promise of a good forecast and hopefully not a hangover in the morning, life just keeps carrying on with that good vibe...

How strange.