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!

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 - September 2023

I didn't get around to posting a monthly recap for August, although the gist of it was covered in my football round up. September was different, with fewer football matches but as much travelling - and a major life milestone towards the end of the month: our Silver Wedding Anniversary!

There have been several times in the run up to our 25th wedding anniversary that Cathy and I have discussed how we can't possibly be having a Silver Wedding because that's what old people have! And yet here we are and suddenly we are the old people celebrating being married for a quarter of a century.

We have been through a lot together. We have lost people we love along the way. And we have made lots of new friends - and some of them have made even more friends for us - since we got married. When we gathered some friends together to celebrate there were lots of kids to invite as well. 

We booked our friend Sian to come and do a photoshoot of us with everyone during the day - and that's her handiwork at the top of the post, when we got a few photos outside in the grounds of the venue. Sian would have been on our guestlist anyway, but she did a fabulous job coaxing our nephews, nieces and other younger friends to smile and pose nicely for photos. I've loved Sian's photography for a long time so it was great to actually be in the pictures.

Having family here meant I also got to watch a Rugby World Cup game with my sister and brother-in-law and the nieces and nephew who support Scotland. They were staying the night after the party and it was a rare opportunity to hang out with them.

My niece Jura in the photo under duress!

We had the celebration on the Saturday before our actual anniversary. On the day itself I had the day off work and we went to Porthcawl for a little look round the shops.

Jaffa Cake ice cream!

We stopped at Rest Bay for a snack in the car overlooking the waves. The wind was up and there was a nice wildness in the air there. It was a low key highly enjoyable relaxing day.

The celebration weekend was in-between two weekends with a Northern feel. The first one involved a trip to Leeds for Margot's memorial service. That was on the Friday and I stayed in Shrewsbury the weekend which meant I saw my eldest nephew, Zac, on his birthday. 

We also went to a football match with some of his mates - sadly a disappointing defeat for Shrewsbury Town.

The other weekend involved a trip to Manchester for a big work event. As a team we have been gearing up for this event since I started my "new" job back in July. It marked the launch of the new brand identity for the programme and a new name - "Together Type 1". 

Some of my team suitably branded up

I don't often blog about work but this was a very special day where I got to meet several of the young people with type 1 diabetes who are involved in the programme. They are a truly inspiring group of people and meeting them in real life was probably my highlight of a very busy couple of days where I was mainly in 'event mode'.

So, after a month of travelling and big events, both personal and professional, I feel I can relax a bit although looking at the calendar, October is going to be another month with a bit of travel in it too!

Another weird life event

Genuine phone conversation this afternoon:

Sian: My chickens have arrived. Do you want to come over and meet them?

Me: I'd love to, but I've got to go to the fabric shops to buy fur for my lion costume.

Am I somehow living in an American comedy-drama? Maybe the real me is lying in a coma somewhere.