Talking about stamps... and baseball cards... again

I sort of still collect stamps, although it's not something I'm doing as actively as in the past. Last year, the society I belong to, the British Thematic Association, started doing meetings on Zoom. I presented about my collection back in March 2021.

The Zoom meetings are recorded, so if you would like to hear me talking about my collection of stamps featuring the Statue of Liberty, you can watch it here:

Since then I was asked to present again (virtually) at the Newport Philatelic Society back in November, and in March I'm due to present to the Caledonian Philatelic Society based in Glasgow.

I haven't added anything really to my collection for ages, except for a few things I inherited from my dad's collection as Cathy and I have been sorting through it. My collecting focus has switched to baseball cards, specifically cards featuring Tony Gwynn, the all-time greatest player for the San Diego Padres. I closed out 2021 on 1,052 different cards featuring Tony. One week into 2022 and I had a nice mail day when two envelopes arrived containing 3 new cards for the collection.

The card on the handwritten note came from Nashville and is from a set released in 1999. The others were from a collector in the UK and were released last year. My blog about baseball cards is currently on a midwinter break, but these cards will be featured on there some time this year!

Our 2021 menagerie of adopted animals

At the start of 2021, when the world was locked down, Cathy and I read about a number of zoos and other places that cared for animals that were finding finances difficult. We decided to sponsor an animal a month in different places, which means by the end of 2021 we had accumulated quite the virtual menagerie! (And some toy animals too!)

We have sponsored rhinos for a while through both Save the Rhino and WWF. The updates from both organisations are encouraging, and some rhino populations are doing quite well. However, these brilliant animals are still targeted by poachers who are after their horns for use in 'traditional medicine'. Rhino horns are made from the same substance as fingernails so it's not exactly a rare commodity. If anyone wonders why I have a very dim view of humans, the rhino poaching industry is exhibit A in my case against humanity. 

Anyway, we started the year by sponsoring the care of a rescued bat at Cuan Wildlife Centre. This is a growing rescue and rehabilitation centre in Shropshire who do some wonderful work for wild animals. Their Facebook updates are an absolute joy. As part of the sponsorship package, we got a cuddly bat.

In February we sponsored a turtle at The Deep in Hull. This is a stunning aquarium that we visited in 2019 while on holiday in Yorkshire. We particularly liked the sawfish. However, we chose the 'turtles' sponsorship package which came with a toy turtle in a tin with various other goodies in it, including a nice fridge magnet.

In March we decided to sponsor a seal at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Gweek. It's some time since we went there last. There's a choice of sponsoring a seal pup that will be released or sponsoring one of the permanent residents. Reading through all the biographies of seals you can sponsor presented us with a tough choice. We eventually picked a grey seal called Pumpkin, because he has a very rare illness and is on permanent medication so he can't be released into the wild. Cathy identified with the rare illness and medication side of things. 

There wasn't a cuddly seal in the adoption package, but there was a fridge magnet of Pumpkin. It's on our fridge along with some of the other magnets we've acquired through sponsorships - Pumpkin's is bottom right. The rhino in the picture is Lankeu, our WWF adoptee. 

April's adoptee was a Painted Dog at West Midlands Safari Park. They call them Hunting Dogs but I prefer the name Painted Dogs. These wild dogs are very rare now, and like most wild dogs part of the problem is that humans either regard them as pests and kill them, or regard them as pets and feed them, thus disrupting their natural existence. 

They also have the most amazing ears, as seen in the glossy photo that came in the adoption pack. The ears are captured in the little toy dog that we received as well. 

In May we adopted an elephant at Woburn Safari Park. We had a great day out at Woburn a couple of years ago and while we were there we got to go to an elephant's birthday party. Well, we watched from a distance as a troop of elephants demolished a "cake" made of branches and the birthday girl bounced a giant red ball around with glee. There was also a 'parade' where they brought a well-behaved elephant right next to people and we could reach out and touch it. An amazing experience and one I would recommend. 

