April adventures - a look back at the month

April on The Knap!

April started out with our week in Buckinghamshire, which included a visit to Legoland on my birthday, a nostalgic trip to Bekonscot Model Village, meeting a tapir called Nev, and watching Shrewsbury Town battle to a 0-0 draw at Wycombe Wanderers. It was a full week and we took a lot of selfies!

We were then back home, and I was back at work, for a week. But soon we were setting off on another trip. Cathy had her annual appointment with the lipodystrophy specialists in Cambridge. Then we headed to Manchester to watch a comedy set by Nate Bargatze. 

Nate is an American comedian who we have watched on Netflix. I don't have any pictures because there were strict restrictions on using phones during the gig. We both enjoyed it - his sequence about the family WhatsApp chat veering into everyone going crazy was very funny indeed. He had two support comedians. One had some good jokes about how fishing is now a high school sport and that means there are high school fishing coaches. The other bombed badly, trying material about Megan Markle, which nobody laughed at, mainly because nobody really cares about the Royal Family. It was a shame because he started strongly with his horror at finding out about black pudding when he was served breakfast in his hotel. 

I had a few days off when I got back to Cardiff in the run up to Easter Weekend. I used the time to catch up with some lovely people like Sian, Connor (who was in town Easter weekend), and one of my godsons and his mum. 

At the end of the month I spent a very sunny Saturday in Barry joining the March for Independence, which I have already blogged about. It was a great way to round out the month. 

However, it hasn't all been adventures and annibyniaeth. I had some less than great medical news. After almost ten years in recovery from my type 2 diabetes, I had my annual health check and found my blood glucose levels are too high. It's no coincidence that my weight has gone up in the last couple of years as well. So, I'm making some changes to get back on the road to recovery. 

Blood test ouchie!

Football-wise I went to eight matches this month - well, technically, seven and a half because one of them I only managed to get there at half time. The first game was in High Wycombe, as I've already mentioned. The day we drove back to Cardiff we got back in time for me to get up to Treherbert to watch them host Cardiff Draconians. Paul was already at the game when I arrived, Matt came over as well, and then I saw Scott standing a dozen yards away. Cue a series of matchday selfies!

Paul and I also went to the Welsh Blood Service Southern Cup Final, which was switched from Briton Ferry to Cambrian United on the afternoon of the game due to a horrendous downpour. Lee Trundle was playing for one of the teams and opened the scoring with a cracking goal - he's the same age as me and I find it inspiring that he is still playing football, and winning trophies. It gives me hope!

I also saw Barry's final league game of the season, a rollicking thumping of Briton Ferry. I didn't go to Barry's post-season play-off game because it clashed with the Independence March, so I missed their heavy defeat in Caernarfon which was their actual last game of the season. 

And on a final note, it's been a decent month for Blood Bowl. I took some teams and some paints on holiday at the start of the month, played a game with my new wood elf team on my Mega Saturday, and have also built and painted another new team - the Norsemen complete with their 'beer boars', who are mega cute. 

I decided to paint them orange and I think the colour scheme works quite well. I haven't completely decided on a name, but I'm tempted to call them Ragna's Rockers, partly in tribute to my Viking grandma, Ragna. I'm sure she would be thrilled!