Wythnos yn yr Gogledd, Mehefin 2023

With a week of leave to take before the end of my notice period, we booked an apartment in Felinheli on the coast of the Menai Strait. It had a view of the Strait and Anglesey and was an ideal base for exploring new places and revisiting some favourite spots.

Fave places like Dinas Dinlle just south of Caernarfon. This is such a lovely beach with incredible pebbles and lovely sand which is ideal for sandcastles. 

We were very blessed to be joined for some of the week with our friend Ella. She contributed to the sandcastle building exploits. 

We had a sandcastle building contest one night. Neither of them could withstand the incoming tide, however. (We stayed on the beach right into the depths of the midsummer evening. That's the beauty of holidaying in June!)

Next to the beach is a restaurant called Braf. I had pancakes for breakfast there. 

And Cathy spotted a great reminder of home on the wall. Almost literally. That scene is two streets away!

We had been to Beaumaris before but we hadn't done the cruise around Puffin Island. The name is apparently a misnomer as it is sans puffins for most of the year. We saw some swimming in the water though!

One bonus about having Ella with us was getting to do all the cheesy tourist things because she hadn't done them before. 

Things like going to the Smallest House in Conwy...

And posing for photos with the station sign at Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch...

And paying our respects by being suitably mournful at Gelert's Grave in Beddgelert before buying ice creams from the Glaslyn ice cream shop...

And not seeing Yr Wyddfa because it was hiding in the clouds...

And posing with a steam train...

And visiting lots of castles!!

That's me waving at the very top!

(There's one genuine castell Cymreig in those photos!)

The day after Ella had to (sadly) go home, Cathy and I went back to Anglesey and visited Newborough beach for the first time. It was incredible. 

I'm already looking forward to going back there next time we have a week in the North!

Recap of the month - March 2023

March was very busy, with a lot of travelling and several things happening to make a stressful time even more stressful. 

I started the month by driving up to Llandudno Junction on St David's Day because our programme was running an all-day event at the Conwy Business Centre on March 2nd. It was a rare time for our disparate team to get together. The event ran really well and people seemed reluctant to leave at the end. As my colleague Lucy said, that's the mark of a good party.

Photo op with my colleague Gethin

I had booked the next few days off. As I was in North Wales I planned to stay with my mum for a few days. On the Saturday I went with my brother and eldest nephew to Derby to watch Derby County versus Shrewsbury Town. Due to various off-field problems, Derby are a big club slumming it at Shrewsbury's level. Town earned a creditable point, coming back from 2-0 down at half time to draw 2-2. 

Zac ready for the game

The trip to Derby was the first of three Shrewsbury away games during the month. On the Sunday I drove back to Cardiff. After one night at home, Cathy and I headed off to Cambridge for an appointment with the specialist team at Addenbrookes Hospital. 

The appointment was on Tuesday morning and in the evening, Shrewsbury were playing just up the road at Peterborough so we stayed an extra night in the Eastern flatlands and I went to the game. Sadly, Shrewsbury succumbed to a late goal and lost 2-1, but I did meet Peter Burrow the Peterborough mascot before the game!

Mascot!

However, when we returned to Cardiff I felt a bit poorly. My Mum had been unwell when I stayed with her and although she took a covid test that was negative while I was with her, when I took a covid test I saw the two lines that showed I was covidified. A couple of days later, Cathy felt unwell and also tested positive. 

I was well enough to work from home for a week. I missed a planned trip to watch Barry Town play at Briton Ferry so my next football match was a seventeen hour round trip to Ipswich to see Shrewsbury play again. Another exiled Salop fan, Paul, drove us there and back. It was a long way. And Shrewsbury lost. 

Photo with Sir Bobby

After visiting three new football league ground in a row, my next game was a new ground in Wales at Goytre United. They play very near to Port Talbot, and I had arranged a visit to the National Botanic Garden of Wales to check it out as a potential venue for one of my future work events in the afternoon, meaning I could stop for the game on the way back. 

It was a very muddy pitch and the Barry players had to work really hard to pick up all three points. The next game for Barry was at home to Pontardawe Town, and if Barry won they would be divisional champions meaning they would bounce back to the Cymru Premier League at the first attempt. The team played very well and put five goals past Pontardawe to win the title in style. I was joined at the game by my friends Tom, Jude and Seb who hadn't been to a football  match before. Quite a good first game!

They said they enjoyed it!

The champions applaud the fans

In the middle of all this football we had some problems in the house, including needing to get a new boiler. Our old one was 18 years old and had corroded badly. We also had some problems with doors on our kitchen units delaminating, so we claimed some replacements on the warranty. But before we could get them fitted, the washing machine stopped working safely. The repair guy recommended a replacement but to fit a replacement we have to remove the old one, and it's been built in. So, not a simple job! 

We have yet to resolve the kitchen and appliance issues because at the end of March we were back off travelling again. On the very last day of March we attended a day organised by the charity Lipodystrophy UK for people with various forms of lipodystrophy, the rare condition that Cathy has. The day was near Cambridge at the Hinxton Hall Conference Centre and accommodation was included thanks to some funding the charity had received.

Because lipodystrophy is such a rare diseases (4 or 5 cases per million people), it's rare for people with it to know other people with the condition. A day like this is hugely important for people to meet and talk about their experiences - which are usually incredibly similar - and share their coping strategies and things that they have found helpful. My personal highlight was hearing paralympian and one-in-637-million, Tom Staniford, talk about life with his incredibly rare form of lipodystrophy. 

The inspirational Tom Staniford

While it was a long way to travel, especially as it was our second trip to Cambridge in a month, it was well worth it.

From Cambridge we embarked on a mini-holiday, but that will have to wait for another blog post!

