My January 2026 round-up

A very busy opening month of 2026, including a big birthday party for my mum who turneed 80, a work trip to Glasgow and the restart of political campaigning after a brief break over Christmas.

I was busy on the blog too, with a Blood Bowl match report, a Book of the Month and, for the first time, an Album of the Month post. I did a review of 2025, a sports round up and listed my cinema trips. I also marked Appreciate a Dragon day with a drove of dragons.

My Mum's 80th birthday party was on the final weekend of the month.  We had a loose theme of '80 years around the world' with a cake shaped like a hot air balloon.

A wall of photos, including a banner of family members spelling out 'Happy Birthday'.

Fred the hound was immortalised in icing next to the main cake we cut and served. His obvious misdemeanour attracted a lot of comments.

Mum with kids and grandkids...

At Mum's request we ran a short quiz. I was quizmaster. The most successful rounds were the picture rounds and the round where people had to guess the song title containing a country name.

My work trip to Glasgow was a day trip with an early morning flight from Bristol airport and a late return. I set my schedule to see if there and back in a day was doable. Turns out that yes it is doable, but it isn't desirable. I'm not going to rush to repeat it. 

We are now about 3 months away from the Senedd election and canvassing has started in earnest. I've been out talking to commuters at stations and knocking on doors.

I also went to the first Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick of the year (photos by Fiona from KGT).

My top find was a dumped huge 80s style boombox, so I held it over my head like the famous scene in Say Anything.

On another weekend I supported the Friends of Grange Gardens 'Big Garden Birdwatch' on a wet Sunday morning. Despite the drizzle I saw goldfinches high up in the trees.

And I went to four football matches - three Cardiff Dracs games and a trip out to Cefn Cribwr as a random game at a new ground. That was just after New Year and they still had mince pies available with the half time cups of tea.

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!

Turning 40: Some of my friends brought art - part 1

As mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to have a party for my 40th but have more than enough stuff and didn't really want people to feel they had to bring me presents. So I suggested they help me fill a farmyard with virtual animals (although they are real in other places) and / or help me to 'fill a wall' with art.

Here's some of the art people brought. I've shared some of these on Facebook already. They are from the grown ups who came. The kids' art will have to wait for a separate post.

So, first of all, Cathy created this piece which I'm calling 'Rainbow Pencils'.

'Rainbow Pencils'
Artist: Cathy Matthias
Mixed Media (pencils, ribbon)

Cathy gave me this a few weeks in advance of the party. The next person to give me some art was my sister in law, Abby. She knitted me a Boba Fett and also two vikings - a warrior and his warlike wife. The boat is made from cardboard and packing tape and was mainly used to protect them while travelling, but I kinda like it.

'Knitted Bounty'; 'Warrior Couple'
Artist: Abigail Bick
Knitted wool and mixed media

The next person to bring something for the wall was Connor, who came along early to help us set up for the party (because he's a star). He managed to incorporate my favourite building toy into his piece.

'Jon breaks free'
Artist: Connor Knapton
Mixed media

Then as people arrived, the art was hung up thick and fast and I can't remember what order these came in. Anyway, my friend Tom had kept his artistic talents under wraps. I'd never seen any drawings he'd done before so this took me aback. I particularly like that he had researched which engines I had on my model railway to make sure he drew one I liked. (And I do!)

'Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0'
Artist: Thomas Reay
Pencils

The things people made were pretty diverse. My friend Kate brought me a cross-stitch.

'Lightsabers'
Artist: Kate Hammond
Cross-stitch

My friend Jo has a fine art degree and after she gave me her painting I was accused by a couple of other people of pulling off the whole 'Fill a wall' thing just to get my hands on one of her paintings. I'm going to go on record and refute that accusation. However, I do love her paintings. We already have one up in our dining room. This one is instantly recognisable if you have ever visited a certain part of Cardiff. Also I love that it has clearly been raining. (I'm also glad she didn't bring me a picture of a nude man from her life drawing classes, which she had threatened to do.)

