Long hot summer - June 2025

June is probably my favourite month of the year. Long nights. Warm weather. It's usually busy. And it definitely was this year! 

It marked the end of the football season. I saw both Wales women's and men's team playing within a few days of each other to round off my season.

One of the big life events of the month was replacing dear old Marco the Polo. I'm now droving a Mazda 3, in "soul red" (their name for it) and we've called him Vincent. 

Here's a picture of Vincent looking suave and a teeny bit sandy on our holiday in North Wales at the end of the month.

My first long distance trip in Vincent was to Swindon because the British Thematic Association was holding its AGM at Swinpex, the annual stamp show of the local philatelic society. This year we had a presentation about daffodils, but there was surprisingly little Welsh content in the display. There was some, though.

Speaking of flowers, I went along to the Grangetown History Society's talk about Grange Gardens on the park's 130th Anniversary.

It was very interesting seeing pictures of the Gardens when they were newly opened, and also when it was turned into vegetable patches during World War 2.

There was even a cake, provided by the Friends of Grange Gardens. 

I've already mentioned our week on holiday in North Wales, where we encountered butterflies on Anglesey and played underground golf! 

But on the way back we stopped in Shrewsbury. Joy, our eldest niece, had her birthday during the week before we popped in, so we were able to give her some presents.

She so big now!

We arrived back home with just two days of the month left. On the last Sunday of the month we went to a big print fair at Chapter Arts Centre. 

I really liked this big print, but decided I didn't have the wall-space to do it justice!

And then on the last night of June, I accepted Sara's invitation to an event with Rhun Ap Iorweth, leader of Plaid Cymru. He was a very engaging speaker and came across as honest and realistic. I liked him. (He was funny too. When I told him I'd driven past his office in Llangefni a couple of days before, he told me I should have popped in!)

Sara is standing as one of the Plaid candidates in her area in next year's Senedd election. It was great to meet some of the other Plaid members who will be helping her try to get elected. 

And that was a wrap for a busy month!

Europhilex

My first stamp show of 2025 and it was a big one. Europhilex at the NEC. I visited yesterday (Friday 9th May).

Given this was a large international exhibition, I was expecting a bit more from it. There was a large number of competitive presentations, including some great thematic exhibits. But overall, the hall wasn't full and there were fewer dealers than I was expecting. Unlike previous international exhibitions there didn't seem to be much presence from postal agencies from other countries either. 

My favourite display was an excellent analysis of diabetes, with a huge amount of material related to the history and science around it. 

The main reason I went to Europhilex was because the British Thematic Association were holding a meeting. This included a presentation about postcards from North Borneo followed by an opportunity for members to show some of their stamps. 

I took some bits from my collection of the Statue of Liberty on stamps. There was a real mix of other topics ranging from puffins to mistakes on stamps (like depicting Christopher Columbus holding a telescope, which hadn't been invented when he set sail).

I didn't buy much, but I did find a stamp featuring my favourite baseball player, Tony Gwynn. As it was Tony's birthday, I had to buy it!

I also got something for Cathy...

New philately phocus - pangolins

On Saturday 8th June I went to the annual general meeting of the British Thematic Assocation - the stamp collecting organisation I've belonged to for almost 15 years now. It was held in Swindon at an annual stamp fair called Swinpex, attended by several stamp traders and collectors.

Along with the usual AGM business, I saw a presentation about Sudan - in this case, not  the country! Sudan was the last known male Northern White Rhino whose death heralded the practical extinction of his species. The presenter, Jan, used a range of philatelic material to tell Sudan's personal story (he spent most of his life in Czechoslovakia after being captured as a calf in Sudan) and the story of how his species was hunted into extinction. 

This inspired me to make good on an idea I had to develop a presentation about a creature I've developed a fondness for - pangolins. I visited a dealer's stall and found some nice, inexpensive stamps to start a new collection. 

Pangolins are the only mammals with scales. They are also the world's most trafficked animal because their scales are used in "traditional medicine". Poaching levels are therefore high and pangolins are endangered as a result.

This sheet of stamps from Macau shows the Asian pangolin, which tends to be a tree-dweller. The pictures include a pangolin using its prehensile tail to hang off a tree branch.

The other stamps were from a mix of African countries and show the ground-dwelling pangolins that live on that continent. 

Rio Muni was the name given to Equatorial Guinea when it was a Spanish colony. The stamps show a chameleon and a pangolin. The other small set was used across French West Africa when they were colonies too. The Tanzania sheet includes a rhino on one stamp and a giant ground pangolin, that walks on its hind legs. 

I bought the nocturnal animals sheet because that's an important aspect of pangolin life. And Namibia is another country where pangolins live. (Also it had cool hexagonal stamps.)

I'm going to try and acquire some more stamps that explain a bit more about these fascinating creatures. 

A little stamp collecting weirdness

These are some slides from a recent mini-presentation I did in the member's evening for the British Thematic Association (the stamp collecting group I've been in for 13 years now).

Earlier this year we finally got round to properly sorting through the accumulation of stamp stuff that my Dad left behind when he passed away. In the boxes of stuff were some old, very tatty and disintegrating, stamp albums. Here are a couple of the album covers on my first slide from the presentation.