We took a bit of a different tack in June. We had been watching the puffin cam set up by The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, so we sponsored a puffin through them. The certificate was very detailed, including the leg ring identity of the puffin we support.

In July we sponsored Biggie the Aldabran Giant Tortoise at Bristol Zoo. Biggie has been a resident in Bristol Zoo since 1975, the year Cathy was born. He is the oldest animal currently in the zoo and has been there longer then any other animals. Biggie weighs 200k, which is the weight of a silverback gorilla. So that's why he's called "Biggie". The cuddly version of him looks a bit grumpy.

He seems happier in the photos in the adoption literature. Although, it's hard really to tell how a tortoise is feeling. They're inscrutable. 

August's adoption was a bit different. For the first time we adopted animals at somewhere we have yet to visit. The Wild Place is linked to Bristol Zoo and we sponsored their sleuth of bears. (Did you know a collection of bears is a sleuth? I didn't.) The bears are Neo, Nilas, Albie and Gemini. I'm a big fan of bears. Definitely my spirit animals. 

We hadn't adopted any amphibians yet and they are probably the biological phylum most in danger of disappearing entirely. We made up for our oversight in September by adopting a Fea's Tree Frog at Paignton Zoo. Aparently these particular frogs aren't overly endangered at the moment. Long may it stay that way.

Not content with already having two rhino adoptions on the go, we adopted the rhinos at Folly Farm in October. It was a trip to Folly Farm on a cold February day in 2018 where we learned about the work of Save the Rhino. I remember one of the rhinos present peering cautiously out of the rhino house door at swirling snowflakes and deciding outside was not for them that day. I don't blame them!

Technically, we sponsor all the rhinos, but the one pictured on the certificate is Manyara the matriarch of Folly Farm's crash of eastern black rhinos. 

We went back to aquatic creatures in November, buying a Stevie Shark cuddly toy from WWF's Cub Club. The money from the sale goes to support shark conservation in UK waters. Stevie is filled with 100% recycled polyester filling and has got to be one of the cutest sharks ever. He is very soft and nice to cuddle!

December's adopted animal is still on its way to us, delayed by Christmas post. (And probably by omicron as well - everything is getting blamed on that at the moment!) So, there will be an update post at some point in the next few weeks to round off the 2021 menagerie!

December 2021 - End of month review

This is my final monthly round up for 2021 and my final blog post for the year, taking me up to an annual total of 92 posts.

December for us is dominated by Christmas. We wrote about 120 Christmas cards. Cathy took a picture of me posting a load of them outside our local post office, where the postbox has been decorated by someone with excellent crocheting skills!

There will be a series of posts in January about the 2021 Annual Christmas Card Audit. As cards have arrived, it's been fun seeing who has been trying to get a mention in the ACCA this year!

On the first weekend in December we put up the Christmas tree and decorations. (You can see some of them here.) We also had five advent calendars this year. Last year we didn't bother with the Lego Star Wars one, but this year we did, mainly to get the Christmassy version of the Child star of The Mandalorian, Grogu.

Life has gone on inbetween all the Christmassy stuff. I had an appointment to go and get my booster jab. This time it was in Splott instead of the big centre in the old Toys R Us building. 

There were signs up when I went in saying they were offering the Moderna vaccination, but the leaflet used the brand name, Spikevax. I asked the lady doing the jabs why they weren't using the brand name and was told "because it sounds like something you'd make up!" Technically, all brand names are 'made up', I suppose, but I know what she meant. It's a really silly sounding brand name.

Being boosterised means I should be protected against the omicron variant of the Sar-Cov2 coronavirus. However, as we have been seeing people, we have been doing lateral flow tests to make sure we haven't picked it up anywhere. It occurred to me as I binned yet another baggie of used tests and swabs that there is going to be a 'covid layer' in the landfill sites excavated by future archeologists that will help them accurately date the rubbish they are sifting through.

