Giant July - a review of the month

Everyone, meet Darwin. He's a giant tortoise.

I met Darwin on one of my best work days ever, filming behind the scenes at Cotswold Wildlife Park. 

In the same week I visited Warrington to help support team members doing some filming there. The office is very near the Warrington Wolves rugby league stadium. (I took a pic but it's mainly of the car park so I'll spare you.)

Warrington wasn't my only northerly trip this month. Cathy and I went to see comedian Taylor Tomlinson in Manchester. We also had a look round the National Football Museum and met up with Connor. 

No photos allowed during the show

Another "giant" step, at least it feels like it for me, was joining a political party for the first time. I've blogged about becoming a member of Plaid Cymru and am enjoying getting stuck in. I also attended a Yes Cymru protest at the Senedd that was asking for the Crown Estate land in Wales to be devolved to the Welsh Government, to match the situation in Scotland where the Scottish Government has responsibility for it.

In between protests and political canvassing, I also got out on the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick (where a couple of lost footballs made it into my latest post about Lost Footballs) and went to the Penarth Model Railway show.

Speaking of footballs... I enjoyed watching the Women's Euros and England's gutsy underdog win. The new football season is starting up and I went to four games, including two trips across the border to see Barry play friendlies in England, Penybont's UEFA Conference League qualifier against Kauno Zalgiris, and Cardiff Draconians' first game in the Cymru South (the Welsh second tier).

Futbology badge!

The Dracs have had to make some improvements to their ground and now have a new "supporter's entrance".

I've also invested in a Dracs season ticket, so you can expect to hear them mentioned quite a few times as the season goes on.

The "lucky" unlucky Politics students have even more to write about

Back in 2022 I compared the mundanity of studying Politics in the 90s with the chaos of the last few years. My mum brought that up when we were chatting last night. As things seem to have gone even crazier since that blog post, I thought it might be time for a follow up. 

In the last two years we have had three Prime Ministers. One of them now holds the record for shortest Prime Ministerial term, which yet somehow also aligned with the death of the UK's longest reigning monarch. Then there was a coronation - the first in a lifetime for anyone under 70. 

We had changes in leadership in the devolved governments as well, and for a brief moment both First Ministers and the Prime Minister in mainland Britain were non-white. Vaughan Gething, who was Cymru's Prif Weinediog for about four months, made history by being the first black leader of any European country. 

The fact that none of them lasted very long in charge and two have already been replaced by white men (the other post is currently vacant) feels a bit regressive. Vaughan's tenure ended this week after bitter rows about screenshots of ministerial group conversations during the pandemic being leaked to the press, and ongoing questions about campaign donations. Along the way he became the first First Minister to lose a Senedd vote of no confidence. 

The most recent change in UK Prime Minister came about due to a General Election, which I've already blogged about. It was an unusual election, with Labour achieving a huge majority but other, more interesting stories on the fringes, like independent candidates winning in areas with large Muslim communities, the Green Party winning 4 seats, and success also for Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. 

And that's just politics in the UK. For my A-level we spent a year studying American politics. So I understand the system quite well. But back in the early 90s, current events were, frankly, boring. Bill Clinton had yet to get accused of anything untoward with an intern and American politics was far less polarised.

Contrast with current events now. Last weekend former President Donald Trump was wounded by a shooter at one of his campaign rallies. A couple of days later he was named the Republican nominee for the Presidential election later this year. He's also named a running mate who apparently thinks Britain has been taken over by Islamists. It's a bizarre claim considering the Muslim protest vote against Labour.

And now it seems the incumbent President, Joe Biden, might decide not to run for a second term. It's really not clear who would have the profile to step in at this late stage and take Trump on.

There is an old curse 'May you live in interesting times'. I'm beginning to think the times are too interesting. And I feel really sorry for anyone doing a Politics A-level at the moment. 

Anyone sitting their exams this summer would have enough material to write about just from events that happened while they were studying! I have no idea if they could keep up with everything. 

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.