June 2022 - a summer month of wet weekends

Well, June is gone and we are now over halfway through 2022. I had a busy month settling into my new job with plenty keeping me occupied at the weekends too. Unfortunately it felt like the weekends were wet when I wanted to be outside and sunny when I wanted to be inside!

At the start of the month I cashed in the Lego Store gift card that my former work colleagues gave me as a parting gift. Among the heap of Lego goodies I purchased was this epic set.

Yes, that's right. Optimus Prime, heroic leader of the noble Autobots, in all his original 1980s style glory! I remember this being an apex toy when I was a kid - I envied my friends who had one. This model actually converts from robot to truck and back without having to take the Lego apart. It's fab!

The Dog's Trail display of Snoopy statues located around Cardiff, Caerphilly and Porthcawl came to an end with a special weekend extravaganza outside City Hall. Cathy and I braved the rain to visit the statues, including Tally, which was one of the statues that we saw had been vandalised in the first few days of the trail. We were glad to see Tally had made a full recovery.

After seeing all the Snoopys we walked back through the city centre. There was a pop up shop selling American sports merchandise. Long story short, I got myself a new lid (as the kids say).

I spent the one sunny Saturday visiting a stamp fair for the first time since before the pandemic, mainly to attend the Annual General Meeting of the British Thematic Association. I wasn't intending to buy anything, but I picked up a few items for my 'Cymru a Gymraeg' collection that I'm working on. 

I got a couple of fun stamps for Cathy too. They feature the mascots for the Rio Olympics and Paralympics. 

Another wet Saturday was spent at the Grangetown Festival where the Friends of Grange Gardens had a stall. The weather was a mix of thundery downpours and bright sunshine. At least we were able to prove that our tea towels with a screenprint design of the park were both very absorbent and colour fast!

Our gazebo was also conveniently located next to the war memorial statue so I felt pretty safe when the lightning started because that is a massive lightning rod right there.

And I even had time to experement with some paint schemes for one of my Blood Bowl teams. I wanted to paint them chocolate and cream, and mixed my own pinky cream. But I wasn't too happy with that and bought a more yellowy shade on one of my trips to Firestorm Games. Here is a half and half shot with both shades of cream on show.

I had already played a game of Blood Bowl in June and I'm delighted to say that it wasn't too long before these guys were getting an outing. A game review will follow!