I had an early surprise present off Cathy when she bought me a box of Captain Crunch cereal. It's the proper American stuff complete with neon bits and that wonderful artificial "fruit" scent that comes with it.

At the start of Christmas week, the Welsh Government announced a ban on spectators at sporting events. The FAW responded by putting football on hiatus until January. At that point, I had only been to one game in December, because of other commitments and Barry Town having to postpone a game. However, that one game, which was between Caerau Ely and Cardiff Draconians, was a landmark game on my Futbology App. 

I was in work right up to Christmas Eve, then Cathy and I had a quiet Christmas Day. Two days later we went up to Shrewsbury and had some days with family before heading home to ring in the New Year. While in Shrewsbury I went to a football match at the Meadow for the first time since March 2020. It was an evening game that ended in a 0-0 draw, but it was so good to be back there! Here is a photo of the team warming up.

I haven't been to many evening games at the Meadow. It always feels a bit special. That was my final game of the year, giving me the following totals on Futbology.

This also doubles as a summary of my season so far as I didn't see any games before July. I'm quite pleased that I've been to a dozen new grounds. 

On the way home from Shrewsbury we stopped and called in at the Hereford Model Centre. I bought myself a present with some Christmas money. This will be the subject of at least one future blog post!

And if the thought of reading about Dungeon Bowl in the New Year doesn't fill you with excitement, then how about this reminder of the next holy holiday that I spotted in a Co-op in Shrewsbury?

That's right! Easter is on its way....

Reflecting on 2021 – the year in politics

Another review post, of yet another year that's been interesting politically...

In January the UK officially left the European Union. This was Boris Johnson’s promise that won his party a majority in the 2019 General Election – that he would “Get Brexit Done”. Except, of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. There is a general reluctance to honestly assess the problems the UK is facing as a result of Brexit. Instead the government line seems to be that everything is going fine and if it’s not going fine, that’s the fault of those pesky Europeans.

But there are loads of things that aren’t going fine. Earlier this year there was a lot of coverage about the shortage of lorry drivers, due to Brexit. There has been a steady stream of different businesses that have been badly affected by new import and export barriers. More recently, a trade deal with Australia looks like it is going to be a disaster for Welsh farmers. We still don’t know what is going to happen with regards to Northern Ireland where the peace agreements signed in the mid-90s are dependent on open borders with the Republic. It’s all a mess and the people who are meant to be sorting it out keep quitting.

Throughout the year there have also been revelations of government sleaze and corruption at an unparalleled level. From Boris Johnson purloining funds to pay for expensive flat furnishings, to preferential treatment for political donors when emergency contracts related to the pandemic were awarded, through to the media breaking story after story of government ministers and advisors flouting covid restrictions and partying while the rest of the country suffered, it seems to have been a non-stop train of grubbiness, pilfering and backhanders.

This has led to an interesting phenomenon of a succession of Tory ministers going out onto the interview circuit to peddle the official lie (sic) to try and mitigate public anger, only for new evidence to be presented, which then prompts an admission that, yes, they have been naughty. The Prime Minister doesn’t seem to care that he is making his loyal acolytes look like chumps time after time. And yet he still seems to have a ready list of people willing to go out and lie for him and then be exposed as liars themselves. Clearly they aren’t that smart, that they keep doing it.

In comparison to the never-ending corruption circus in Westminster, the Welsh Government looks stable and boring, even. We had a Senedd election this year and everybody was surprised that Labour did as well as they did, retaining governmental power again. 

Senedd election leaflets

The Conservatives made gains too, at the expense of the various warring factions that used to be UKIP. I interpret that as evidence that the Tories are now very right wing, because they seem to have hoovered up those votes and hollowed out their opponents to the right.

