Lle Llywela

Took a Mother's Day walk around Cosmeston Lakes near Penarth last week - crisp and clear, it felt properly spring for the first time this year. Plus, pretty!


Poppy and Alfie being cute


Yesterday I had an injured magpie in the garden - I was out pottering around in the sun, the bird was cowering in a corner behind my biggest pot, and I ended up spending most of the afternoon chasing the cats away from it! Mr Huntsman Alfie got bored and wandered off pretty quickly, but Poppy, who has never caught live prey in her life, remained fascinated and kept going back to edge in close and stare at the bird, like she thought if she stared hard enough it might walk into her mouth. I honestly thought I was going to find a sad little corpse out there this morning, but it seems to have recovered and flown off overnight. Either that or something else had it - but there's no evidence of a violent struggle, so I'm going with the happy ending theory!

Layla-May's future is decided: she is going to be a Time Lord! Here she is modelling her best First Doctor expression


Also: more cuteness

...and everyone was ill. That's how it seemed, anyway!

My older sister, Deb, had a lumbar puncture on December 22nd, somehow still thought it would be a good idea to drive all the way from Maidstone to Cardiff on the 23rd, had to spend three days lying flat in a darkened room to recover, and then carried on down to Cornwall to visit her husband's family, so we barely saw her really. And my younger sister, Chelsea, had to go to the doctor late on Christmas Eve - the doctor was actually leaving for the day when we rang, but came back just to see her! Turned out, the cold she'd been battling for a couple of weeks at that point had turned to an ear infection, chest infection and sinusitis, and her 'good' eardrum had already perforated. So she spent most of Christmas Day virtually comatose - and was terribly upset to miss her baby's first Christmas. She's still ill now, over a week later. Lots of other people had colds as well, and then just after Christmas Layla-May also caught the cold, which promptly turned to bronchiolitis, so on New Year's Eve she had to go to the doctor as well!

So much sickness and contagion all around - I've managed to avoid all lurgies so far, keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way!

On the bright side, Layla-May managed to have a lovely first Christmas in spite of it all - she had exciting new toys and lots of cuddles. What more could a three-month-old ask for? She's a very happy, contented baby - even now, while she's ill and coughing up phlegm, she's still trying hard to smile at everyone she sees, bless her. The doctor couldn't get over what a happy little thing she is even though she's ill. And so chatty - heaven help us when she starts to figure out actual words...

This is Little Miss Claus with me on Christmas day, exhausted by the tiring business of opening presents and laughing at everyone:


And a very poorly Layla earlier this week, still laughing her head off at me blowing raspberries at her (best joke in the world)


Also over Christmas, visited the Ice Kingdom at Cardiff's Winter Wonderland - the sculptures were beautiful!

1. Well, the new semester has just barely begun and already Freshers Flu is rife all through the department. Atchoo!

2. This is how my city has chosen to mark the Rugby World Cup:

It just appeared one morning. Hilarious!

3. It's been one of those weeks. I went back to work on Monday after a week off to find that one of my colleagues had died while I was on leave! Not a direct colleague within my department, but the maintenance manager from Estates. Bless him, Ron is the only person in the entire university who has their name highlighted in my telephone directory, I rang him that often, because he was the person I liaised with every time about redecoration projects and repair work and all the rest of it. I knew he was unwell, and had guessed from small clues that it was cancer, but he didn't like to talk about it - always brushed it off and maintained his image as the chirpy little sparrow. I spoke to him just a week before he died, he was still in work, although probably shouldn't have been. Turns out, it wasn't the cancer that killed him, though. He took his own life. That's what's so awful about it. He had cancer of the oesophagus and was due to have surgery just a couple of days after he died, but he'd already had three rounds of surgery and it kept coming back...it seems he just couldn't take any more. He took an overdose. It's really horrible to think of him being so scared and unhappy and not feeling able to talk to anyone about it. :( Rest in peace, Ronnie.

4. On a more pragmatic note, I have all kinds of outstanding jobs with Ron that will probably never now be completed!

5. Also this week, we've had a two-day bus strike, which coincided with train problems and Rugby World Cup road closures, so that thanks to a combination of all these factors I ended up walking to and from work for two days straight, a journey of over an hour each way. Which...I actually quite like the walk, because most of it is through parkland and along the river, and will picspam on that subject another day, but still! Good thing the weather's been so lovely this week, crisp and clear. I'd have had a harder time of it if it had rained!

6. When I moved into this flat two years ago and began to turn the wasteland out back into an actual garden, I made a point of planting a lot of bee and butterfly friendly flowers, to encourage insects. I wasn't, however, expecting to end up with a whole colony of these guys!

