Toys R Us R Back (sort of)

Toys R Us went bust a few years ago now - so long ago the former store was used as a mass vaccination centre (Jabs R Us) during the pandemic. 

But now it's back, resurrected by WH Smith and relaunched with a flurry of branding.

It had a clearly demarcated section in the branch of WH Smith where I first saw the Toys R Us sign.

And the company has gone all in on the branding, bringing Geoffrey the giraffe back to life in a variety of toys and other merch.

I appreciate how WH Smith have leaned into the branding, including this timeline of former iterations of Geoffrey that ends with him arriving in WH Smiths. 

This feels like more than the reappearance of a 'zombie brand'. There's been some investment in the launch.

And in the store where I first saw the Toys R Us comeback, there was even a photo opportunity with Geoffrey.

He looked rather relaxed about his return.

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!

May 2022 - a month of bumpy beginnings

I had a week off after leaving my previous job before starting my new job. We did plenty of stuff, including a trip to Oxford to see a friend. We had some time to wander around Oxford includng a very brief look into the Ashmolean Museum.

We also saw the Bridge of Sighs. Here's Cathy stood under it to give an indication of its size.

We really liked the gargoyles on Brasenose College. This owl really caught my eye. He looks like he's pumped!

And there was some modern cultural artwork in the shopping centre.

Unfortunately, I came back from Oxford with a respiratory memento.

Yes, over three years into the pandemic I finally caught the 'rona. I felt pretty rough with it for a few days, with a raspy cough and feeling like I could not fully inhale air into my lungs. 

Unfortunately, the timing meant that I couldn't go into the office on my first day. I spent my first week and a bit logging into meetings virtually. It wasn't the way I wanted to meet my new team but everyone was kind about it. I am slowly getting a handle on the new ecosystem I am working in now. It's a slightly odd feeling, leaving behind a work context I really understood and having to learn a new one.

In football terms, I missed a few games while isolating. I still made it to four games either side of having covid. The month started with the Welsh Cup final, which had quite an exciting end as Penybont scored twice from 3-0 down and were pushing for an equaliser at the very end of the game. But TNS held on and were crowned 'pencampwyr'.

As a bonus, when I logged into Futbology, I got a badge for being at a cup final!

There was another cup final at the end of the month. I've been to see Cardiff Draconians a few times this year. After the league campaign ended, there were some league cup fixtures. The Dracs progressed through to the final, which was held up at the Bont in Penydarren. That was a new ground for me so I drove up after work.

The Dracs were posing in the goalmouth before the game.

But it was Trethomas Bluebirds who lifted the trophy.

Sadly, I was having a problem downloading the update for Futbology so no 'badge' for me at this cup final. I did, however, have the most marvellous chips from the New Dolphin fish bar in Caeharris, which is up the hill and then up again from the ground. 

And despite the enforced break from going outside for both me and Cathy (who tested positive a few days after I did), we still managed to see the Snoopy statues on the Dog's Trail. I'm going to post a load of selfies at some point, but for now, here we are outside a toy shop in the Queen's Arcade.

July 2021 - End of month review

July started with us coming back from a week's holiday on the Lleyn Peninsular in North Wales (see blog posts here), and ended with us on holiday in Shropshire with family from Salop and from Edinburgh. 

There's a cheetah in this card game!

Inbetween these times away, we squeezed in quite a bit.

I came back from our North Wales holiday with a sore throat and sneezing more than usual. Apparently that can be a sign of coronavirus infection in people who have been double-jabbed, so Cathy and I booked appointments at the drive-through test centre at the Cardiff City Stadium. I now feel I have lived the full pandemic experience, now that I have had to stick a swab up my nose! 

Our tests were negative. I was impressed with the organisation of the test centre. Everyone there really knew the drill. They knew we were coming, and processed us through very politely and quickly. We had the results texted to us in less than 24 hours. It was a good experience in a stressful moment.