Plaid Cymru didn’t make any gains in the Senedd, which was disappointing for people with a preference for Welsh Independence. It feels like much of the energy has been lost from the Independence movement. That may be due to lockdowns and living through the pandemic perma-crisis, but there has also been a lot of nastiness within the big independence organisation, Yes Cymru.

As the UK Government lurched from embarrassment to embarrassment in 2020, Yes Cymru membership grew to 17,000. However, it had dropped to less than 9,000 by the time of the vote on the future of the organisation in early December 2021. There have been some long-running toxic rows on Twitter. None of these rows are about the big questions of independence; instead they have almost all been focused on trans rights and opinions held by some people within the movement.

This seems to have completely derailed Yes Cymru as an organisation. I have heard some mutterings that the whole trans rights issue blew up after the UK Government formed a ‘Union Task Force’ to look at countering the growing independence movement. I feel it’s an overreach to claim the trans rights issue was a false flag used to splinter a progressive movement. Similar debates have taken place in the Green Party and in other movements, so it’s not unique to Yes Cymru. But it has damaged the organisation, taking away impetus and causing it to stagnate. Back in March I was planning to start blogging more on issues related to Independence, but the toxicity in the movement kind of put me off. I’m still a member of Yes Cymru, although I’m not really sure why.

So it has been an interesting year, politically. One more outcome of the Senedd election is a change of health minister, which in turn seems to have delayed work starting on some behind the scenes changes that will have an impact on my job. It’s one of those rare occasions when a politics news story has an effect on me personally. Or at least an effect I notice.

Reflecting on 2021 - allowed back to football

In lieu of going to a football game on Boxing Day, here's a review of 2021 from a soccer perspective.

I didn't attend any football matches in the 2020-21 season, meaning it was the first season in over a quarter of a century where I didn't attend a single game. I missed out on my annual trip to see Shrewsbury play Bristol Rovers in Bristol, and then Rovers got relegated so Shrewsbury won't be playing them this season. At the end of the season I blogged about how it didn't really feel like it had happened. 

Just about the only football that I had in the spring!

In the summer of 2021, the delayed European Championships were held. They were still called Euro 2020. Originally I was going to go to some games - in the before times. But then had opted for a refund. I had to console myself with watching on TV, collecting the stickers and completing the wallchart that accompanied an issue of When Saturday Comes. It was the first time I had ever completed a wallchart for an international tournament. A small achievement. 

Just before England fluffed their chance

England had a glorious chance to win the competition - helped by playing most of their games at home in Wembley. Other countries (cough*Wales*cough) had to schlep all over Europe with fans unable to travel to support them. Despite all the advantages they were afforded, England were beaten by Italy in the final, which was made more memorable by ugly violent scenes as ticketless louts kicked their way into the ground.

But in July, a new season kicked off. I went to see Barry play a friendly in Bristol (so I have seen one game in Bristol this year!) and then the games started to rack up. I went to 11 games in August -  a new record for games in a month. 

I watched Barry play away games in Aberystwyth, Cefn just outside Wrexham, and Flint, where I think I might have seen a picture of my paternal grandad on the clubhouse wall. I also saw several Grange Albion games, in one of the local leagues, watched Poole Town three times with my friend Steve, and went with my brother and nephew to watch Shrewsbury earn a creditable draw at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday. 

For many clubs in Wales, the season had started earlier than normal - a precaution in case restrictions came back into place in the winter. That has proven to be prescient as just before Christmas the Welsh Government mandated a ban on spectators at sporting events. The FAW responded by putting the top three tiers of Welsh football on hiatus until January. I had reached 31 games for the season just before the spectator ban came in, which neatly took me to a total of exactly 400 games recorded on the Futbology App.

At this point it is impossible to know when the restrictions on supporters will be lifted and when I will be checking in at matches on Futbology in the New Year. Shrewsbury have a big game in January 2022 - a third round tie at Anfield. However, I feel it's unlikely I will go given the current infection rates. It may not even take place when scheduled, because covid is causing a lot of postponements at all levels of football at the moment.

