Post-Christmas December round up

As it's New Year's Eve, I thought I'd round up the month's activity before launching into the year-end posts. 

I covered the first three weeks of the month in a previous post. My final day in work was Monday 22nd. On "Christmas Eve Eve" (the 23rd) we headed up to Shrewsbury and we stayed until "Boxing Day Boxing Day" (the 27th).

Christmas Eve morning, we went with my brother and three niblings to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol in the cinema. I don't think I've seen it on a proper cinema screen since it was released in the early 90s. It's a film that seems to get better with age. It was only the second time my youngest niece had been to the cinema. The film was a bit long for her, but she did very well at not being too bored. 

Later on Christmas Eve I went with my brother to the midnight communion service in the village Anglican church. We have done this as 'brother-time' for a few years now, with a stop in the pub on the way, and it's something I look forward to as part of the Christmas experience.

My sister and family drove all the way from Edinburgh to spend Christmas Day with us. We managed to fit 8 people round my mum's dining table for Christmas dinner. 

Auntie Cathy and Scottish niblings 

Mum's Christmas Cake

There were some exciting presents.

I will be blogging about this!

And some family members were completely tuckered out by it all!

On Boxing Day we had another brotherly outing as the two of us went to a local derby football match - Shawbury United v Haughmond FC in the United Counties League. Haughmond play on the north edge of Shrewsbury and Shawbury is less than 10 miles north of Shrewsbury so the two clubs are in close proximity. 

I was impressed by the set up at Shawbury. They had a nice clubhouse and a lovely pitch. The Haughmond Ultras (4 pre-teen boys with a flag and a drum) had ensconced themselves in one of the small stands and kept up a noise throughout. They went home happy, having seen their team win 3-1. 

I've been fortunate enough to be off work during betwixtmas, so have had a relaxing few days since coming home, sorting some life admin and things. Today (New Year's Eve) I went to my final football match of 2025, watching Barry lose away at Briton Ferry. 

I went with my friend Paul and we arrived to find the pitch was still very frosty in places. Kick off was moved back an hour in the hope the pitch would thaw out enough to be playable. It passed the pitch inspection but Barry will wish it hadn't as they were second best all game and lost 2-1. They also had two penalties given against them, with goalkeeper George Ratcliffe saving both of them! 

Frosty pitch!

Moonrise over Briton Ferry

And that concludes a busy December!

Milestone birthdays and rainbow football - November 2025 review

On the last Saturday in November I took my favourite football photo of the year (so far, anyway). So I'm going to lead with it in my round up of the month.

It was taken as the Cardiff Draconians team made their way onto the pitch for the second half of their Welsh Cup game against Trefelin. The game had been switched to Trefelin's ground after being postponed once. The Dracs home pitch gets soggy in winter!

The game finished 3-3 and went to penalties. Sadly, the Dracs lost the shoot out. So, it's Trefelin who head all the way up to Bangor in the next round!

I only went to one other football match in November - the Dracs v Treowen Stars. The Dracs won 4-3. That was a bit special because in the 631 games I had been to since 1992 I had never seen a 4-3 home win. (I'd seen the Dracs lose 3-4 at home before!) I love me some quirky number nerdery and was delighted to tick off that scoreline.

My only other sporting action in the month was a rugby game in Scotland as part of a weekend in Edinburgh. I also saw two of my Scottish niblings play different sports that weekend too.

But the big occasion of the month - the really big cause for celebration - was Cathy's half century birthday. On the day itself we had an armadillo experience at The Meadows Wildlife Park where we met Roly the armadillo and Phil the zookeeper. Roly was an absolute delight, an inquisitive critter who seemed very excited to meet the birthday girl!

We followed up on meeting Roly with meet-ups with friends, a family party in Shrewsbury and a cinema trip with friends in Cardiff Bay. 

Competitive party games!

Sarah managed to create a tasty Cathy-suitable birthday cake for our family tea together. 

I was on the road a lot in November. Besides Edinburgh and Shrewsbury I had a big work event in Birmingham. I drove up in the teeth of Storm Claudia with waves of water being sent over the central barriers by HGVs coming the other way. The conference was hugely successful, which made the drive worthwhile.

We also had new merch! Here's me modelling the brand new tees.

On Remembrance weekend, the Friends of Grange Gardens got together to tidy up the war memorial the morning before the service. 

I went along on the Sunday for the service. It was a powerful community tribute to the memories of those who died in wartime.

Despite the busy birthday schedule and work commitments, I managed to keep up my political commitments. That included the official launch of our constituency's Senedd campaign. We had an excellent turnout for the evening, with members coming together to hear about the campaign strategy. As a newbie to canvassing I had a chance to talk about getting started and some of my adventures in the last few months.

Talking about canvassing, I went to four new stations this month talking to commuters. On the last day of November I went out canvassing in Penarth talking about the Senedd elections next year. Politically, 2026 is going to be a big year for Wales. I hope we are ready for it!

Doorstep Days - August 2025

Every month I say it's been a busy month. And August was no different. The quieter day isn't coming.  

Spotted while canvassing

The first two weeks of the month I discovered how much fun canvassing was, knocking doors on behalf of Plaid Cymru in the council by-election. I continued my election tradition and reviewed the leaflets from all the contesting parties. It was a bit weird that I was giving out some of those leaflets this time. Although the result didn't go our way, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would - and the exercise did me good too. I went out canvassing or leafleting at least ten times and didn't get rained on once, which I feel is pretty good going. 

