get ready for another interruption......in WHALE

Sorry to keep jumping around (but not sorry enough to stop - this is going to keep happening).

The Dickinson crew went to Wales!!!
Cardiff to be exact. This was a particularly epic journey for me for several reasons. One, Wales is thought to be the seat of King Arthur. For those of you who do not know, I am a HUGE Arthurian legend fan. I am currently writing my "mini-thesis" on Morgan le Faye, a sometimes enemy of the ka-nig-its of the Round Table.

Two, I fought a dragon and was knighted for my heroic deeds.

 See how I went in all confident.......that's how you walk into a fight, loose, limber, ready for action....

W

Yea, well he was really big....and breathed fire! But never fear, I said I defeated a dragon and I did. A really mean, vicious one too.

 Just look at those beady little eyes......anyone else having Very Potter Musical flashbacks?....Well anyway, slaying a dragon was apparently not valiant enough of an effort to be knighted, so in order for me to earn my spurs, I had to prove my worth through chivalrous pursuits in true Round Table fashion. But first, I had to seek some advice from a wise hermit (they pop up in all quest legends and apparently know everything).

See, here I am standing in from of the door to Hobbitdom. Where else would you find a hermit? Seriously, it's just like going down the rabbit hole. It was here I learned that in order to be knighted I would have to fight many battles and seize ye old castle.

My first test came sooner than I thought.

I had just returned from Hobbitdom when my evil foe attacked me. So I put up my dukes and I gave her the ol' one-two.

But that was not all. I still needed to fight the castle guards in order to claim the keep. This time the villains outnumbered me two to one. I thought for sure I was finished - but wait! Look there!

Why its my trusty sidekick, Holly-lot!! Together we were able to use our knight/ninja crime fighting skills to defeat the evil guards and lay siege to the keep!. ("Do you know preying mantis?" - Robin Hood Men in Tights)

Here are some pretty pictures of the castle I won:

 Ye old battlements

 Ye old keep

the gang inside ye old keep

Because no castle should be without........its rock garden?? Anyway, now that I have concluded my chivalrous tale, I can tell you about my other reasons for loving Cardiff....

Three, trebuckets.

 You see the french have come up with this silly little word trebuchet. It's that catapult type thingy you see behind me there, used in medieval times for flinging pots and pans and other various doom-a-dingers at fire breathing dragons (much like the one I vanquished). Well anyway, I have improved upon the word. It is now a trebucket. Much more fun to say isn't it? Take that Oxford English Dictionary! I thumb my nose at you!


And finally...... FOUR, I got to speak WHALE!!!!
Sure English and Welsh might be the "official" languages of Wales, but Whale (of the Finding Nemo, Dori fame) is so much more expressive. That's right, yours truly went around Cardiff speaking like a Whale - and scared everyone within hearing distance.....Too bad I didn't think to use it on the dragon.