And, it's not as if I'm missing out. I have seen Shrewsbury play at Anfield not too long ago. This time when the teams meet there will be no replays, so if Liverpool aren't as lucky as they were last time, with the own goals and dodgy VAR decisions, it could be memorable. 

Reflecting on 2021 – the second year of the pandemic

As we prepare for our second pandemic Christmas, some thoughts on what a year this has been...

Weirdly, C doesn't stand for Covid...

In headline terms the second year of the pandemic was better than the first. Restrictions were lifted. There was the hope of the world being freer from fear because we would be vaccinated against the disease. Back in March, I blogged about getting jabbed. I remember feeling a bit emotional after I walked out of the vaccination centre, knowing that the antibodies were multiplying in my system. I felt poorly for about 24 hours and then felt absolutely tip-top.

The availability of vaccines meant the world started to open up again We managed to go on two holidays – one in Wales (see all 4 blogposts) and one in Shropshire. We were able to see family. Going to football matches was an option again, and we were even able to go and see films at the cinema. Of course, opening up meant the virus could still circulate, and people kept dying from it.

There should probably be more debate over what is an acceptable or tolerable level of deaths. Since mid-July when many restrictions were abolished, the number of covid deaths in the UK has risen from less than 150 a week to around about 1,000 a week from October onwards. [Source] 

Most of these deaths have been in England rather than the other countries in the UK, mainly because restrictions were lifted more quickly and totally in England than, for example, in Wales. There seems to be an official line that ‘we need to learn to live with this virus’, but, obviously, for about 1,000 people a week recently, 'living with it' hasn’t been an option.

And then, just when it felt like the world was getting back to a tolerable level of normal, the rise of another new variant threw everything back into chaos in time for Christmas. Added to this, the revelations that the UK Prime Minister and most of his staff flouted restrictions to have office parties at Christmas 2020 and drink wine together on the Downing Street patio later in the year really soured the mood.

Just before Christmas there was a midnight announcement by the Welsh Government of a blanket ban on attending any sporting events from Boxing Day onwards to mitigate the impact of the omicron variant. I was annoyed by that as most sport in Wales operates with very small numbers of spectators. The average attendance at a Cymru Premier League match, for example, is 321, which is probably as many people browse the shelves of John Lewis in Cardiff on a given afternoon. I speak from chilled-bone experience when I say that lower league football in Wales is well-ventilated. Particularly compared to the canned air in retail environments. The response from the FAW was to suspend all football in the top three tiers of the game in Wales until January.

Although I don’t agree with the restrictions on attending sporting events, I won’t be joining any antivax crusades any time soon.  I find the reality-denying attitudes of antivaxxers scary. This year I discovered the Herman Cain Awards on Reddit, which records the deaths of people who had believed and spread misinformation about covid, then died from it. It’s an incredibly sad record of people losing their lives after believing lies.

Most of the Herman Cain Award recipients are American. Almost all are staunchly Republican in their politics and staunchly evangelical Christian in their religion. As someone with an interest in religion, there are two things about almost all the award-winners that stands out. Firstly, the ferocity and sheer nastiness in the content they post about their perceived tribal enemies – Democrats, gay people, anyone suggesting there is a racism problem in the USA, “leftists”, “wokeists”, and so on. Secondly, the fervent appeals for “prayer warriors” to intercede for them or their loved ones when they fall ill, usually followed by GoFundMe appeals for money to pay for medical bills and funeral expenses.

There is no doubt to me that many of these people are sincere Christians. When the prayer fails, the dead person is usually described as being safe with their Saviour, for eternity. There are statements that the deceased is now “truly healed” and up in Heaven, usually reunited with other family members who have passed away. Often there are requests to pray for the ones left behind.

Reading the various entries on Reddit reminds me of the gulf between highly politicised American Christianity and the UK version. I know of some disagreements in some churches in the UK over the vaccine and complying with public health restrictions. But not to the extent that belligerent denialism and antivax propaganda has become a tribal identifier in the USA. I’m grateful for that.

