My June 2026 round-up

Another busy month. On tbe blog I shared my good news about my diabetes recovery, my book of the month, my album of the month and my summary of the football season after I went to my final football match of the season and watched Wales women win against the Czech Republic. (And in tabletop sport, the dice were kind to me and unkind to Bryan when we played Blood Bowl!)

Cathy and I went to two gigs: Garbage in Cardiff Castle and Counting Crows in Bristol. We also had two cinema trips this month. The first was Masters of the Universe. I own one MOTU t-shirt and made sure I wore it. 

I liked the film. It was the perfect mix of homage and gentle mockery of the original 1980s cartoon. 

Cathy and I both wore suitable t-shirts when we went to see a tribute to the Muppets followed by a screening of The Muppet Treasure Island.

I had a nice work-related surprise when I was told I was one of a handful of people nominated as a 'Voice Champion' by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I didn't know anything about this until I opened an email with this certificate attached. It made a grey Tuesday morning a bit special.

I made it to the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter-pick this month. Nothing very exciting to report this time in the three bags of trash I collected.

After a few weeks off, I was back on the canvassing trail. I went up to Treorchy to encourage people to vote in the council by-election. 

I was back knocking doors with James from Pontyclun. It was like old times! (As in, just a few weeks prior!)

Canvassing is great exercise. I ended the session by calling into a chip shop for a tray of well-earned sglodion! They were delicious. #NoRegrets. (Richard, the Plaid Cymru candidate, won the election with 70.8% of the vote!)

Canvassing wasn't my only political activity of the month. I went to the Tafwyl festival to help out on the Yes Cymru stand. While working there I met several Senedd members I knew, and got pics with a couple of them.

Senator Gonzalez

Senator Crowley

We had lots of interest from passers-by, and with the Westminster government sliding into even more chaos, the discussion about independence feels as timely as ever. 

One of my longer days out this month was to Swindon for the AGM of the British Thematic Association, the stamp collecting group I've been a member of for 16 years now. The meeting was at the stamp fair, Swinpex. 

It's been a good stamp collecting month for me, with two new philatelic passports added to my collection (from France and New Zealand). At Swinpex I bought a few stamps for my collection of pangolins on stamps, including this one produced by Sarawak in 1950. For a 76 year-old stamp, it's looking very crisp.

And at the end of the month we had a heatwave that set new temperature records in Cardiff. My impulse buy to help us cope was half a giant watermelon. By the time we finished it the heatwave was over!

Hand for scale!

My May 2026 round up

Well, May has gone by fast and finished as a very hot one, setting new temperature records. I was hotter in Cardiff than in Kefalonia the week before!

Cooler in Kefalonia 

I have blogged multiple times about the two big events in May: the Senedd election and my Three Seas Cruise. You can catch up here:

Election

• Senedd Election post
• Celebrating the election win (and seeing my friend Sara get sworn in as member of the Senedd)
• Plus, if you're nerdy, my updated election leaflets graph

Cruise

• Dubrovnik to Malta
• Sicily and Kefalonia
• Corfu and Kotor
• The Red Museum in Dubrovnik

I also had a cinema trip to see The Mandalorian and Grogu with Cathy, and posted a Japanese novel as my Book of the Month.

I had a fun return to work after the cruise. On my first day back I drove to the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford to learn about how the team there are using a natural protein that dampens inflammation to protect insulin-producing cells, which could potentially open a door for a cure for type 1 diabetes. 

It's very early days in the science, with loads more work to do. I put on a white coat to lend a hand.

Towards the end of the month the time had also come round for another diabetes check up. My blood test was booked for the week after the cruise.  I will find out in June how much high seas living has affected me.

(Funny note - when I checked in for my blood test the screen told me I was booked in with "Mrs Phlebotamist", which is a very odd case of nominative determinism!)

I was unable to attend the Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick this month as I was away that weekend. But the local church, St Dyfrig's and St Sansom's invited KGT volunteers along for a special environment-focused service on 31st May. I heard Fr Richard talk about the history of the church at Grangetown Historical Society last month and it piqued my interest.

The service was high church anglo-Catholic with lots of incense and some of the liturgy was sung. Fiona from KGT did one of the Scripture readings. It was also Trinity Sunday and Fr Richard admitted he was going to dodge the question of explaining how the Trinity works in his sermon. Sensible move there. 

After the service we were invited to proceed outside for an additional prayer for the environment by the statue of St Francis of Assisi. It felt like a post-credits scene in a movie.

Later, Cathy and I took advantage of the good weather to visit The Meadows Wildlife Park. Back in November we went there for Cathy's birthday and met Roly the armadillo. It was nice to go back when it wasn't so cold. 

We didn't see Roly, but I got to pat some friendly pigs and goats.

And I met a fabulous chicken!

Sports-wise it was a football-free month. I did get some free football stickers, despite my personal World Cup boycott. I drew my monthly Blood Bowl game with Bryan. And I played some rounds of mini-golf on the cruise ship. 

I can't promise these will be the last photos from the cruise I post on my blog, but they are the last ones in this blog post!

My April 2026 round-up (part 2)

This month has been so busy I've had to do two round ups. In part 1, I mentioned canvassing, litter-picking, going to a local history evening, football and loads of other stuff. I've also blogged a Book of the Month, an Album of the Month, and about my monthly Blood Bowl fixture with Bryan.