September 2022 review

We are now three quarters the way through 2022 and September felt like a busy month, both personally and in the wider world. 

Towards the end of the month I had my fourth anti-covid vaccination, and this time I got a sticker!

Unlike some previous jabs, I felt the effects of this one, spending most of the following day feeling poorly with flu-like symptoms. Still, it's worth it to be (sort of) covid-proof as we head into winter. 

The main news story this month was the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, which dominated media output for days. I blogged about how I felt out of step with a lot of people regarding it - and I have had some feedback that will probably inspire some future posts. It may have been too soon to ask awkward questions, like I did. 

The state funeral was declared a bank holiday, which added an extra day on to out week's holiday in Caernarfon. I blogged about that too! And here are a couple more bonus pictures.

Conwy's three bridges

Full steam ahead!

After a "decamonth" of football matches in August, I only went to four games in September. Partly this was because all football was cancelled the weekend after the Queen died. This affected our plan to celebrate the birthday of our eldest nephew, Zac, by going to a game with him and some of his friends. If we had made it to that game, I would have seen three successive Shrewsbury games for the first time in decades.  

However, we saw Zac on our way to Caernarfon, and on the way back we got to see our second eldest niece, Iona on her birthday, as my sister and brother-in-law had brought their clan down to stay at my Mum's house. We even got to go with them to see the DC League of Superpets movie (reviewed here). 

The four games I saw included a new record scoreline for me - with Cardiff Corinthians winning 16-0 (sixteen-nil!) in the FAW Trophy. 

The day after the Corries racked up that massive score, I drove over to Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, where Forest Green Rovers were hosting Shrewsbury Town. It was back-to-back Shrewsbury away games for me, having been to Bristol Rovers the previous week. 

Shrewsbury won 2-0, which made climbing up the massive mile-long hill to the ground almost worthwhile. 

Talking of large scorelines, I wore my new Barry Town colour-themed Converse sneakers to Barry's home game against Goytre United. Barry won 5-0!

Despite the reduced quantity of live football, we have started watching the Welcome to Wrexham documentary on Disney Plus. I have found this surprisingly moving, mainly because Wrexham is a place that I know well due to family connections. The strength of feeling the fans have towards their football club underlines the importance of these cultural institutions. The Hollywood owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny, seem to understand that and have come across well so far.

However, it's kind of funny watching the documentary about last season and knowing how the season ended. The documentary editors have been clever at foreshadowing about how difficult it will be if Wrexham miss out on promotion at the end of the season... oh dear!

Wythnos mewn Gogledd (a week in the North)

Last week, Cathy and I had a lovely week in North Wales. We were based in Caernarfon, right next to the castle. 

When I say, next to the castle, this was the view from the table where we had breakfast each morning.

Of course we did have a look around the castle. There were some displays relating to the investiture of Charles as the Prince of Wales in 1969. That was suddenly very relevant as we were in the national week of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, which meant Charles was now King. I predict a lot of those displays will be updated soon.

In the meantime, the flags were flying at half mast. I noticed the Welsh flag was flying slightly higher than the Union flag. 

The large round dais was installed in 1969 for the Investiture. 

Caernarfon castle has lots of corridors, walkways and winding stairs to explore.

That wasn't the only castle we visited. We also went to Conwy, which I don't remember doing before. We climbed every tower in the castle and enjoyed great views of the estuary and the town.

What else is North Wales famous for? Well, it also has mountains. We were able to see the Snowdon horseshoe while we ate a picnic lunch one day, although Snowdon itself was being shy and hiding in the cloud.

It's also famous for trains. We were staying very near the Northern terminus of the Welsh Highland Railway and saw the engine steaming up on a few mornings. 

The loco on the Welsh Highland Railway was built in Belgium and used in South Africa before ending up in Wales. However, the diddy steam engine used on the Llanberis Lake Railway was used in the slate quarries during its working life. It's about the size of a Landrover and just too cute! 

The engine was steaming up outside the shed, next to a blue diesel locomotive that also had some personality. 

We saw the Snowdon Mountain Railway train depart from Llanberis as well, but that was being pushed up the mountain by a diesel engine rather than the steam engine, so I'm not including a photo of that.

We decided to have a day on Anglesey - here's a picture of Anglesey and Puffin Island taken on the way back from Conwy.

Our first stop on Anglesey was Oriel Mon, a great little art gallery and museum which houses an exhibition in honour of Welsh artist Kyffin Williams. There's a statue outside - time for a celebrity selfie!

Oriel Mon also has a selection of artworks by Charles Tunnicliffe, a wildlife artist whose work featured on everything from nature books to those collectible cards that used to be in boxes of tea. 

We drove around the island looking at a few beaches before ending up in Beaumaris for a short look around the town. We did Beaumaris castle on a previous trip and we were a bit castled out after Conwy and Caernarfon so we didn't visit it again this time. 

On the final day of our holiday we went into Bangor and visited Bangor Pier which has just won 'Pier of the Year'. Walking out on the pier took us about halfway back to Anglesey. 

The views along the Menai Strait were fantastic, but our favourite discovery was Dinas Dinlle beach, which we went back to a few times during the course of the week. The views here down to the sharp coastal mountains of the Northern edge of the Llyn Peninsular and out to the horizon beyond the Western edge of Anglesey are all captured in this panoramic shot. 

Dinas Dinlle is a rocky beach with an astounding array of different pebbles. (Some of them might have travelled home with us!) We drove the long way back into Caernarfon, along the edge of the tidal reaches of the Menai Strait covered in flocks of birds including egrets, sandpipers, oystercatchers, herons and curlews. 

It was a very full week, with castles, steam trains, mountains and beaches, and yet it feels like there was still a lot more to see. Maybe next time!