Over here, the emphasis among people who are anti-lockdown focuses more on “personal freedom”, which would be fine if everyone was sensible and took reasonable precautions. However, almost two years into a pandemic, any trip to the supermarket will reveal that many people haven’t mastered the art of wearing a face mask properly. Relying on the public to get things right still feels like a really risky strategy.

So, looking ahead to 2022, here’s hoping the omicron wave will crest soon and things will settle down. Bring on year 3!

Reflecting on 2021 - blogging renaissance

It may be a bit early to start reviews of the year just before Christmas, but I've been thinking a lot about the year as it comes to an end. This first 'reflections' post is a bit self-indulgent.

I blogged more posts on this blog in 2021 than for the previous nine years. In fact, almost as many as I blogged way back in 2011. Over the years I have posted quite a bit about the decline of blogging. But this year I have tried to use my blog as a way of just keeping track of things with at least a review of the previous month's happenings. 

The blog mascots - The Panperth Hogs

I'm not one to blog much about current events, with the exception of elections where I do my now customary analysis of election leaflets. This year I have also posted a "Snack of the Month" every month. I've enjoyed having a monthly thing to blog about. I might try to blog a different monthly thing next year.

I have also been blogging about baseball cards, with well over 200 blog posts published on my blog about cards featuring Tony Gwynn. I have now written about 900 baseball cards. There are still more yet to be blogged! So with the baseball card blog and this blog, that is over 300 blog posts this year; almost one blog post every day!

That's a lot of material to inform my cloud-ganger as that version of me coalesces. (If you don't know what I mean, then this might help, and this as well.)

This output hasn't really been balanced with input. I have barely read any books this year. I don't feel any poorer for it, although I feel guilty about not reading more. The piles of half-read books and unread books look at me reproachfully as I sit scrolling on my phone or absorbing sporting spectacle on the TV. Maybe when we can restart our book group meetings in person, I will get kickstarted into reading more. Until then, maybe the imbalance between content creation and content consumption will continue. 

October 2021 - End of month review

We are now ten months down, past Hallowe'en, the clocks have gone back, and it feels like the end of the year is nigh. October was another busy month. I had some big meetings in work discussing possible changes, which prompted some very passionate discussions. Thankfully I had plenty of football to take my mind off things, including my first ever visit to Frome with its delightfully named stadium.

Other football-watching trips included Flint in North Wales and Merthyr Tydfil. In Flint I think I saw my long-passed paternal grandfather in a photo on the clubhouse wall. I attended seven games in the month - a new record for October. 

There were also some other milestones, including my 50th Barry game (a 3-0 defeat at home to Newtown), my 10th Grange Albion game (a 4-0 defeat at home to Aberdare Town) and my first ever Futbology badge for the first game at a new ground, which was also my 75th football ground that I've visited. (And blogged in detail here.)

In terms of another milestone, I posted my 394th blog post on my blog called Point 394. That felt very meta. I have been working my way through a large consignment of baseball cards and managed to post every day in October. 

Life is starting to get back to normal... ish. I went on my first trip to the tip in a year and a half. This sign amused me so much I took a photo. "Swmpas" is my new favourite Welsh word.

Another bit of normality was a cinema trip. I saw the new Dune movie with my friend Bryan. I am still processing my thoughts on it and will blog about it when I have time. 

I engaged in a bit of retail therapy as well. Playmobil have released their version of the A Team with their iconic van and I went and bought one. It's fab!

I also succumbed to temptation and bought yet another kit that I don't really have time to build - this time of a Treeman player to bulk out one of my Blood Bowl teams.

(Yes I bought him mainly because of the squirrel on his shoulder!) 

Although, really, technically, I should now buy the correct team who would have a Treeman player in their team. But I have several teams who have never actually played a game yet...

