A full February with friends

Sunrise on the Clyde

I'm a few days late posting this review of the month, for reasons that will become apparent. It was a very busy month, prepping for a big week away with work. Despite the busyness, I still managed to squeeze in a game of Blood Bowl with Bryan - our third of the year so far! 

I also went to three football matches - two Barry Town games and seeing my friend Ben play for Caldicot away at Treowen Stars. Their ground features an impressive set of steps up from the changing room to the pitch. After slogging my way up the hill to the ground, the steps nearly finished me off!

Ben on the ball

Those three games took me to five games so far in 2025, and here are my season totals at the end of February. Treowen was my ninth new ground of the season.

Staying on the theme of football, I went with my friend Paul to an event called 'Ymlaen', organised by the Football Association of Wales. There were some interesting ideas put forward - about trying to move away from just being about football and being in the 'wellness' space. To that end, the FAW are trying to bring all kinds of football under their umbrella, and have recognised walking football as a particular growth area. 

There were also talks by the Wales women's national team manager, Rhian Wilkinson, and former Wales men's team internationals, Joe Ledley and Danny Gabbidon. 

I was very impressed by Rhian Wilkinson, who I thought was inspiring when talking about the challenges facing Wales this summer in the European Championships. Joe and Danny were funny, and I learned that Shrewsbury Town missed out on signing Danny Gabbidon as a youth because they never followed up on a promised phone call!

This month's Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick was very well attended. It was hosted by the Salvation Army citadel on the junction of Ferry Road and Corporation Road. It was a sunny day and one of those rare occasions when I turned up on time and made it into the official photo!

On one weekend we were able to coordinate our diaries with our friend Ella and visited her in Oxford for a meal out. It was the first time we had seen her since well before Christmas and great to catch up. 

I was invited to celebrate a milestone for my friend Wendy, at a surprise party to mark her 50th anniversary of being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Wendy has been a persistent advocate for improved care for people living with diabetes and was a key ally when I was working in NHS Wales for the diabetes network. She was presented with a gold medal by Diabetes UK to mark her 50 years. 

I finished the month even further immersed in the diabetes world, as I was the lead for our team's stall at the Diabetes UK Professional Conference (DUKPC), which was held in Glasgow. I have spent most of February focusing on delivering the conference and making sure our team of young people from across the UK were featured as much as possible on the programme. The three days flew past, surrounded by former colleagues and friends from across the UK.

I had an unexpected surprise when I found my name was on a poster in the exhibition.

To make it even better, the poster was awarded second place in its category. I also had a further unexpected shout out from another presenter after helping bring together an advisory group for him. That was a very kind thing to do and I felt mildly embarrassed. 

The conference ended on the very last day of February, but that wasn't the end of my time in Scotland. But more about that in my next blog post!

Hectic itineraries and home improvements - April 2024

Some highlights from April 2024...

Train of the month:
Docklands Light Railway

The month began with my brother, sister-in-law and their four kids visiting us in Cardiff for 48 hours over my birthday. They stayed near us in Cardiff Bay. We had a lot of fun with them including riding the big wheel in the Bay and a trip to the amusement arcades on Ynys y Barri.

A highlight, as ever, was the play park round the corner.

Besides my birthday there were a couple of other celebrations. I saw my godson at his birthday party as he celebrated being 2. And I went to the studio-warming held by my friend Sian in her new business premises on Barry High Street. 

Sian is the exceptional photographer who came and took photos at our Silver Wedding Anniversary in September last year. It was great to see her new studio and she was already taking bookings for shoots.

Then I spent the best part of a week in London at the Diabetes UK Professional Conference. I was part of a team running an exhibition stand for the youth programme that I work on. The team included volunteers from each of the four regions in England and the other nations of the UK - so seven young people in total. They were an absolutely brilliant crew who worked incredibly hard to represent the programme and talk to healthcare professionals about the impact of the work. 

When the stand was set up and still looked neat!