We also watched the European Championships semi-finals and final. England blew it, is my verdict, with a terrible penalty shoot-out in the final that will potentially have scarred another generation of kids. I mentioned last month how this was the first international championship I have experienced since my Dad died, and after the final I have thought several times about how he would have rung me up to dissect the failure in detail. These are the unexpected moments when grief catches us.

In my other blogging project, I reached a new milstone - 700 baseball cards featuring Tony Gwynn. I feel I am starting to run out of steam a bit with the baseball cards and my blogging has been very gappy of late as the supply of new cards has run out.

It might continue to be gappy, as I have started going to football matches again. I've blogged about my trips to Bristol and Aberdare. I added a third match in the month of July as The New Saints were playing Kauna Zalgiris from Lithuania in a Europa Conference League Qualifying game during our week in Shropshire. As TNS play in Oswestry, just half an hour away, I went with my brother for a fun evening out.

TNS already had a 5-0 lead from the first leg in Lithuania, so I was hopeful we would see some goals. And we did. 

It was a very one-sided affair. Kauno Zalgiris played suicide football, trying to build from the back and repeatedly giving the ball away as TNS played a high press. Several moves broke down in their own half and resulted in TNS having chance after chance to score. There was a Lithuanian guy in front of us and his partner started laughing as me and my brother started shouting 'Nooooo!' as the Kauno defenders set up for another futile attempt to play out from the back. It was cringeworthy to watch. 

TNS won 5-1 on the night, with some superb goals, to cap a 10-1 aggregate win over the two legs.

Spending a week with family also meant there were opportunities for back garden football with an array of smaller people. My eldest nephew is getting pretty good these days - he graduated from his soccer course with three trophies a couple of weeks back. He also hits the ball harder than he used to and his Dad has had to reinforce the back fence, as you can see in this photo!

I will do a summary of our week in Shropshire in a future blog post, although our big days out were actually in Cheshire and Wales, so it will be photos from not-Shropshire in the main.

Jabbed

I'm on annual leave until after Easter now. My first day of annual leave was Thursday, and included a trip to the brand new mass vaccination facility in Cardiff Bay. It used to be Toys'R'Us, so it was a little bit odd going back into an environment I used to know quite well.

It was the first day the centre was open, which I didn't realise when I took the appointment. I walked in and immediately met my colleague Nick, who works for the Service Improvement Team in the health board and is an expert in systems design in healthcare. He was tracking how long it took people to go through the process. It took me 7 minutes, and that included a comprehensive discussion with the nurse about the relative risks.

The streamlined efficiency illustrates something I have long believed about healthcare - if people who know how to organise healthcare processes are given the opportunity to design them from scratch then they will work really well. Most healthcare processes have accreted organically over time and reflect the needs of healthcare providers rather than focusing on the overall strategic aim. In this case, the aim is to get as many needles into as many arms as possible in a safe environment, and it worked really well.

I had the Oxford Astra-Zeneca jab and had heard from a number of people that the side effects could be rough. I was fine until the early evening when a headache started to develop. Within a couple of hours I had a temperature and was shivering. I felt very poorly - so rough that Cathy had to help me get changed for bed - and had a bad night's sleep as a result. 

Yesterday I felt fragile first thing and stayed in bed late, but started feeling stronger by lunchtime. A good shower helped. Today I have felt even better again, in fact, I've felt better than I have done for a while, and was able to take advantage of the release in Lockdown rules to go and sit in the back garden of my friends' new house. 

The side effects to the vaccine are apparently a sign that the body is producing antibodies to the nasty Covid-19 virus. Hopefully my rough few hours mean that I am now chock-full of antibodies and immune to the bug that has stopped the world. I'm looking forward to things starting to open up again, especially now I'm fully vaccinated. 

