Roath Park

We've had such crappy weather recently that it's been nice to spend some time back on this lake in the sunshine by writing this post. Look at the way that sunlight is playing on the water! Much better than the rain spitting outside my window right now.

Our afternoon trip to Roath Park could not have gone better. We rented a pedalo for the four of us for half an hour and once we had recovered from the shock, we paired off and rented a row boat each. All that time on the water allowing us to properly appreciate the sunshine!

One piece of advice. If you ever rent a pedalo and you're with Tom and Rhodri, do not let them pedal it. At first they'll just race swans which will be fine, really, and then they'll possibly rock the boat a little bit which you won't like but it's not as bad as it could be. It's when they see reeds floating just underneath the surface of the water and decide to pedal straight through it that you begin realise your mistake.

At first the pedalo will just slow considerably. The boys will laugh when you and your sister tell them off and they'll keep peddling (because really, there's no way of turning the boat now). When the pedalo reaches an almost complete stop, the boys might start discussing how this was a bad idea and maybe you can't pedal through thick reeds but they'll be laughing so you know they aren't taking this boating life lesson as seriously as they should be. There will be one awful moment when all 4 of you think you're stuck and will have to be rescued, but the boys' laughter when the pedals start turning easier will tell you you're out. When they continue laughing you'll know they haven't realised the reeds were a terrible idea, and you know that a pedalo with them is something you don't want to experience again.

Although we forgave them (I mean how could I not, look at how handsome he is) but we made them take the pedalo back pretty quickly after that...

We decided to rent row boats next, pairing off into couples. A much safer option in my opinion!

I'll say now for the record: being rowed around on a beautiful lake by Tom has to be one of my favourite things ever. I could definitely get used to a life like that.

It would have been a lot nicer if Tom hadn't used the time to perfect his rowing technique though. Actually no, that would have been fine if he had been trying to perfect the normal rowing technique. At one point he was trying to row backwards.

It was less than peaceful.

Also I don't know what it is about boys and reeds but despite what happened with the pedalo (and the obvious lesson that should have been learnt there), Tom rowed us through even more reeds. I'm not even going to bother explaining how stupid that decision was. But I've got picture proof if you need it:

Thankfully after that his rowing calmed down and we had a much more peaceful trip around the lake. 

It was utterly beautiful that day, and floating around in our little row boat was wonderful. Plus I was sat opposite a heart-stoppingly handsome man so I was more than happy. 

Definitely a life I could get used to!