I started August with a gig on the very first night. I had some free tickets to see Catfish and the Bottlemen at the Principality Stadium, courtesy of Cathy's cousin, Adam. (He'd won them and asked if I could make use of them.) I went to the gig with Ian, which was the first time we had done something together since watching Alien: Romulus last year. I wasn't massively impressed by the headline band, but it was fun seeing Travis in their role as support act.

Pre-gig selfie

The fans got into the headliners

In the middle of the month I went on the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter-pick, on another warm morning. Litter-picks are so much nicer in the sunshine even if the amount of litter seems to be getting worse. I usually find a lost toy; this time it was a Baby Shark.

Do do do do do do do do do,
do do do do do do do do do,
do do do do do do do do do,
in the bin!

Sports-wise, I went to seven football matches, including Shrewsbury Town's opening game of the season accompanied by two of my nephews. I bought a Shrewsbury shirt because it was a nostalgia trigger. The trip to see Shrewsbury coincided with my sister and her kids being in town and we had a great time hanging out as an extended family. 

On the second Saturday of the month I drove down to Carmarthen to watch Cardiff Draconians in their first away game in the Welsh second tier. Carmarthen was a great away day. I met up with my friend Charlie, who I hadn't seen for a couple of years, and also ticked off all the ground in the Dracs's division! 

I made the most of a long weekend with three football matches and an ice hockey game on my bank holiday of sport, which included a diversion in Swindon to STEAM, the museum of the Great Western Railway. My seventh game of the month was another Dracs game, a disappointing defeat in the league cup, which is sponsored by the Welsh Blood Service and is therefore known as the "Blood Cup" (Cwpan Gwaed in Cymraeg!)

Last minute 'goalie up for the corner' excitement

Speaking of the "Blood Cup" I lost my Blood Bowl game with Bryan this month with my 'naive Norse' getting turned over by the wood elves. We have managed to get a game in every month this year so far, despite both being really busy! I still haven't picked my Blood Bowl team for September yet. But it's probably not going to be Norse...

Summer speeds by - July 2024

July is called Gorffennaf in Cymraeg. Literally "finish (gorffen) summer (haf)". But as we ended July in a mini heatwave it feels like summer has actually kicked in, at last.

Something that did finish rather spectacularly was the Tory government - unceremoniously subjected to an epic battering in the General Election at the start of the month. I've already blogged about it, but I forgot to include the customary polling day selfie!

We had some visitors all the way from Scotland, with my sister and her three kids in Cardiff for the day. After living in Cardiff for almost 30 years I have now finally been to Techniquest!

I enjoyed a visit to the annual model railway exhibition in Penarth. As is often the case, the most interesting lay-outs are the small ones, like this one that was built in a pizza box and themed on the book 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. 

The same modeller had built a lay out in a suitcase as well.

The level of detail on some of the exhibits was truly outstanding. 

I went to my second gig of the year - Frank Turner live in concert at The Tramshed. It was our first gig there since before the pandemic. 

Cathy and I have both enjoyed listening to Frank a lot over the past year or so and we were both excited to see him live. I intended to write a post about the gig, but didn't get to it, so here is a mini-review. 

I have had some poor experiences at gigs - usually because of the behaviour of other gig-goers - and I often feel apprehensive in the run-up to going. But I'm pleased to say we didn't fall foul of any idiots this time. Frank tells the audience the first rule of being at his concert is 'Don't be a dick' and considering the defiant nature of many of his songs, people went along with the rule. 

(The Tramshed was still the same old sweatpit but they had enough staff on the bar for once and the floor wasn't already sticky when we walked in for a change.)

Frank was just great. He played most of the songs off his new album. We got an explanation for the new song 'Letters' and how it was about a penpal he had in Llanelli when he was a teenager. He had lost touch with her over the years, until she heard the song on the radio and contacted him to ask 'Was that about me?' 

He also played the songs we all wanted to hear. Everyone in the crowd - and I mean everyone - seemed to sing along as loudly as possible with the songs that need to be sung along to. I suspect a correlation between everyone being there because they appreciate the music and a lack of annoying people ruining it.

It's worth mentioning punk duo The Meffs, who were a decent support band, as well. They did their job of warming up the audience far more capably than most other support acts I've seen.

And finally, football is back. I watched the European Championships final and felt a bit gutted that England came so close to winning, only to lose late on. They did set an unfortunate record, becoming the first nation to lose back-to-back European Championship finals. 

But the new football season had already begun before England's defeat. I went to one pre-season friendly game this year - Barry Town away at Oxford City. Sadly Barry got hammered 9-0. But I did get to see our friend Ella and she even came to the game. 

The lower league teams in Cymru started their campaigns at the end of the month so I made it to another three games before August rolled around.

I'm not going to do a monthly round up of all the games this season, instead here is my current season stats on Futbology at the end of July. I'm pleased with the percentage of new grounds visited. 

And some selfies!

With Ella and an ox in Oxford.

With Tom and Paul at the Dracs.

With Scott when we went up to Ynyshir Albions to watch them play the Dracs.

And with Steve at Chepstow Town v Caldicot on a very warm Tuesday evening. Dig the hat!