Visiting the Grangetown Zoo

This was a fun little community thing that happened right at the end of May. A community project called the Grangetown Art Trail began posting pictures of people preparing their windows for the Grangetown Zoo for people to visit over the weekend. This is a bit like the rainbows project that I've blogged about previously.

We decided to join in. I say "we", but Cathy is the creative one. She made these wonderful bears to sit in our window. Everyone, meet Arthur and Ursula.

Cathy also made them a little, Welsh-speaking, friend.

We went out for a couple of walks over the weekend and found some more "exhibits". Sorry for the quality of the photography, but you know how it is trying to photograph animals...

We saw lemurs in Earl Street (behind a very clean, very reflective window!)

They were all named after Harry Potter characters.

We saw tigers in Holmesdale Street

And nearby there was a flamingo

There was a very tall giraffe in an upstairs window in Paget Street

And a monkey who had fallen out of a tree. We helped him back into a hedge.

There was a variety of fauna on display in Virgil Street

The parrot was bright and colourful, with beady eyes

They had a majestic, yet approachable looking lion as well

And then in Warwick Street we found the aquatic exhibit

The main resident of which was this handsome knitted octopus

It was a really lovely art project; a celebration of creativity. It was great fun wandering the streets looking for the different creatures as people shared their locations on Twitter. I would really like this to become a thing that happens annually with more people joining in and not be 'one of those things we did during the crazy lockdown'.

Whataboutery and moral equivalency - weapons in the war on truth part 3

This is my third post in a row about whataboutery. I've previously written about 'moral equivalency' and how whatabouterists try to deflect criticism by criticising the critics. But sometimes whatabouterists stray into bold new territory. Today's quality whataboutery came on yet another post on Facebook about Dominic Cummings.

A friend shared a story from someone who had been in a very similar position to Dominic Cummings but had followed the quarantine rules. It was difficult for that person to follow the rules, but it was the right thing to do. They were justifiably annoyed that Dominic Cummings had ignored the quarantine rules and potentially exposed a lot of other people to Coronavirus.

The very first comment on the shared post included the phrase "What about..." It's a textbook start for some whataboutery, and then it kicked into an unexpected direction. Here's the post.

In case you can't read the reply, here it is a bit bigger.

It reads as follows:

"Think it's time to move on. Starter is a hypocrite and CANNOT be trusted. What about the French escorting migrants to British eaters and dumping there? Where it the new coverage over this - nowhere and the media wiggle to be the best at destroying someone it goes over their pathetic agenda." [sic]

I told you it was quality whataboutery. It was clearly typed in a hurry by someone in a rush to tick lots of boxes. "Time to move on." they say. I have a lot to say about that phrase. It's the catchphrase of an authoritarian person who does not want to be held to account for their actions. (That's a future blog post right there.)

By "Starter", they actually mean Starmer, as in Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party. Apparently he "CANNOT be trusted". The use of CAPS is beloved of whatabouterists. But who said anything about Starmer? This, again, is an attempt to bring the "other side" in and pretend this is only a political argument. It was heartening to see that subsequent commenters just ignored this libellous comment and avoided the trap of defending Starmer. That's not the subject in hand and the distraction was ignored.

Then we get the "What about...?" Just to clarify, they mean migrants being escorted to British waters, not to British eaters. E and W are easy keys to mix up when you're keen to get your comment in. I thought I'd best explain, just in case you were worried about cannibalism.

I have no idea what relevance the French navy's actions have to the discussion at hand. It's a classic example of an attempt at derailment and deflection - let's talk about another issue! Why isn't that news?

And they're still not finished. This is a real kitchen sink job - everything is going in! As we saw in my previous post, the actions of the media are criticised. They are trying to destroy Dominic Cummings in pursuit of "their pathetic agenda". Again, no acknowledgment that none of this would have happened if Dominic Cummings had not broken quarantine law, or had resigned when the story broke. No, this is all the media's fault. Blame-shifting is an important aspect of whataboutery.