The albums were beyond saving, but some of the stamps in them were salvageable. Cathy embarked on a mission to save as many as she could. In the middle of this project, she handed me this page because she knew I would be intrigued by it.

Basically, pages in these albums would have the names of countries printed on the top, along with a couple of images of stamps from those countries. What Cathy had noticed was that the image of the stamp printed on the header was the same as the stamp mounted underneath. (In this case a low value stamp from Rhodesia & Nyasaland, which were British colonies in southern Africa.)

Soon, Cathy found lots more examples - as shown on this slide.

That might not be readable, so here are the headers and stamps...

The last stamp shown is the odd one out because it's from Bolivia, rather than being from another British Commonwealth country.

We also had a near miss with a half-cent stamp from St Christopher, Nevis & Anguilla mounted instead of the 1 cent stamp that's printed on the header.

And to finish, two more annoying pages. On the left is a page for San Marino where the stamp that matches the header is over halfway down the page. And on the right is a page for Poland where the printed stamp in the header is a Poland stamp that features the Statue of Liberty - which is one of the main themes that I collect, but alas, the stamp is not present on the page.

However, that Poland page has inspired me to keep an eye out for more of these old albums to see if I can find a page that has a stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty printed on the header and mounted on the page. I like a collecting challenge and this one might prove to be quite tricky!

Another philatelic presentation

If you have a spare 50 minutes and want to hear me talking about the 'passports' that are issued at stamp exhibitions, you can watch the recording of the talk I gave to the British Thematic Association in November last year, which is now on YouTube. 

I got my first philatelic passport at Stamp World London in 1990 and have since acquired several others from all over the world. I like the random mix of stamps and postmarks and how no two passports are exactly alike. 

November 2022 - a month in review, part 2: Occasions

November was a very busy month, including the loss of Cathy's Grampy, Jim. (See the month in review part 1.)

November is Cathy's birthday month, and with her birthday falling on a Saturday this year, we made a full day of it, starting with pancakes at McDonald's for breakfast. We then went to Cowbridge for a wander around and lunch - where I had pancakes again! Then in the evening we went to the Wales Millennium Centre to watch My Fair Lady. 

We went with June and Terri, but June was distracted during the pre-show selfie!

The show was very good, although there was a big delay midway through the first half because the revolving scenery stopped revolving and the unmistakeable burning smell associated with a blown motor was very apparent. The cast seemed to cope well with having a set that didn't spin any more, and there was some energy in the second half as it looked like they had to improvise some routines.

At the end of the month, we became godparents again - our third time. I made the joke that this meant I was The Godfather part III. This time it was in a Catholic church, which means I've now become a Catholic, Anglican, and non-denominational godfather. I am an exercise in ecumenism.  

Our latest godson (they've all been boys so far) is Herbert, son of Tom and Helena. Tom was a regular footballing companion when they lived in Cardiff, and I got to know Helena when the three of us were in the same Welsh class together. 

Midway through the month, my new boss started with the team. It has been a tough six months adapting to a new organisation with a much bigger remit and audience than I had in my previous job. I'm hoping that now our programme can start to kick on, having been in a holding pattern over the summer and autumn. 

The same week that my new boss started, I gave a Zoom presentation to the British Thematic Association. I talked about 'philatelic passports' that are issued at stamp shows with the idea that people would go round various stalls and stick in stamps from different countries. I have collected a few of these ever since going to the big Stamp World London exhibition in 1990.

This was the second time I have done a presentation to the BTA. Last year I talked about my collection of stamps that feature the Statue of Liberty.  That presentation is available to watch on YouTube and my latest presentation will be available in a few months' time. (We limit access to presentations to members for a few months.)

And with all that going on, we also saw the start of a bizarrely-timed and controversial World Cup. I was in two minds whether to boycott watching the whole thing, but I am quite weak-willed as it turns out. Plus, Wales qualified - even though they had a very disappointing campaign. 

Despite watching more of the competition than I thought I would, I have been strong and boycotted collecting the football stickers. That has been hard as there has been a cohort of people collecting them in work and an active sticker-swapping group!

In terms of live sport, I only went to three football matches in November, but I did get to go to an international rugby match and an ice hockey game on the same Saturday to chalk up my first ever "two sport twofer"! One of the football matches I went to was the final game of Gavin Chesterfield's 15 year tenure as manager of Barry Town. The 2-1 win for Barry was also the 50th match I've attended at Jenner Park, so a personal milestone as well.

After all that, I'd hope for a restful December, but December is never restful!

Noticeboard - I will be talking about my stamp collection on 18 March

On 18th March I will be doing a Zoom presentation for the British Thematic Association about my collection of stamps featuring the Statue of Liberty. It's open to anyone who would like to join in. Details here

From the presentation

It's seven years since I last did a presentation about my collection. I found the little thank you notices from the philatelic societies in with my stamps when I took them out to scan some stamps for this presentation. It was a bittersweet trawl through my collection as I found stuff my late Dad gave me, complete with little notes of where he had acquired the items. 

My collection started around about the time Cathy visited New York in 2005. A couple of years later I got to visit as well. Here is a vintage photo of us on a very chilly day on Liberty Island in April 2007.

That was some time ago now. I'd really like to go back to New York.

SPOILER

I'll also be mentioning my great-great-uncle who emigrated to America. I blogged about him last year - you can read about him here.