I spent the first and last weekends of April in Shropshire, celebrating my birthday at the beginning of the month by feeding rhinos at West Midlands Safari Park, and then celebrating my youngest niece's birthday with a family party on the final Saturday.

Since my interim round up post I have been in Liverpool for the Diabetes UK Professional Conference (DUKPC). 

The programme I work on had a bigger presence than ever before including involvement in some sessions. This meant I had my second bucket list moment of the month (after the rhinos).

Nine years ago, in 2017, when I was working in the NHS, I went to DUKPC as a punter with my friend Sara. It was being held in Manchester. I remember saying to her that one day we would be presenting together at the conference... and nine years later my prediction came true!

The whole conference went very well from our perspective. We had a great team of young people working with us. It was even sunny the full time we were there.

After the conference I went to Shrewsbury for the weekend. My niece's birthday party included a bouncy castle and a piñata. I took this photo of my Mum just before she delivered the killing blow that smashed the poor colourful donkey.

Everyone else had a go too. Some people were more dangerous flailing with a stick than others!

I went to Shrewsbury Town's final home game of the season in the afternoon. It closed out a nice symmetry as I was at their opening home game back in August. It's been a long old season and they looked in danger of a second successive relegation for much of it. But they were safe by the time this game came around. It finished 2-2 and Shrewsbury's equaliser was voted goal of the season a few days later!

Blue the Lion, the Shrewsbury mascot, got injured during the half time mascot race with Fleetwood's Captain Cod and had to be helped away. It's perhaps an indicator of what a poor season it's been that their mascot lost a foot race with a fish.

I got to see some bonus football watching Zac on the Sunday morning. His team were drubbed so we went to Greggs afterwards to drown our sorrows in sausage rolls.

My final game of April was Gloucester City v Poole Town in the play-off semi-final in the Southern League Premier Division South. I went with Steve. It was a great game but I'll mainly remember it for some terrace aggro that delayed the game when two scrappers fell over an advertising hoarding.

Gloucester won 3-2 after extra time. I think it was the first game I'd seen this season that went to extra time.

It was my 10th Poole Town game. I got a Futbology badge when I checked in.

And then on the last day of April I did my final station trip of the Senedd election campaign, with my friend Anna.  I have done 28 of these weekly sessions since October and I am weirdly going to miss them when the election is done.

May is going to be busy with the election and then some traveling. So next month's round up will likely be another full one.

My March 2026 round up

March kicked off on St David's Day and I went to the celebratory parade in the city centre. The parade finished in Cardiff Castle, where I got a pic of this handsome Draig Goch.

I've been busy on the blog again this month. My book of the Month was A History of Wales, my album of the month was by Garbage, and I even posted a throwback snack of the month too. Meanwhile my monthly Blood Bowl game was a Battle of the Undead (!) and we battled away while munching on Easter Crisps.

It was another month with lots of traveling. I had a work trip to London where I got to see the new workwear: fleece tops (just in time for summer!)

It had been a while since my last trip to London and the Paddington Bear Shop in Paddington Station has a big Lego model in the window now. It's really nicely done.

I went to Shrewsbury and spent (most of) Mother's Day with my mother. We got her a 6-player version of her favorite game, Rummikub.

Me and mum also went out on the Saturday night as it was Mother's Day Eve. It was also Pi Day (3/14) and I had a pie. (But I ate the pie without taking a pic. Social media fail!)

At the end of the month, we were back in Shropshire for a few days. We took a ride on the Bridgnorth cliff railway for notalgia's sake. We also went to a birds of prey centre and a couple of football matches.

It's been a mixed month on the political campaigning front. One of the Plaid Cymru candidates in our area stepped down from the election race. On a more positive note, I completed all the stations in our constituency when we went to Cathays on the last Thursday of March.

We also had canvassing sessions in various bits of Cardiff, including Butetown where we were joined by Plaid Cymru's leader, Rhun ap Iorweth. I got a selfie with him.

Butetown

Plasdwr

Cathays station

While out canvassing I also saw this defiance against the fun police!

Cathy and I had a couple of cinema outings. We went to Cardiff Bay to see the new Disney Pixar film, Hoppers. We enjoyed it.

And on our trip to Shropshire, we went to a vintage OG cinema in Bridgnorth and watched The Magic Faraway Tree. We both liked it, and the cinema. I particularly liked this big M&M in the lobby:

I had a decent month of football, getting to 6 games. That included watching Shrewsbury Town play Cheltenham in the company of my brother and our friend Kate.  On the way in, Kate and I worked out we have been friends for over 30 years. 

Later in the month I hit some Futbology milestones at 3 games in a row, including game number 650 at Cardiff Dracs and stadium number 150 in the very next game when I saw Ludlow Town. 

I was the only Futbology user to check in at Ludlow - but I wasn't there on my tod. I had the real pleasure of Cathy's company at the game.

And then on the 31st March, I made it three games in a row with a Futbology milestone badge, when I collected two at AFC Bridgnorth!

The ground in Bridgnorth hasn't changed in the 30+ years since I used to go there with my Dad. It still has the slope and the tea bar. It was a very nostalgic evening for me, and Bridgnorth won!