'Llandaff North Street Scene'
Artist: Johanna Shepherd
Paint

Both Jo and the next artist to be featured are American. Katharine is a brilliant line drawing artist. A few weeks ago we were round her house and I mentioned the Wombles. Being an American, she had never heard of them so we subjected her to some quality British kids TV programming courtesy of YouTube. As payback, she drew a Womble-ised version of me for my wall.

'Jon as a Womble'
Artist: Katherine Holmes
Ink and paper

And finally, last but not least, Bryan and Elaine produced a digital collage of all the things I loved. Including a manatee. They were also the people who adopted a manatee through the World Wildlife Fund for my virtual farm. This manatee is dreaming of Lego trains, while Boba Fett swims past and Star Lord hangs out poolside reading a Douglas Coupland novel. There's really not much I can say about this. It's quirky and fun and will look great in our hall. We may need to explain it to people who come round, though.

'Jon's Loves'
Artists: Bryan Russ; Elaine Russ
Digital collage

There are some more bits I need to take photos of or scan, plus drawings from the kids. I'm saving those for some future posts.

Turning 40: My friends filled my virtual farmyard

I like virtual gifts. For a small sum of money a person who needs a sheep or a chicken or blankets gets what they need and I get a nice card saying what's been given.

As I have just turned 40 and I wanted to throw a party I wanted to avoid ending up with a ton of presents that I don't really need. I have more than enough stuff.

So I decided to ask people coming to the party that if they really, really wanted to, they could help me fill a wall with home-produced art or fill a farmyard with virtual animals and things.

Some people combined both - my niece Joy drew me a sign for my farmyard.

Every farm needs a sign

And people were incredibly generous. Most people turned up with some little envelope, or my inbox pinged with an email the day before, to say that donations had been made and virtual chickens, sheep, goats, bees (lots of bees!) and even donkeys had been 'bought' on my behalf for people who really needed them.

I was able to display all these by clipping up the cards and by the end of the party my virtual farmyard looked like this:

A full farmyard

For people who like knowing this sort of detail, here's the run down of what ended up on the farm.

• A queen bee and four other lots of bees
• At least 4 chickens (2 single chickens and a further gift of chickens plural)
• 2 donkeys
• Ducks (at least 2)
• 4 goats - one of them a nanny goat
• 3 sets of piglets (so a minimum of 6 little piggies)
• 5 sheep
• 3 vegetable gardens
• One lot of drought resistant crops
• 2 clumps of useful worms (good for the soil)
• A pile of poo (useful fertiliser)
• An adopted manatee (to go in the pond with the ducks)

I was also given a $25 microfinance loan to be loaned out to the person of my choice in the developing world. I'm going to sort that out and blog about it later but it sounds like a brilliant idea.

In a future post I'm going to blog about the art wall that got filled. But I wanted to show off my farmyard first. I'm very grateful to all the people who came to the party and who have helped so many people who are living in challenging situations around the world.

Dinosaur Farm

I came home the other evening and Cathy had made me a dinosaur farm

People have commented the dinos might escape

After I tweeted a picture, it was pointed out that without a fence, those dinosaurs could escape. But that minor design flaw aside I thought it was pretty cool really. (And is it really a flaw? I'm all for free range animals, really.)

There is a reason behind this random-seeming creativity. In just over a month I am going to be 40 and we are planning a bit of a party. We know lots of people with kids and we are prepping a few things to keep them occupied. The Dino Farm is one such thing.

But in the meantime, it needs to be "tested", so if anyone wants me I will be busy with party prep.

Another apple-related comment from Elaine, although this time real apples

It's Hallowe'en and Elaine invited us to a Hallowe'en party, where we would do traditional Hallowe'en things like apple bobbing and turnip carving (okay, maybe not that last one).

"Have you got a bowl big enough for apple bobbing?" I asked.

"Hmm, good point," said Elaine. There was a pause. "I suppose we could use the bath."

There was another pause. "When did you last clean it?"

"Er... recently."

"Yeah, I don't know if I really want to go bobbing for apples in someone else's bath..."