In my previous posts I've blacked out the names of the people making the posts. I almost didn't bother with this one because they sound like a racist and I think people should own their shit when it comes to that sort of thing. But I'm nice. However, I did reply to him, as follows.

"[To Name] I agree it's disgusting that migrants aren't helped safely ashore and cared for. More should be done for them. They shouldn't just be dumped."

They haven't responded to that. That's probably because whatabouterists aren't actually looking for a sensible debate on the points they ask 'what about' about. They just throw stuff into the mixer to confuse the conversation and obscure the point of it. I wasn't expecting a response and did it mainly for my own amusement, and also because I like pushing the buttons of people who blame all the ills of society on immigration.

I'm concluding this mini-series of blog posts about whataboutery here. I suspect we will continue to see a lot of it on social media in the coming months though.

Whataboutery and moral equivalency - weapons in the war on truth part 2

In my previous post I deconstructed a Facebook comment that was trying to use moral equivalency to downplay the actions of the Government advisor Dominic Cummings by claiming that people from all political backgrounds were breaking the rules. I pointed out several problems with the argument, including that it disregarded several inconvenient facts as it tried to build up justifications.

'Moral equivalency' and its close ally, 'whataboutery', are becoming very common tools on the right wing of politics. Usually Whataboutery starts literally with the words "What about..." followed by a completely unconnected issue. But it doesn't always have to be this way. Sometimes the whataboutery is implied. Here's an example that was shared by someone I'm Facebook friends with.

That's a shared post that had the original caption "the media is poison". The text above the photo is part of the image and says "This is the UK press breaking isolation rules so that can shame someone who broke isolation rules............[facepalm emoji]"

The implication there is that the media are hypocrites and therefore morally equivalent to the person they are trying to talk to. The aim of sharing that post is simple - to downplay the wrongdoing of the person who is being targeted by the media by pointing out that other people are now behaving just as badly.

Again we can deconstruct this. I have some points. For the purposes of this argument, I am going to assume this is a genuine photo and not something that has been repurposed. You do have to be careful with right wing memes because the photos often aren't what they claim to be. But let's take it at face value.

1) The journalists aren't following social distancing guidelines. They should be punished. Nobody needs to defend them.
2) The journalists would not be there at all if Dominic Cummings had followed the rules that he had been party to developing.
3) No "isolation rules" are being broken there. Social distancing rules are being broken in that picture, yes (see point 1) and, more importantly, Dominic Cummings broke quarantine rules. Those rules are to stop people who are ill with Coronavirus from travelling and potentially infecting other people. Breaking quarantine rules is more likely to infect other people with Coronavirus. That's arguably more serious than breaking social distancing rules.
4) The whatabouterist is trying to change the focus to the response. This is a common tactic, to change the discussion from the actions of the person in the spotlight, to try and talk about the reactions they have caused.
5) There is a faulty claim to a double standard here -  the criticism of the people in the picture is that they aren't following the rules. But the real double standard is holding the members of the media to a higher standard then the person they are investigating.

The description of the event as a shaming attempt isn't accidental either. This isn't about trying to "shame" a person. This is about the media challenging a person who has a lot of influence and power about their behaviour which has directly placed other people at risk of harm. Describing at as 'shaming' is an attempt to downplay it.

Here's another example of whataboutery, this time a quote from a newspaper columnist done up as a meme by an ultra-conservative (ie hard right) group called Reasoned UK and shared by a different Facebook friend.

My friend added her own commentary, saying: "I disagree with what he did, but there is never an excuse for bullying."

The quote is from Melanie Phillips who writes for the Times. For context, she's written some pretty racist columns about migrants in the past and is a climate change skeptic. She has also, and this is important, lost at least one journalism job after writing stuff that wasn't true. So, the first question we have to ask, is, is this true? Did Dominic Cummings experience intimidation and "bullying" from his neighbours?

