Sunday, April 13, 2008

Jo McLeay and family visit Wales

Wow!! now this is a first, Jo McLeay, hubsand Bob and son Kieran ( with iRiver) who are currently touring the UK, have come to a slightly damp Wales today for some Welsh hospitality ( you will have to ask Jo about the man from the B&B !!! sorry Jo not quite what we meant by local hospitality!).
It was on Thursday of last week that Jo Twittered, that she and the family were in the UK, in London at the time and heading towards Stratford Upon Avon for Friday and Saturday. A suggestion was made about it being an idea to meet up for a meal or coffee as they were so close to us here in Abergavenny, and that is just what happened. We met up in Abergavenny at around 1.45pm and headed off for lunch. Jo received a gift of a rare mini Dylan ( a Welsh dragon - the other one is in Nelson New Zealand with Allanah King), and a Welsh flag..... It was also very interesting for the spouses of online junkies to meet, Bob and Debbie having quite a lot in common with their nocturnal spouses!!!
Of course there was wireless broadband at the lunch venue and also at the Hotel where Bob, Jo and Kieran are staying on Sunday evening, so it didn't take Jo long to break out the Asus Eeepc for a spot of Twittering ( unfortunately much of Oz was asleep as it was 1.20 in the morning!!) - above you can see Jo, Bob in the background and mini Dylan sitting on the table.Cuddly Kiwi also came along for the meal - he seemed to enjoy the drinks more though!!!! But he did get to meet Jo and her family :-)
I hope that again the extended family members did not find the Web 2.0 chat a bit obscure, after all Jo and I had much to catch up on from Web 2.0 to discussion about IB online learning and blogs

Tomorrow ( Monday) the McLeay's will be doing some sightseeing around South Wales before heading north to Edinburgh prior to heading back to Melbourne.
We wish them well, it is always great to meet people that you have only previously met virtually and meeting the McLeay's was certainly a pleasure - we thank them for their company today.
Thanks also to Sue Tapp, Judy O'Connell and Allanah King and many others for their best wishes on the day - as first as an Aussie blogger visited Abergavenny (yes there was a song in the late 60's by Marty Wilde about Abergavenny - is this our only claim to fame?)
Now the Harrington's simply must visit New Zealand and Australia to meet up with all of our antipodean friends :-)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Paul, great blog post. I love the welsh hospitality as practised by the Harringtons. It was great to see around your historic town today and to catch up on so much. You were right when you said that when friends meet for the first time, we get straight into the conversation. It was lovely meeting Debbie and Laura as well. Thanks so much for the welsh dragon and the flag. They will have pride of plaqce in my classroom when I get back

Anonymous said...

One day! One day!

Good to know Mrs H got to join in the conversation as well.

AK

Durff said...

What fun you all had!

A dear friend

It seems very apt to be writing this blog post in tribute to a dear, dear friend. The world has lost a true global educational  IT innovator...