My June selfie photo dump

The monthly round up post was a bit too long to include all the selfies I took. So here is a special edition photo dump.

Very early on in the month I went to Shrewsbury as an overnight stop on a work trip. I stayed at Hotel Mum and went out for tea with the proprietor.

I also saw Dave on the same trip.

Here's my football four person selfie with Sara, Steve and Scott, when we went to watch Wales women versus Czechia.

Sara and Scott are former work colleagues and it was a bumper month for selfies with people I used to work with.

I met Matt and Jo at a big charity expo - which was also at Cardiff City Stadium, funnily enough.

Kate was at the same event.

I took a selfie with Justin at a Plaid Cymru gathering.

And I met Heather for lunch as we continued our tradition of marking the solstices. 

And a few solo selfies. Firstly, my double-sided sherbet ice cream at Tafwyl.

Here's a selfie from on my way in to my Cymraeg exam in Treforest. My confidence was unfounded and I suspect I have done terribly.

And a selfie from my canvassing session in Treorchy to finish off.

My (interim) April 2026 round up - halfway through... ish

It's been a very busy month so far, so I am blogging an interim round up early! 

Mascot!! (At the Welsh Cup final)

I missed the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter-pick in March but made up for it on a warm April Saturday. There were loads of volunteers. Great to see!

We don't litter-pick for the rewards, but it was nice to get a community champion badge.

And I found an abandoned Henry vacuum cleaner who is now off the streets and off to be recycled somewhere. 

I went to a very interesting Grangetown History Society talk delivered by Father Richard, vicar of St Paul's church, about the various Anglican mission churches established in Grangetown in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was fascinating to hear how the current St Dyfrig and St Sansom's church has preserved an accumulation of items from the now-demolished missions.

My main activity so far in April has been canvassing for Plaid Cymru. The Senedd election is looming and activity is ramping up.

Grangetown

Riverside

I'm now a poster boy for canvassing in Caerdydd Penarth

And I've been canvassing in exotic locales beyond walking distance from my house as well...

Pontyclun

Penrhiwceiber gyda chwaer calon, Sara

Llandaff.

Cathy has created this wonderful window display!

I like the protesting daffs!

I've also been lucky enough to meet up with friends. Connor was back in Cardiff for a weekend and took me out for a birthday meal.

Matt and Lauren (and Alex) met us down the Bay. It was even sunny enough for ice creams.

Sian insisted on using a selfie filter when we met for coffee. So this is the most glam I've looked so far in April!

And I've been to some more football matches. I saw an historic Welsh Cup Final in Newport with Paul, as Caernarfon won the trophy for the first time.

Celebrating with flames!

And I've been to the Cardiff Dracs final game of a season where they finished an excellent seventh place in the league. I spent the final game of the season with Nic and Scott. 

It's been great supporting the Dracs this season. We will do it all again starting in July!

Monthly round up - November 2024

It feels like every month I say 'another busy month', but November was busy, including Cathy's birthday, a work weekend in Northern Ireland, World Diabetes Day, the start of the last stage of our year-long home improvements, and setting a new personal best for football matches in November.

The trip to Northern Ireland was for an event organised by 'young leaders' in our programme. Because of flight scheduling I ended up there for two nights. I visited Antrim for the first time and saw Lough Neigh, which is the largest lake in the UK (top pub quiz answer knowledge there!) The event went really well, I enjoyed meeting the team and the young people out there, and it seemed like everyone who attended was very positive about the content the young leaders had scheduled.

I even got to meet Mr Tayto at the airport when I left!

World Diabetes Day was on 14th November. The organisation I work for decided to use it as an opportunity to start conversations about diabetes stigma and highlight how damaging it can be for people living with the condition. I don't talk much about my personal experience of diabetes, honestly because I have experienced those feelings of being judged and blamed for developing it. A few years back I blogged about my experience of  living with diabetes after being diagnosed. In January it will be ten years since I was diagnosed and I might blog more about it then. 

In Wales, my colleagues organised a World Diabetes Day celebration event and awards evening in Port Talbot. It was a fun night with former NHS colleagues, people from local support groups, colleagues and the programme's young leaders from Wales. 

Hard on the heels of World Diabetes Day came a very important date in our calendar - Cathy's birthday! I had the day off work and we had a nice, quietish day together. We went to the cinema to watch The Wild Robot, which we both enjoyed, and had a meal out in the evening. We have discovered somewhere new that Cathy can actually order something off the menu, which means we have options for a meal out locally now!

The final stages of our home improvements have started. Our old hall carpet has gone, replaced by tile- effect flooring. 

Of course, nothing is simple with our house. When the carpet was lifted, we discovered a ridge in the concrete that meant we had to have the floor levelled, adding another day to the process. We are also getting a new cupboard built under the stairs. Considering this all started with our new roof in February, it has been a very long sequence of getting thongs sorted. I have decided that unless there is a disaster, we aren't having any work done in the house next year!

