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!

Lockdown projects

Have people been blogging about the way life has changed because the world is in the middle of a pandemic? I feel I ought to mark it somehow on my blog given that it's so important at the moment and it has been going on so long.

The last football match I went to before lockdown was a painful 2-3 home defeat for Shrewsbury against Oxford United, Shrewsbury were cruising 2-0 up in the first 25 minutes until the referee intervened and decided to send a Shrewsbury player off when he was the player who was fouled. Oxford eventually won it a couple of minutes before full time. It was a nonsense decision that ruined my afternoon. If I'd known it would be my last football match for two months, and possibly the season, maybe I would have savoured it more.

That was also the last weekend I was in Shrewsbury. I haven't seen my Mum since then. It's felt weird because we spent a lot of time with her in the autumn and spring trying to help her get the house sorted and ready to sell. And then suddenly, two months of not travelling up to Shrewsbury at all. 

So, stuck in the house. There's lots to do. I'd like to say the house is spick and span now, but it's not. I saw a funny meme with a person saying "I always said I didn't have enough time to do the housework. Now I know that's not true." Yep, that resonated.

So, what have I been doing? Well. Quite a bit actually.

Painting my Blood Bowl teams. 

I bought the Blood Bowl game in 2017. Three years later I've finally got round to painting some of the figures. It only took a global pandemic. These are the skaven team of man-sized rats (plus an ogre). (And, yes, they are wearing blue and yellow.)

Buying more baseball cards. 

Not really essential purchases but people in the collecting Facebook groups I belong to have been having clear outs. And eBay is still going strong. I'm scanning my Tony Gwynn cards for a standalone blog project that I've wanted to do for ages. Now I have time...

Tinkering with a Lego train station.

This is just a slightly modified set that I bought in a Tesco sale after Christmas. It's going to be the frontage of a station. I needed to rebuild the set to take out the 'play functions' and make it more robust. The front is now reasonable. Just the booking office, waiting rooms, concession stands, platforms and track to go... as you can see from this view of the back!

Collecting Rainbows.

This is a big thing at the moment. People are drawing rainbows and putting them in their windows. On my daily exercise (which is more like every other day) I have been walking around Grangetown taking photos of the rainbows in people's windows. I've been tweeting them too, and the Grangetown Community Blog has featured some of them. I keep finding new creative expressions and it really brings me joy when I go out walking. 

A dozen to end the decade - 12 cards from the ACCA '19

The Christmas Card Audit has been thrown into chaos with the arrival of a card yesterday, after publication, with important results-altering artwork. I will update that post shortly while bearing Cathy's admonishment that "I told you that you published it too early!"

Meanwhile here are some cards that arrived in time to be counted first time round.

I know some people send us cards just to see if they can get a mention in the Annual Christmas Card Audit blogpost. Talk about observation changing the system being observed! (That's a real known scientific principle, folks) Even more competitive are the people who go out of their way to pick cards they want to get featured in my eclectic selection blog post that follows the ACCA, when I scan the cards I want to mention, or liked the most. Some people even write in the card that they are doing this. It amuses me.

We've got some really cool cards here, and a few random ones. To kick off, this year I kept a note of "animals" cards that weren't deer, sheep, robins, penguins, bears, donkeys, llamas, dogs in Santa hats, or hares posing in the light of the moon. You'd think there wouldn't be many animals left. Well, I adored this hand-drawn piggy in a Santa hat.

The numbers are meant to be a countdown to Christmas, I think. Anyway, I thought he was great, and I'm including it here even though Anna only addressed the card to Cathee [sic].

Another animal, and this was a first for us, was a Christmassy narwhal.

What's Christmassy about a narwhal? Well there is that carol, isn't there? You know the one I mean! The First Narwhal! (Grooooaaaaaaannnnnn.)  I also liked this card because he has a googly eye. You can't beat googly eyes.

Cathy and I both gave each other cards featuring animals celebrating Christmas. See if you can guess who gave who these.

Deer or reindeer have their own category in the ACCA every year because there are so many of them. But this was new, and also won the 'Most Scientifically Accurate and Educational' category.

Cathy's cousin Adam blessed us with that. At first I thought it was showing us cuts of meat off a reindeer, so I was a bit relieved to see it was "just" the skeleton.

Speaking of scientifically accurate cards, this rainbow is slightly colour deficient. However I did really like it. I think "Yay! Christmas!" is probably the best wording on a Christmas card yet.

Santa wasn't very popular among the cards we received this year, but I quite liked this glittery card of Santa (or several Santas) learning to ice skate. The one bottom right is saying "I've fallen, and can't get up."