And Sara dropped by to say 'Hi'

I stayed on after the conference and had a crazy weekend that started on the Friday night in the Moomin Shop in Covent Garden and ended on a sunny Sunday in Colwyn Bay queuing for ice creams inside a football ground. More details will appear on my posts about the football matches I've been to this month. But I did get to see Mum and the Fredster as well. (Here's the hound posing with Zac!)

I treated myself to a first class ticket home on the Monday morning. It was worth the extra £3!

Got a cracking cup of tea as well.

The final weekend of the month was spent getting ready to move out of our house ahead of the next tranche of building work. Our hall, stairwell and landing are getting replastered and it's just easier to be out of the way of the workmen. So we decamped to a teeny tiny flat in Cardiff Bay for a week. It was very small, but had a great view of the Pierhead Building from the window. 

And we were sort of, but not really, on holiday, so we had an ice cream (super low fat blackcurrant sorbet for Cathy) despite the rain...

Recap of the month - November 2023

My November started with a weekend in Newport on the "Type 1 Family Weekender", which is a special weekend hosted by Diabetes UK for families with a child with type 1 diabetes. All the groups were named after woodland animals, and my group - the kids aged 8 & 9 - were known as the bears.

One of their first activities was to design a mascot for the team. We couldn't settle on the name Billy or Bob for our bear, so he ended up as Billy-Bob. 

You might notice Billy-Bob has an insulin pump and is holding his own teddy bear mascot. 

I had a great time on the weekend. The outdoor activities were a bit wet but huge fun and the indoor laser tag was probably the most exercise I've had all year. (It's a low bar, to be honest.)

At the risk of this recap being too work-focussed, I'm also going to mention World Diabetes Day on the 14th November.  I was invited by the Diabetes UK Cymru team to a special event at the Senedd, which included a tour of the Senedd building for the young people from Wales involved in the programme I work with, Together Type 1. 

I liked these maps in the Senedd building that show the topography and electoral boundaries in Wales. 

My friend Sara joined us for the tour so we had a selfie opportunity. You can see me branded up in my Together Type 1 hoodie.

I also snuck in when the young people had a photo with Eluned Morgan, the Welsh Government Health Minister. I'm the old guy looking old next to all the young 'uns. 

Shortly after World Diabetes Day Cathy and I had a week away in North Wales. I've already blogged about it. It was a great relaxing break and we had a lot of fun dodging the rain and eating unseasonal ice creams. 

And then to round off the month, I went to my first Christmas celebration of the season - with the very friendly Cwmbach Diabetes Group. I wore my Christmas jumper and had to have yet another photo with Sara. You can see I'm wearing my paper crown from the cracker, which makes me look even balder than usual. 

And as that officially kicks off the Christmas season for me, here's to a festive December. Hopefully we will close out the year on a high.

Recap of the month - July 2023

Well, I had a feeling July was going to be mega-busy. And I was right.

New job... not as a train driver, though

The most mega-thing of the mega-busy month was finally changing jobs. This has been in train for a while, as I was working through a three month notice period. After 13 years I have left the NHS and joined the charity Diabetes UK. It's a communications management role working on a programme that supports young people with Type 1 Diabetes.

My final week in the NHS was a big one, with a booked-out event held at the National Botanic Gardens of Wales near Carmarthen.

Blodau Gymreig

The event logistics were unusual, in that we were spread over two locations with a short walk in-between. The short walk was through a garden and the paths featured tiny wandering frogs. It was the first time I've ever experienced people being late for sessions because they were rescuing amphibians. 

I took a day off in that last week to travel to London to meet my new colleagues as a rare face-to-face meeting had been scheduled on the Thursday before I was due to start. I travelled up with two members of staff from the Cardiff office, which was helpful to start getting a handle on the programme. I also timed it well as there was an organisation-wide social event - with a beach theme - in the afternoon, which included beer! Not bad for a first day.

My beach-ready new team (and me)

And so to my last day...

Last day selfie. Goodbye NHS Wales!

