Monthly round up - October 2024

It feels like winter has suddenly arrived. The clocks have gone back. It's getting dark as I finish work. And all of a sudden it's November! Time for a review of the month just gone. 

The week before the clocks went back I was working on a filming project in various locations around Barry. It included some shooting on the Knap at sunset, so I got some lovely photos. 

The film will tell the story of Jacob, one of the young people involved in the programme I work in. We were a great little team, with our freelance videographer, Sarah, and my colleague Rhys joining us for the second day of filming. We finished on Barry Island, where else. 

In other work-related news, I had a great time meeting up with Heather who I worked with for seven years in the diabetes network. Heather has now retired and when we met up for lunch in Cardiff Bay, we had such good weather it was sunny enough for us to sit outside!

Our good friend Clare had a big number birthday (40) and we made her pose for a photo with us at her birthday party.

Another former work colleague, Ruth, was at the party too. We worked together a long time ago in the comms team at Care for the Family. 

A fairly random highlight from the month was going to an evening presentation by the Grangetown History Society. It was about the massive gasworks that used to exist not very far from our house. If you go to Ikea, you can still see the steel skeleton of one of the massive gasometers. I was a bit late getting to the talk, so have borrowed this picture of the presenter from my friend, Fiona.

In addition to lots of archive pictures of the area, there was a useful explanation about how a gasworks functioned, and how they produced gas by burning coal at a very high temperature without much oxygen. There were hundreds of miles of pipes transporting the gas all across Cardiff and as far as Pontypridd. It was used for street-lighting and domestic and industrial use. 

I made it to my second monthly Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick in a row. I'm not sure why we all stood around the post-box for the group photo. 

The litter-pick had been postponed by a week because of a storm. As someone said, if we had gone out on the original date it would have been more of a litter-chase than a litter pick!

I collected some big items, including a large abandoned suitcase. I'm pretty sure it didn't have a body in although to be honest, I didn't dare check. 

But my biggest prize was the entire front of a car. Clearly someone had had a shunt and they decided not to take their bumper home. Instead they dumped it on a piece of waste ground next to the road. 

Anyway, that sets a new high bar for ridiculous finds on a litter-pick, overtaking the abandoned aquarium I picked up once. 

Our house has been an ongoing project since February. We now have the replastered hallway and landing painted! We have also had some carpentry work done. There is one last big bit to do - sorting a new understairs cupboard and putting down new flooring in the hallway. It feels like we are on the home straight. I'm really hoping we can get it sorted in time for Cathy's birthday.

And finally, my football round up. I went to five games in October - three at Barry Town, one at Cardiff Draconians, and the Women's European Championship Qualifying play-off between Wales and Slovakia. At one of the Barry Town games I met the new club mascot, Derek the Dragon. 

I went to the Wales game with Sara. It was our first game together since watching Penrhiwceiber Rangers win their league title back in May. 

I also earned a Futbology badge for my 75th game at Jenner Park. Happily, it was a game that Barry won. 

And here is my running total for the season so far!