But, let's say he did. Let's give Melanie Phillips the benefit of the doubt here. What is the argument? Apparently "[t]here is absolutely no excuse whatever for shouting at, intimidating and bullying". None, whatsoever!

We could debate that. She writes an opinion column. She has opinions. I have opinions. We all have opinions. We don't all have a national platform to broadcast our opinions.

But this is almost exactly the same whataboutery as in the first post I shared. It's criticising people for reacting. It's criticising people for being provoked. It's criticising the response. There doesn't seem to be an acknowledgement anywhere in this that people may have a right to feel angry, that actually some of what has happened here is the fault of the person who has done the wrong thing.

Now Melanie might have said that, but her article is behind a paywall. And the people who dressed her words up in this easily shareable quote have left any caveats that she might have included out.

We can debate the old idea that two wrongs don't make a right, and I would generally agree, but when people try and shift the focus to 'what about the reaction!?!?" they are doing it for a reason, and that reason is to gloss over the bad behaviour that has brought about that reaction. It's ultimately a form of victim-blaming

Whataboutery can take some pretty wild turns, as it turns out. I've got one more example, which I will save to my next post.

The fractional losses, being human in a viral world

A while back, my friend Sara and I talked about 'microaggressions' in our industry. These are tiny ways that processes and interactions rob you of your humanity. Usually microaggressions occur in discussions about racism or other forms of bigotry, but I feel the definition could be widened slightly.

It seems almost pointless to add to the many handwringing opinion pieces about the awfulness of the Covid-19 pandemic. There have been some real tragedies that have upset me incredibly. Well over 100 NHS staff have died of Coronavirus, including five people from my organisation. I felt very sad about the identical twin nurses from Southampton who died within days of each other. These are the big, headline stories that overwhelm me and make me feel guilty about my losses, which are slight in comparison.

But they are still losses. Yes, a death of a very close loved one is incomparable. But that does not negate the build up of those fractional losses; those small ways in which we have been denied the things we need. The virus is aggressive, but it also deals in microaggressions.

In no particular order, I've lost the following since the beginning of March.

1) Funerals. On the 19th March, a year to the day that my Dad died unexpectedly, my friend Ben died. He was the same school year as my brother, Dave, and Dave's best friend. Ben and I shared Best Man duties at Dave's wedding.

Ben was only 40 when he died. He had a crazily rare condition, which felt cruelly random. It feels strange to think he has gone. We had that kind of semi-distant friendship where you don't see each other for ages and then when you do, it feels like the gang has got back together. I saw him last year. I didn't know that would be the last time.

A few weeks later my Uncle Malcolm died. I've been visiting him several times a year for several years now. If I had a work appointment in North Wales I would try and call in and see him.

I would have wanted to be at the funerals for both Ben and Uncle Malcolm. Social distancing requirements and restrictions on travel prevented that. It's hard to not get that opportunity to pay respects, share some stories, hug people who also loved the person who has passed on. 'Closure' is an odd word, but that is what a funeral gives you. And I don't have it.

2) Involvement. My Mum has moved house. We had plans for this - it was going to be the weekend after my birthday. I would be there helping to shift stuff. I would be there as she moved into her new house and help her settle in.

All those plans got turned on their heads by the pandemic. She was able to move but there have been unexpected hurdles and issues. My brother has had to manage it all and I feel frustrated by that, knowing that the burden we would have shared has been dumped on him. He hasn't complained at all, but I wish I had been there to help him.

Another aspect of being stuck over 100 miles away from the action is my own personal goodbye to the family home that has been the welcoming safe haven for 35 years. I stayed there for a weekend at the beginning of March. I was expecting to be back there at least one more time before it became someone else's house. It feels like that chapter of my life has been forcefully closed for me before I had finished reading the final page.

