My Sister's 'Condition'

Some of the more astute among you might have noticed the little link off to the right for Bif'sBirth, which is a 'Diary of growth and development of a fetus named Bif'. Yes, my sister officially in a 'Family way'. She's in a delicate 'Condition'. She's 'fallen' pregnant as they say here in england (rather as you might say that someone has 'fallen' ill). In any case, I recommend checking out Bif'sBirth. It even has a 'developmental ticker' at the top giving exactly Bif's current developmental stage.

In a valiant refusal to allow morning sickness to get in the way of living, my sister (heretofore referred to as 'mom') and her husband (heretofore known as 'dad'), came to visit us a few months ago. We managed, in spite of mom and dad's both feeling under the weather and the need to go to work occasionally, to do some cool stuff.
The coolest of said stuff was no doubt Tintagel castle. Tintagel is located on the south-west coast of England which probably prettiest part of the country. Sandy beaches, relatively warm oceans, cliffs, hills etc. The problem is that everyone knows this and, in the summer everyone goes there. Let me tell you, getting into that part of the country on the weekend that we had to do it (the first weekend that school was officially out) is virtually impossible. Imagine every car in the UK packed onto 1/50th of the UK's land mass. I'm surpised the continental shelf didn't just sink. Anyhow, we did finally make it (about 5hrs later than we would have without the traffic). Here are some pictures of the castle. The one below on the right is a recreation of a 1982 family christmas card picture. Of course the subjects were somewhat smaller then, and I think sister had her eyes open.

Those who know me particularly well will know that the trip to Tintagel would extra significant for me as I was something of an Arthurian Legend fan when I was a kid. This included reading books that were way above my level (Mary Stewart) as well as the (more or less) original tales in a book that was given to me by my grandparents. My favorite, though was a book derived from the Welsh version of the tales, in the Mabinogion, which featured Gwalchmei (Gawain in english). He's the one who fights Lancelot on Arthur's behalf (and looses) after the whole adultery thing.