First things first – I’ve been in this little space of the internet for four years now! That is so insane, I can’t even. Four years… wow. It’d just finished being 2011 when “Awkward Donkey” started up, and now it’s 2016 and I’m 17, not 12/13 (and the blog has a much better name). Holy crap, guys. I just want to say thank you for everyone who’s supported me over the (freakin’ four!) years, your encouragement has led to this blog not dying in flames just a couple of months down the line. I’ve made some good blog friends, and I’m glad that this space has been kept positive and awesome by all 80,000 of you. I hope y’all continue to check out this little space and stay here for as long as you can c:
So, on a completely different topic, we adhere to what this post is actually about.
To celebrate it being 17 years since I clambered into this world, my family and I went down to my hometown in Swansea, Wales. It was pretty awesome for the most part, and I got to see sights and people that I’ve been missing since my last visit. Naturally, I thought y’all would appreciate a spam.
☻ Early mornings spent in Swansea Market, buying farm-grown produce from locals ☻
☻ Y’all should probably prepare yourselves for a bombardment of some of my favourite typical Swansea buildings – renovated into banks or shops in the 1900’s ☻
☻ Okay, I spent a long time deliberating as to whether or not to include this image, because it’s so out of place. Basically, one evening in the hotel we didn’t do much apart from get food and chill with family, so I tried to take a still time-lapse of the road outside, and ended up with a cool effect. From there, I experimented with different shutter speeds and whatnot, and this was probably my favourite image to come out of it… if you ignore me trying to suavely move out of the shot ☻
☻ I actually met a guy around this church, giving me advice on what grave to take photos of, and the second time passing met a goth girl who kept giving me evils, so hey, little anecdote ☻
☻ One of the main things I love about Swansea is that you get lots of little things like this around – in this case, a full-on eroding castle in the middle of town, amongst bars and Topshops ☻
☻ Wind Street, formerly christened as “Wine Street” because of all the drunk people hanging around the bars. Yum ☻
☻ (*Something really weird happened to this image, so I had to crop and re-upload it, so I’m sorry for the lack of quality*) There’s actually a story behind this photo – I was spending the early morning by myself for a nostalgic photography trip, down Wind (Wine) Street, when the guy above whistled at me and called me into a deserted barber shop painted in a sickly yellow tone. Now, I have no idea why, but I went into his store, only to get a really weird vibe. After he spent ages chatting in a way that made me feel as if he were just trying to stall me, he said he was going “round the back” to get something. I was thinking “okay, he’s going to get a machete and some gaffa-tape, this is how it ends”, so very speedily left. Either he was a very friendly Iranian guy with a sincere interest in his “best camera angles”, or he was a murderer. Pish posh. ☻
☻ Honestly, you get the most random quaint shop designs like this, in between opticians and banks ☻
☻ Churches are so pretty ☻
☻ One of my favourite Swansea stores – a Waterstones with the most extravagant designs going on inside and out, with a reading corner at the top of the spiralling staircase where you can have coffees and hot cocos ☻
☻ This probably doesn’t look all too amazing to y’all, but I love how the little sidestreets have the pastel seaside buildings ☻
☻ Your typical Swansea bars ☻
☻ One afternoon, I met a friend and we went out to Hanson at the Chelsea, an AA* restaurant (if you’re a foodie, you may have heard about it in the Michelin Guide), and we had the most amazing food. I’ve featured a few of my favourite dishes here ☻
☻ The view from the hotel window was awesome, even if annoying foggy ☻
☻ One evening, my family and I went down to Winter Wonderland, and I took a bunch of photos whilst the scent of doughnuts and candyfloss hung in the air, with the breeze being cool and soft as it wafted around the laughing locals ☻
☻ Fun fact: this is where I spent my 11t birthday, and I had the time of my life ☻
☻ This was one of the rides that I went on, and to be honest with y’all, it was pretty sweet, even if my friend Chloe’s hair covered mine and Lucy’s faces the whole time as we swung around an little fake flakes of snow filtered around our speeding cart ☻
☻ Bokeh ☻
☻ Swansea Marina is one of my favourite places, especially after-dark ☻
☻ I could be wrong, but if you overlook the river Abertawe, the place where all the little city lights are is called Kilvey Hill, the 633ft mini-mountain that I climbed a month ago by myself, only to find that lots of drug-pushers, rapists and possibly murderers hang around there ☻
>> On our final day, my family and I decided to take a detour to Bath (and Margam, but that’s a story for another day), and it was honestly so awesome. I’ve featured a few shots of my favourite things from there. <<
☻ The exterior of Bath Cathedral ☻
☻ Either my mom of a ghost, who knows? ☻
☻ The Roman Baths ☻
☻ The next few shots are from the Roman Baths, where we walked around and tasted some of the warm water ☻
☻ Beautiful buildings made up of the legendary Bath Stone – the weather was too bad for me to get some good photos, but whole streets were made out of this stuff.. stunning ☻
So, to conclude, I spent my birthday re-falling in love with my hometown, and it was great. I took around 600 shots, so I thought I’d show you guys some of my least worst ones.
Happy 1,460 day blogoversary, y’all – we made it!
amazing photos! WOuld love to visit Wales one day!
i love this kind of places and the energy I can breathe. Lovely photos.
xxx
great photos! 🙂
Your photos are all so gorgeous! I especially loved the one with the pastel buildings down a side street in Swansea – the colours were so gorgeous. I've always wanted to visit the baths in Bath – they look and sound really cool. Happy blogoversary! 😀
I really like this.
Great photos! Never been to Wales or Bath! 🙂
Great post
Love Vikee
Oh gosh, what lovely places in the UK. I hope I can go one of these days. It looks incredible to visit, espcially Bath's Roman Baths!
I wanna jump into the Roman bath. Awesome photography & love every bit of it! Happy weekend, dear
Beautiful photos and places!
nice places
beautiful pictures
This makes me homesick 🙁 glad you enjoyed your time.
Happy blogoversary!
These are wonderful photos – I would love to travel to Swansea and Bath. 🙂
Very nice snaps.
Lovely photos ♡
lovely pics 🙂
So beautiful! Would be so awesome to visit.
Beautiful pics! 🙂 And I would like to answer to your question on my blog – it is of course faux fur! 🙂
Lovely photos.
xoxo
Liza
Such an interesting place is England! And Wales! Looks amazing and the architecture is super cool! I watched some documentaries about these cities! Beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing!