Our first post together. Woohoo. As an introduction to our lives, I will give you a bit of a breakdown of what we’re going to be writing about, who is the wordsmith behind the blog, and more.
Firstly then, the blog is a little dive into the life and relationship of Bethan and Ashley. We are a couple who found each other and fell head over heels for one another at the end of January 2022, officially a couple at the end of February. *Insert bells, chimes, and confetti here* Amazing right? Since then, we’ve been planning adventures, living our daily lives but more importantly, getting closer and closer together every day. We’ve become the best of friends and we feel so incredibly comfortable together. The both of us weren’t looking for a relationship at the time of meeting but yano sometimes the heart wants and luckily for both of us that meant the same thing and it was an easy decision.
These posts will mainly be written by Ashley. Bethan may jump in and write a post here and there, maybe talking about the food side of things as that woman does love food. Most of her content will come in the form of TikTok and YouTube videos, and Instagram of food (prewarning, there will be a lot of food). Ashley will be focusing more on writing the blog posts and what we’re going to talk about on our future YouTube channel and maybe one day a podcast if all comes together, but we’ll talk about that a bit more in a moment.
For me personally – Ashley – This has been the best time of my life, easily. I’ve never been in a relationship where it was completely 50/50. Support and wellbeing, loyalty and love. Bethan has been the best thing to ever happen to me and I thank the universe every day for making me come to Swansea on that dismal and wet Friday afternoon in January. She has been nothing but amazing to me. She makes me feel loved, I trust her completely and I truly believe she is my soul mate. With any relationship, it’s never plain sailing, especially at the start. Mistakes were made (on my part alone) and I am working every day to make Bethan the happiest and most comfortable and most loved and most beautiful person to have ever lived. She is my whole world. As cringe as some of you may read that, if you have ever felt true love and the idea of marrying someone and sharing a family together, you know nothing is ever to cringe.
With this new and exciting relationship, I have also up and moved in with this goddess. I have left my little house and my longest and best friend of all time back home and moved to Swansea. We share a small room at the moment but we have BIG plans which I’ll get to in a moment. With this move I am fortunate enough to bring my work with me. I can work from home if needed but luckily enough we have an office here that had some space to put up with my mood swings and emo attitude. Thank God. It’s not a perfect work life. Almost every day I have nobody to talk to and I sit alone listening to music and doing my work. Which I do enjoy but there are moments where I do miss having a laugh with my peers, but it’s all worth it saving money on travel and such back and forth to my old office.
Since being together we have already been on several little adventures around the Country. We strive to see as many new places as we can and we both are eager to see as much as we can before the blessing that is a child. (We hope and pray for a blessing and not a nightmare! Please spirits be with us!) We have visited Folly Farm in West Wales before visiting the beautiful seaside town of Tenby and enjoying all the small independent shops. How we didn’t buy everything I do not know. We both share a love for small shops that sell trinkets, crystals, and incense. Anything that smells good and we’re both hooked! We have tried varied restaurants locally, most notably Nishimura (Japanese) and Grill House (steaks and such). Very, very good food and reasonably priced. We have also explored a few haunted pubs including “The Skirrid” and “The Prince of Wales Inn” in South Wales as well as “Ye ol Salvation Inn” the most haunted pub in the UK up in Nottingham (and to be honest this one was actually scary in the caves for sure). We have been on little dates here and there, picnics in the park, cinema dates, beach dates, and plenty more food dates.
Recently we had our first “Holiday” together. I quote holiday as we didn’t go abroad and I know some people are quick to point out that it’s not really a holiday if it’s in your own country and to that I politely give them the finger. Having 10 days off we spent 2 days in London where we visited Camden, to which Bethan’s head exploded with all the food choices. Followed by a very long walk-through Oxford Street towards Trafalgar Square. From there to Buckingham Palace and then to the National History Museum. Tired and in pain is how we would describe that day. We took a day off upon return before heading up North towards Clumber Park, near Sherwood Forest. Here we stayed in a beautiful Lodge, equipped with a hot tub, of course. Let me tell you, for the price you pay, what an absolutely lovely stay-cation. The lodges were spotless and beautiful with decking to sit and enjoy the sunshine. 2 showers. 2 Bedrooms. Spacious living room and kitchen. I’m not even joking when I say I could live there permanently. I don’t see why anyone would need any more space (as a couple anyway, families, you might need more room). We spent the days in Clumber basking in the beautiful sunshine of the garden grounds, painting the scenery, going on bike rides through the forest and enjoying an absolutely stunning meal at a restaurant called “The Millhouse”. Our most precious afternoon though was spent in each other’s arms on the sofa with the door open listening to the heavy rain outside in the afternoon, with soft lo-fi music playing in the background and a gin in hand. If I could go back to any day, I think it would be that one. But alas, time marches on and suddenly our time in paradise and relaxation had come to an end. Boo.
Arriving back home we were soon hit with the holiday blues. Myself (Ashley) have been dying to get away and travel for a long time now, and I was so close to going before I met the love of my life. Not that this is a bad thing, this means I now have the one person I want to experience all the world with! Dope! So we’ve sat and we’ve chatted a lot about what we’d like to do. Our top 2 destinations, Holiday wise, are New York at Christmas, and Japan. Big expensive holidays for sure. But we also have a plan and idea in our heads about stealing my parent’s camper van and ditching our jobs to travel across Europe for an indefinite amount of time. Living the Van life, so to speak. Exploring so many new lands and seeing many new things together from the back of a van. On paper (and on Instagram) a dream. In reality a lot more planning and being sure you can survive such an adventure. This first blogpost is mostly about how we’ve come to this part now, our plan of traveling and living a van life. What jobs we can do whilst away? Can we get a good social media going to bring in cash? What about family? Jobs when we return? Money? So many factors to consider and ideas to run past each other. It’s a long road ahead (pardon the pun) but together we can do anything.
Our first plan of action is to save as much as we can until January. This means a lot fewer dates (expensive ones), buying pointless crap, and no more holidays or traveling for a little while. (I say that as if we don’t have two big gigs in London coming up soon, oops). But yes, come January we will assess our situation, our finances, what we both want, and go from there. But we are both very much set on the idea of just getting out there and seeing what the world has to offer and maybe finding ourselves and what we want to do in the future for a career. It’s very exciting times ahead for sure and I for one cannot wait to get on the road and see the world.
I hope you enjoyed our first blog together and a dive into our little life and our plan to take on the world from a Van. Traveling and eating many different foods. I hope you come with us on this journey too. We are hoping to get an Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Podcast, started in the near future so we will keep readers here updated as to when those are available to check out.
Peace Out!
Ash
P.S. First things first, Bethan needs a passport.
Vanlife - Welsh Wanderers 