After clearing my locker and handing my laptop back, it was time to say goodbye. Some of my colleagues joined me later in the evening at The Vegetarian Food Studio for a goodbye meal. We all ate a lot of very good food! Despite living around the corner from the restaurant for over two decades, it was the first time I had ever eaten there. I'm hoping I get the chance to go back soon. 

That was the Friday night. I had a weekend of unemployment and then on the Monday I started the new job. As I've said to a few people, this job change feels like I am rolling back through my career - back to diabetes, back to comms, back to the third sector! In a weird way it feels a lot like coming home after a long time away, and so far the people I got to know in those former roles have welcomed my prodigal soul back. 

Ah, it's easy to get sentimental about these things. I've landed in the middle of a big rebranding exercise, with an important showcase piece of work due to drop in a few short weeks, so I've had to shake off some rust and dust and get up to speed quickly. But so far, so good. 

Outside of work it's been busy too. The football season has restarted and I went a record number of games for July - in fact, I'm going to do a run down of the games I went to separately. 

Cathy and I also went to our first gig of the year together - to see Bastille at Cardiff Castle (which I've already blogged about). We also had a rare outing to the cinema and saw the new Pixar movie, Elementals.

I even made it to this month's Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick - finds this time included a microwave oven and a trashed standard lamp.

So, all in all, a busy 31 days. 

The big 2015 Christmas Card Audit

Now in it's 4th year! (See 2012, 2013 and 2014)

No preamble. I'm just going to jump right in...

Total number of cards: 103 (up from 91 in 2014 and arresting a 3 year decline)
Hand-made / home-produced cards:  7 (same as 2014)
Cards with detachable tree decorations: 1 (also same as 2014)

Cards sold in aid of charity (or fundraising): 60 (up from 47 in 2014)
Total number of charities represented: 39 (It was 40 in 2014) 
Main charity represented: British Heart Foundation (9 cards)
The top performers: BHF (9), Diabetes UK (8), Traidcraft etc. (7), Macmillan (5), Leprosy Mission and Sue Ryder (both 4), Cancer Research UK and Fareshare (both 3).
Marks and Spencer cards: 7 (these promote the Woodland Trust but aren't 'charity' - one did also raise funds for good causes)
Notable newcomer: had not heard of Perennial, which looks after destitute horticulturalists (no really) or the Roald Dahl's Marvelous Children's Charity before
'Political' fund-raising cards: 0

Themes
Religious-themed cards: 45 (massive increase from 27 in 2014)
In a crossover category correlation, 31 of the religious cards were also raising money for charities.
Cards featuring the Nativity: 22
Christmas story 'characters':
Three kings: 11 (very popular compared to previous years)
The shepherds: 0 (no one liked the Shepherds this year)
The star of Bethlehem: 3
*Angels: 5 (new category)
There were also 2 cards with the cover message of "Joy to the World" and quite a few with lyrics from carols on.

Other themes 
'Peace': 1
Santa: 14 (up from 7 in 2014)
Penguins: 1
Various cartoon bears: 1 (Well down from the all time high of 12 in 2012)
Dogs in Santa Hats: 2! (There were 3 dog-centered cards in total, with 2 depicting a dog in control of some kind of transport)
Deer/reindeer: 1
Christmas decorations: 1 
Christmas trees: 5
*Christmas food: 2 (new category)
Robins: 3
Mistletoe: 1 
Winter scene/scenery: 7 (down from 14 in 2014, but even so this was most glitter-heavy category) 
Snowmen: 5
Owls: 1
It seems Like Santa was the big winner in the non-religious category. I guess if we were getting pedantic, we could say he is St Nicholas really and class him as religious. But then he's also a shill for Coca-Cola, so maybe not.

Messages
Cards that mention 'Christmas' on the front: 34 (almost the same as the 2014 total of 33). Only 2 of the 34 were religious themed. Cards seem to be either about the religious origins of the festival or explicitly say 'Christmas' but very rarely have both. I've noted before how this is kind of weird.

So, that's it. I'm going to scan some of my favourite Christmas cards and post them for your enjoyment later.