Two eventful weeks to catch up on. Weekend before last, was our annual craft-fest at the CIA (Cardiff International Arena). Hilary came up from Swansea on the Thursday, and Thursday evening was spent in excited discussions on shopping lists. On Friday, Andrew dropped off two eager shoppers and aunt and niece embarked together on their annual twirl round the craft show. The show brings together goodies from a number of crafts, including quilting, stitching, knitting and papercrafts with demonstrations by people doing lace making and tatting and the Quilters Guild, as well as costumes from The Duchess, film starring Keira Knightley and Helen Mirren.

By now, we have our strategy well worked out. First, we simply view the stalls, working round the outside first then moving up and down the respective aisles. As we do so, we note stalls of interest, with items that we want to check out. Then we have a coffee and gird our loins in preparation for the attack ahead. Then and only then does any shopping take place, and we try to make sure that heavy or bulky items are left until the end.

Then the actual shopping takes place and this year we really enjoyed it. This is not a craft specific blog so I won't review what we saw in detail, except to say I took the plunge and after three years of dithering, I finally took the plunge and invested in a Big Shot, a die cutting machine. More about this over on Silver Nutmeg. Very happy, and exhausted, we finally emerge blinking into the light and are collected by Andrew. At home, we collapse in a heap, examine our purchases with gleeful little squeaks of joy and review the day, helped initially by coffee and later by a bottle of wine...

On the Saturday, our original plan had been to go back into town to visit Lakeland, the kitchenware shop. However the weather was terrible and Andrew was poorly with a sore throat and high temperature, and wisely spent the day in bed. Hilary suggested we stay home and have a day of crafting, in particular playing with the new die cutter and showing her the marvels of alcohol inks, which she was curious to see demonstrated. So we had a happy and successful day of crafting, while the rain poured down and took her to the station for her train, later in the afternoon. Had a quiet day on the Sunday.

On the Monday, we had a special visitor. The greyhound charity we are involved with had been contacted by an author writing a book on racing greyhounds as pets - effectively their second careers. She wanted to chat to some greyhound owners and take some pics of them in a home setting. Naturally, the offer of talking to someone about our beloved hounds was too good to turn down. So she came over, asked lots of questions and took some pics. She very kindly sent us a CD of some of the pics later in the week, and I will attach them, although possibly not to this post. As they are high spec images, the file size is quite large. I feel there are some entrancing images of the hounds there. Naturally, I am of course hugely biased but I do feel in general that greyhounds are leggy supermodels - very photogenic with their swan necks and aristocratic shnozzles.

The rest of the week seemed to fly by, with Andrew away, then on Friday we had an evening I have been anticipating for a long time. Regular readers will recall that we saw the Ring Cycle in 2006, an ambition of mine and were hugely affected by it, loving the complexity and beauty of the music, the singing and the emotional intensity of the story. On Friday, the Mariinsky Theatre were back, from St. Petersburg and this time they were doing an opera gala concert, with the entire second half being the final act of Die Valkurie with Bryn Terfel singing Wotan. One of my regrets was not being able to see him singing this role in Covent Garden recently - tickets were like gold dust, so it was a wonderful treat. The first half of the concert was a mix of orchestral pieces and sung opera extracts, with stunning quality in the voices. Not a duff one among them. As I mentioned in the Ring review originally, all the Russian singers had a very distinctive posture with ramrod straight backs, open chests and a careful placing of arms and hands. Much less naturalistic than current European practice, but not unwelcome. We had excellent seats in the front stalls and again were able to savour the joys of the theatre building - it is an excellent auditorium. It was also a pleasure to see the orchestra on the stage, as opposed to the pit - allowing a really intimate feel to proceedings.

The second half flew by - I loved it. Bryn Terfel was excellent as Wotan, making his entrance via the stalls in dramatic fashion, and along an apron at the side of the stage. Sieglinde was beautifully sung - the encounter between her and Siegmund to me is one of the most powerful and beautiful pieces of music I know, earlier in the opera. The orchestra were superb, conducting was excellent, with tempo moving very briskly along. Bryn Terfel really does have a superb voice for Wagner and also has that imposing physical presence needed. He is a big man, tall and broad and really inhabits the role and the stage - you find yourself drawn to him. It seemed the singing was over in what felt like ten minutes but when we emerged it was nearly 10.45 and the evening had started promptly at 7.15. Bliss.

Saturday morning was a quiet time for all of us, being quite tired after a busy week, Andrew still recuperating and a late night the night before. My head was (and still is) full of Wagner music. Then it was off down to Swansea to see great aunt Floss, now 91, recently ill but still on wonderful form, as independent, funny, and sharp as ever. She is enjoying her central heating, recently installed in time for the winter (and long overdue). We went out for lunch in a pub in Morriston that one of her other great neices had recommended - not bad, but not one we'd rush back to, I think. After lunch, we had a run in the car down the Mumbles and parked up in Bracelet bay, looking out over the waves, before returning her home, and then making our own way back up the motorway to Cardiff. A quiet evening spent catching up on some TV and a fairly early bed.

Today was an interesting day, as we had managed by great good fortune to track down a greyhound charity just over the bridge in England who have a field available for greyhound play, off lead in a secure setting. Sighthounds generally are notoriously bad at recall - being prone to selective deafness when a more interesting object is engaging their attentions (such as a rabbit or a squirrel). This sort of field offers a safe, responsible way for greyhounds (and other sighthounds) to enjoy themselves running about without endangering anyone else - fantastic.

We had been given directions to the field, just under the old Severn Bridge, and were able to find it quite easily. Andy and Booty had a whale of a time, running and scampering about, chasing each other round in circles, racing round the perimeter at top speed. Seeing a greyhound at full tilt is one of the most awesome sights - that deep chest, and long legs really are designed for a purpose and boy do they go FAST. Both dogs have a wonderful habit of running full tilt towards you - the trick is to stay absolutely still - as they will pass within literally millimetres, so you can feel the wind of their passing, very finely judged. Our hour seemed to race by, and at the end, the next people to use the field were waiting politely with their hound for their "slot". Came home with two exhausted but happy woofs.

Andrew is now in the bath, enjoying a Dorothy L Sayers and I am catching up with downloading photos and videos, and of course updating my blog.