Football-wise, I made it to seven games in November. This was a new record for me. It included seeing Shrewsbury Town benefit from 'new manager bounce' with a glorious 3-2 win over Birmingham City in Gareth Ainsworth's first game in charge. 

It was the same weekend as 'Storm Bert' and I had some trouble getting home on the Sunday after the game. It felt like I couldn't get out of Shropshire, with roads blocked every time I crossed the county boundary. I ended up having lunch back at Mum's house and then driving home via the motorways. All told, I spent eight hours trying to get home!

The other games I went to included a trip to Seven Sisters Onllwyn to watch Cardiff Draconians - it was a new ground for me and my friend Matt joined me there. Every five years or so I get Matt to come to a game with me even though he is more of a rugby fan. 

I also watched two women's games, Barry Town away at Cardiff City, and then at the end of the month Wales v Ireland in the final round of the qualifying play off for the European Championships next year.

I went to the Wales game with Steve - and it was the second time in a week we had been at the Cardiff City Stadium. Two days previously we had been in the away end watching Queens Park Rangers beat Cardiff City, along with another friend, Andy.

Randomly at the Wales game I was sat right next to my friend Ruth, who I saw a couple of months back having not seen each other for several years before that. So at this rate we might well be seeing each other in January!

December is always a busy month as well so I expect it won't feel like very long before I am blogging a review, and some reviews of the year that has sped by. 

Non-buyer's remorse - wizard edition

The other night Cathy handed me this toy figure of a Troll made by Funko, and said: "This reminded me of you!" 

Bit harsh? Maybe. I don't mind Trolls. They're kind of cute. But what she was really saying was it reminded her of a photo she took at Greenbelt a long time ago when I was trying on a hat.

I didn't buy the hat even though it was blue and amber, making it the perfect hat to wear to Shrewsbury Town games. 

I also didn't buy it even though my nickname in the team I worked in at the time was "the word wizard". I even had a sign by my desk that my friend Matt made me. 

You might note that Matt spelled wizard with two zeds. That amused me and reminded me of Rincewind the wizard from some of Terry Pratchett's books, who had "wizzard" written on his hat.

Anyway, the troll reminded Cathy of the photo of me wearing a hat I didn't buy. I have had "non-buyer's remorse" about that hat ever since. This is the opposite of buyer's remorse when a person regrets purchasing something. This is one of the rare times when the opposite is true. 

I could have been a wizard all this time. But I didn't buy the hat.

Footballing with company - 2022 edition

Following on from my end of season round up, here's a gallery of selfies with the many people who have made matchgoing fun in my record-breaking season.

First up, my friend Paul said he noticed that I didn't mention him in my review of May even though he came with me to both the Welsh Cup final and the Ardal Cup final. So here's a pic of us at Penrhiwceiber Rangers.

At the start of the season I persuaded my friend Matt to come with me to Aberystwyth.

While my friend Tom persuaded me to go to Aberdare.

I've been going to games with Steve for several years now. In addition to three Poole Town games, he also joined me on my first visit to Cardiff Draconians this year. This photo, however, was taken at the University of South Wales sports park, home to Pontypridd Town, and one of the 22 new grounds I visited this past season.

Speaking of universities, Callum joined me on a grim night in Cyncoed to watch Cardiff Metropolitan play Barry Town. 

I invited a lot of people along to watch Barry games this year, including James who I met on an internet forum and who joined me for a day out in Flint.

And my Mum came along to Jenner Park as well. She knitted us hats!

Here's a pic of Mum in more familiar surroundings as we watched Shrewsbury beat Lincoln on Mother's Day weekend. My nephew Zac was there too.

Earlier in the season, Zac was part of a boy's trip to Sheffield with me and his dad (my brother Dave). 

I also watched Shrewsbury battle to a 0-0 draw against Accrington alongside Dave, but I didn't take any photos of that.

I did, however, take a photo of me and Zac at Barry's last game of the season. It was a proper uncle-nephew day out with a stop in McDonald's on the way there and the way back.

He's smiling there, even though he was later very frank about just how rubbish the game was. 

In one of the last games of the season I sat next to my former work colleague Scott as we watched Treharris Athletic somehow lose the most one-sided game I have seen in a long time. Their opponents were Caerau Ely who had one shot on target - a penalty - and the rest of the game was conducted mainly in the Caerau Ely penalty area. 

There are some other people I saw at football matches and neglected to take photos with. I sat with the other Steve H and his son Adam (Cathy's uncle and cousin, respectively) at a game in Longlevens in Gloucester. And I sat next to my friend Ben at Caldicot Town. He was injured otherwise he would have been playing for Caldicot. 

But in the absence of photos of them, here's another photo of Paul. When Barry played Connah's Quay, they had bouncy castles and and ice cream van in Jenner Park. So we made the most of it.

(And, yes, I know the photobombing child looks like he's in my ice cream!)