One other thing we have started doing is sorting through my late dad's stamp collection with a view to selling it on behalf of my mum. It was very disorganised and needed quite a bit of work just getting a rough idea of what we have in the various boxes. We have managed to reduce the bulk of it down quite a bit - originally we had two full car loads of philatelic material. 

I find it interesting seeing how much stamps have changed over the years. They are little time capsules that reveal a lot more about their cultural milieu than people might expect. For example, I found these stamps that were issued in 1979. This wording would not appear on a stamp today.

I'm going to keep some of the stamps. But not this one!

Marking football history on my doorstep

With Barry Town not playing on Saturday, I took the opportunity to see my hyperlocal team Grange Albion play in the South Wales Alliance Premier Division. 

Albion were away at local rivals Canton Liberals so it was a chance to chalk up a new ground as well. Literally! The game was the first match to be played on the brand new pitch that has been built for Cardiff and Vale College behind the athletics stadium near the Leckwith interchange.

The ground wasn't registered on the Futbology App, so I tweeted them the details and they added the ground and switched the match details. I feel I did my bit for the global accumulation of knowledge by sharing the information with them.

I set off early to find the new pitch. I knew it was near the giant dome that houses an indoor football pitch, just visible at the end of the road here.

The building work on the right is for the new Fitzalan High School building. The plans look really nice.

My first view of the pitch was over the top of a scrubby pond.

I could see the back of the two little stands and beyond them some players warming up. The A4232 elevated ring road is behind the screen of trees on the far side. 

They don't have changing rooms - they have a changing pavilion! (oooh)

The pitch looked incredible, worth every penny of the £1 million I was reliably told it cost. 

The match kicked off and Canton Liberals raced into an early lead. They were 3-0 up within 15 minutes and had missed a penalty in that time as well. They were a mix of goals - capitalising on a corner for the first, flowing moves for the second and third. The pick of the first half goals was the fifth one, which the scorer celebrated by doing a couple of back flips. 

Grange Albion, in their all-red away strip managed a couple of forays into the Canton half, but it really was one way traffic. Whoever was updating the Cymru Football scores app got a bit excited though and added an extra goal so the half time score on the app was erroneously claiming the score was 6-0.

The sun came out and it got surprisingly hot for mid-October. I'd worn a big coat and ended up taking it off as I was sweltering in the west-facing stand. At the half time whistle, the players headed for the shade of the trees. Completely understandable because they must have been baking. 

The half time team talk must have helped a bit, because Albion raised their game second half. The Libs added one more goal, to actually make it 6-0. But the damage had been done in that first 15 minutes. The Albion team looked very tired as they trudged off at the end.

The Libs are second in the table and unbeaten so far this season, and it showed. They were a disciplined and purposeful team that played high quality passing football. Having a fantastic pitch is going to be a real boon for them if they continue playing like that. 

It was a disappointing result for the Albion, who are struggling now at the bottom of the table. On a personal note, the disappointment was tempered by checking in on Futbology and getting a 'badge' for being at the opening match.

Because I'd been the one to tweet Futbology about the ground being opened, I feel I didn't just earn this badge - I made it happen!

I also got a bonus 'badge' for this being my 75th ground registered on the app. I have been to 9 new grounds this season (two of them with Grange Albion!). 

Getting a 'two-badger' was pretty cool. But I would rather have seen Albion win, of course. 

September 2021 - End of month review

Well that month seemed to pass really quickly. Maybe it was because I got to get out and about a bit with work, including a trip to Carmarthen despite the fuel panic at the end of the month.

From a footballing point of view, it was a much quieter month for me. Just four games, the biggest being a trip to Sheffield to see Shrewsbury play at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday.

Shrewsbury managed to earn a very credible point, helped by Wednesday missing a penalty and a host of other chances. 

It was a couple of days after my nephew Zac's 8th birthday and he came with me and my brother on the trip. His verdict on the day out was "We went to the pub for lunch and now Maccy's for tea. This is the best day of my life!"