Time for the obligatory religious card in this selection. It is sometimes a struggle to find one worth including because they are often so boring. Cathy noted this year they almost all seemed to be exclusively in a blue palette. However, there was one that stood out, that was handmade by our friend Ailsa. It's a kind of batik and shows the magi following the star.

Another Christmas tradition is the special Christmas song. Terrorvision released a belter of a Christmas song this year and when Cathy bought the download, the band sent her a Christmas card as part of the deal. Had to include it here!

One person who made it very clear they were aiming for the blog post when she gave us this card was my sister in law, Abby. To be fair, this was an excellent card as she knows how much I love the Statue of Liberty. I thought this was very cute, so there you go, Abs, if you're reading this, you made it!

And finally, we have always had an ACCA category of "Christmas Food". Usually, it's puddings or mince pies, but this year it was exclusively sprouts. First off, we have Chris's effort which he claims he picked to try and get sprouts as a category in the ACCA. It was also slightly vulgar and the first card I've ever had that wished me a "Merry Fartmas". The sprout in the middle is on a small spring for that 3D effect which doesn't scan very well.

And then, the card that ticked the most boxes this year. Terrible pun - check. Personalisation - check. Welsh greeting - check (the only Welsh card in the ACCA this year). And it's the other sprout card, this time from our friends Sara and Leanne.

And that's the dozen for 2019! Thank you so much to everyone who sent us cards and newsletters this year!

USA & Canada 2016 - Niagara Falls

I wasn't sure about Niagara Falls. But as we were kind of near, it felt silly not to go and see them. I didn't really know what to expect - would it be the slight underwhelming of the Grand Canyon? Or the unexpected brilliance of Monument Valley?

We stopped on our way out of Toronto at a mall which had a Pickle Barrel restaurant. I had pancakes. They were easily the best pancakes I had all trip. I will do another blog post about pancakes one day. I just wanted to mention them.

We arrived in Niagara Falls (the Canadian side), dropped our car at the motel and wandered down to the main bit of the town. Our first stop was the Skylon Tower.

It's very reasonable and from the top you get great views. (Probably helped by it being a lovely sunny day.)

The 'American Falls' are off to the left.

The Horseshoe Falls, which are the 'Canadian Falls' are off to the right.

You get to see how far in the boats go.

The boat ride was part of the plan. We bought the double-ticket for a daytime cruise and nighttime cruise with fireworks.

We began at this important stop.

Where we got our fetching 'one-size-fits-none' poncho.

You can upgrade to more substantial ponchos for a fee. Maybe we should have because as soon as you get out on the boat and into the spray the poncho inflates and the water flies up the sleeves.

The water-level view is great.

But close to the falls you can't see anything for the mist and spray. It's beyond noisy as well.

Back off the boat we took a walk up Clifton Hill, which is tacky beyond all reason, with souvenir shops, lazer tag, haunted houses (plural!), and other wet weather 'attractions'.

Up Clifton Hill is the Sky Wheel, right next to the rather ace looking Dinosaur Adventure Golf.

The views of the falls from the Sky Wheel are OK. But not as good as the views of the dinosaur golf.

Or the tacky bits of Clifton Hill.

The Canadians have the American tendency of building casinos next to big tourist attractions. One of the biggest casino hotels also had a Hershey's Chocolate Store. We posed for a selfie with one of their mascots.

Before heading back to walk along the promenade, looking at the falls.

You can get very close to the edge. Watching the water go over is hypnotic.

The spray coming off the falls means that near the edge it is permanently 'raining'.

Which means if the sunlight is at the right angle you can see a rainbow in the spray - a spraybow.

Here is a video of a complete spraybow. (It's 30 seconds long)



You can eat right at the edge of the falls in a fully spray-proof restaurant.

As dusk descends they turn on powerful searchlights to illuminate the falls.

And soon it was time for us to poncho up and head back out on the boat. We didn't go as far into the falls at night, and then stayed stationary mid-stream as fireworks popped brightly above us. It was one of those magical moments.

So what was the verdict? Niagara Falls was well worth doing, I think we did most of the best bits. There is a place where you can go down behind some of the falls and there are a few things on the American side. But considering we got there about noon, I don't feel we missed much by only having an afternoon and evening there.

We got to see the falls again the next day, as we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge to the US Customs point, re-entering America at the start of a mammoth two day, 450 mile drive across New York and Massachusetts. This was the final leg of our amazing trip and I'll blog about it next.