3) Football. I know football isn't important really. But I had plans. I was trying to work out how to get to Sunderland for Shrewsbury's away game there on 4 April. At Easter I was going to go and watch Barry play in Caernarfon on the Saturday and then see Shrewsbury's home game against Ipswich on Easter Monday. In June I had tickets for Euro 2020, including a game at Hampden, which is a ground I'd really like to visit. My last game this season was my 35th. My record for a season was 37 and I was going to bust through that and probably over the 40 game mark.

They're all lost opportunities rather than actual losses but sometimes we grieve over what we can't have, rather than what we had.

4) Routines. Since September I've been learning Welsh two evenings a week. I had got into a routine with it. Leave work, park at the uni, catch up on my homework while eating a sandwich, go into class. I had a good bunch of classmates, all genuinely nice people.

We have switched to Zoom. We lost half the class when we switched. I have found the move online more difficult than I thought it would be. The dynamic of learning has changed. Our tutors have done their best to make it work, but it's not easy using resources designed for the classroom when you don't have a classroom. If I have Zoom calls all day and then a 3 hour class on Zoom in the evening I feel exhausted.

5) Moments. My Mum said to me that her main regret in all this is that she feels she is losing the time she has left. I know what she means about that because lockdown life is not life at its fullest.

I miss being able to mooch around the charity shops with Cathy on a Sunday afternoon.

I miss meeting my friend Sara for work chats over coffee.

I miss my bunker at work. Our office has been occupied in our absence by a team who had their own space requisitioned with very little warning as the hospital reconfigured and braced for crisis. I have regular WhatsApp coffee times with my small team, but it's not the same as seeing them every day and having them on hand to bounce ideas with or get a third opinion on something.

I miss making the effort to go out on a Monday evening to my book group, and being glad I did afterwards.

I miss calling in at a supermarket and just being able to walk in without any hassle.

I miss going out to eat. I don't mean fancy meals that cost a lot. I mean evenings when I felt too tired to cook and we went and hid from the world and responsibilities in a booth at Pizza Hut, eating pizza with a base that has gone crispy with grease and pretending that the bowls we filled with 'salad' were healthy.

I miss those moments of connection. In the queue at the post office. With the cashier in the supermarket. Those friendly chats with strangers. Now we just nod from distance.

They are all instants, but those many moments add up. Being robbed of so many small elements of humanness makes all this harder to navigate. Sometimes I worry that the fractional losses are making me lose sight of myself, that I will be lessened by all of this.

Grangetown Rainbow Art - messages of hope in the time of Covid

A version of this blogpost previously appeared on the Grangetown Community website. I've extended it a bit here and added more photos.

With limited exercise opportunities available because of the pandemic, I've been going out for a walk most evenings. Sometimes I walk to a park or by the river, but sometimes I just walk up and down a few streets. Grangetown's streets are fascinating. Different styles of houses. Strange old outbuildings. All kinds of things to see.

Lots of homes have rainbows in the windows with messages of thanks to NHS staff and key workers - the people who are keeping the country going at the moment. 

They are lovely messages and sometimes they give me the feels. One that said "Thank you Daddy  and all key workers!" gave me a little heart pang. Another one said "Well done! Auntie Claire." I don't know if Auntie Claire has been able to see it, but I hope she knows she is a hero.

Its impressive to see the array of arty techniques on show. Poster paints and water colours, marker pens and coloured pencils, collages and cut outs.

One house has a rainbow made from a row of tiny handprints on the glass. Another has different coloured paper hearts arranged in a rainbow.

There is lots of bilingual messaging. Arhoswch adre! Ofalwch i ti!

In Pentrebane Street there is even a remarkable bilingual teddy bear called Chester who greets children in Welsh and English. I saw him one evening when it was too dark to take a photo and had to go back the following evening to try and get a picture when there was more light.

I've been putting photos of some of the rainbows on my Twitter feed. People like them. They are messages of hope for a future beyond this crazy time. As one piece of artwork said 'After the storm, comes the rainbow.' 

And, of course, I live with an artistic, creative person. Here is Cathy's message of hope.