"And the football," I said.

"Oh, yeah..." was the reply. Ah well. I understand. Having chips for two meals in a day is pretty special. 

In other sports news, the San Diego Padres fell completely out of contention for any honours as their form went into a death spiral. Lots of things have gone wrong this year but their chief problem has been hubris. I have consoled myself with my baseball card collecting project - two big parcels of cards arrived this month and took my collection to over 1,000 cards featuring Tony Gwynn. 

And of course there was a welcome return to playing Blood Bowl!

At the end of the month, Cathy and I had our 23rd wedding anniversary. It feels strange to think that we have now been married for more than half our lives (we were both 22 when we got married!), AND that we are only a couple of years off our Silver Wedding Anniversary. That just doesn't feel right. Silver Weddings are what old people have! 

One of the presents Cathy got me will be the subject of its own blog post soon!

Salopian Staycation - July 2021

I know that, technically, a staycation is when you stay in your own house, but surely staying with family for a holiday week is close enough. This was the first time we had stayed with my brother and sister-in-law since they had doubled their children from two to four. Our eldest niece very kindly surrendered her room for us to sleep in. Meanwhile, my sister and her three kids were staying next door in my mum's house, so we had six adults and seven kids roaming around for the week. We needed activities!

There are things to do in Shropshire, but it was only at the end of the week it dawned on me that our big days out were all either in Cheshire or Wales. 

We started the week on the Monday at Chester Zoo. One reason for the trip is because back in January we adopted an Orangutan for my Mum for her birthday. So we went to see the Orangutans and some of the other animals. It was blisteringly hot and most of the animals were being sensible and sheltering in whatever shade they could find. 

But the rhinos weren't bothered by the heat.

One of the tapirs was cooling off in the pool.

Meanwhile the aardvarks were sleeping off a big night in their little house. I found the way this one had his paws in the air really endearing. It was difficult getting a photo through the glass though.

We also got very close to the pack of painted dogs, which thrilled eldest nephew because they are his favourite animal. He's just on the edge of this photo drinking in the sight of these amazing predators. 

The next day we headed to Llanfair Caereinion to take the narrow gauge train back to Welshpool on the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway. We were two members down as second-eldest niece had been admitted to hospital with rapid onset ear pain (which was thankfully resolved later that day!) and my sister naturally was with her rather than jaunting off to Powys with us. 

I thought we had booked the train pulled by a steam loco, but instead we had a diesel hauling the train. However, even diesels have a backstory. This loco was built in Germany for the Taiwan Sugar Corporation, was used on sugar plantations in Taiwan for 25 years and now is pulling tourist trains in mid-Wales.

Our huge party was allocated to the rear coach, which was of a continental design with end balconies. That meant we could ride outside, which was great fun.

We did get to see a steam loco as we passed the train hauled by the Austrian loco, Zillertal, with its typically European smokestack. This loco was originally built in 1900 and is still going strong, over 120 years later!

We had a day off from day trips mid-week. On the Thursday we all got back in the cars and headed back to Cheshire to the Blue Planet Aquarium. 

I think I probably enjoyed it more than the kids. I especially loved the shark tunnels where you can get up close to the fish...

... pretend to pet the rays...

... and just watch the sharks float serenely by.

Then for our last day out of the holiday we went back to Wales and I ticked something off my bucket list. I had never gone across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct before, but now I have. 

We travelled across aboard a narrowboat named after Thomas Telford, the man responsible for the aqueduct. 

It's still a hugely impressive feat of engineering as you soar over the trees and river Dee. 

Pontcysyllte is a World Heritage Site and reminded me of my school history classes about the industrial revolution. The canals opened up Britain and were the pre-eminent technology of a generation, until railways came along and basically put canals out of business. 

And that was the last big day out on our Salopian Staycation, where, ironically, we didn't stay in Salop.