This, apparently, is a speckled bush cricket, although it looks more green than speckled to me. I've got loads of them, they've been living mainly in my mint and salvia all summer, but the one I photographed was chilling on a rose leaf, enjoying a spot of late afternoon sun. This is the rose:

Pretty, yes? It's called Harry Wheatcroft and was the very first plant to be planted in my garden.

7. During my week off work the week before last, I didn't really do much beyond hang out at my mum's house helping out with the new baby, because Chelsea was really unwell after her traumatic birth, but I did take a day to go for a walk along the promenade and cliff path in Penarth, which is always lovely. Look at this view across to Flatholm and Steepholm and the north coast of Somerset:

Timing is everything - while admiring the view, a gorgeous square-rigged tall ship came sailing along from the west, past the islands...

And around toward Cardiff Bay:

All she needed was Captain Jack Sparrow!

8. My Uncle Colin is in hospital having a coronary bypass today - and while his wife is in New Zealand visiting their daughter and grandchildren, as well! Get well soon, Uncle Col!

9. Layla-May is three weeks old today and gorgeous:

Like mummy, like daughter:


Chelsea Leigh and Layla-May!

About a week or so ago, we lost one of the old fellas from my church. His name was Reg Howe and he was 90, so, you know, he had a good innings, and yesterday was his funeral. My Nan went to the funeral, because she'd known him when they were both young, and she brought with her stories of how he had courted my grandmother when they were both teens but he was an incorrigible flirt in those days so she ditched him for my grandfather (also called Reg) instead. Nan also brought with her photos, taken at a party thrown by her parents in their house at Goodrich St, Caerphilly, toward the end of the Second World War.

So here's dear old Reg Howe as I never knew him - dressed up to the nines in drag and posing first with an American soldier friend called Paul Gossett and then with a group, my great-grandfather Arthur in the front

This is my great-grampy Arthur being very politically incorrect, taking off Hitler - well, it was the end of a long, hard war

My grandmother Betty on the left with two friends

And a group pose in the back garden

Just a quick little snapshot into another age, a party at my great-grandparents' family home, so very many years ago!

One hundred years ago today, there was an explosion at the Universal Colliery in Senghennydd, in South Wales, just after 8am. There were 950 men working underground at the time; 439 of them were killed, along with one unfortunate rescuer. Most of the bodies were never found. It was the worst mining disaster in British history - I was born more than 60 years later and yet grew up with the knowledge of that day as part of my consciousness - and today the anniversary of the disaster will be remembered.

My great-grandfather Arthur (seen in this icon) and his parents George and Georgina had just moved to South Wales from Norfolk a few weeks before the disaster. Living in the next valley, they heard the explosion. George and Arthur, who'd have been 14 at the time, both ran over the mountain trail to see what was happening and if there was anything they could do. There wasn't.

My mum later inherited a stack of old postcards that Arthur had collected, throughout his life, and among the collection are these postcards bought in 1913 to commemorate the Senghennydd disaster (although he got some of the details wrong when he wrote on the back - it was harder to verify facts in a pre-digital age!).

With the prospect of moving lurking large on the horizon, I've started going through my cupboards, sorting through boxes and bags of stuff that I've not touched in years. And in one of those old folders, I found this:

It's a picture of my great-grandparents, Edith and Alf, that I didn't even know I had - the best picture of them I've ever seen, as well, even if it is only a photocopy. How did I not realise I had it? Now that I've found it again, I remember exactly where it came from. Years and years ago, before Mum and I did all our family tree research, there was a big family party for my great-aunt Ivy's 80th birthday. All her surviving siblings came, and one of them brought copies of a few old family photos and was dishing them out left, right and centre. Great-uncle Phillip, I think. Or it might have been Cyril, but I think it was Phillip. So he gave this to me, probably the only time I ever met him, and I put it away without realising what it was. Well, I've found it again now and am very grateful to him!

He also gave me this:

That's Alf and Edith again a bit earlier, in the late 1930s with their 10 surviving children - there are multiple versions of this photo shoot floating around the family, but I love this one because all the kids look so happy and smiley. Also because g-u Phillip wrote all the names on it for me, and put his oldest sister Ivy down as 'Ive', which is cute!

Finding those photos tonight reminded me of that party, celebrating Ivy's 80th birthday with eight of her nine siblings still alive to see it. We lost Ivy just this spring, of course, at the grand old age of 93, and today the youngest sister, Marion, is the only one left, so it's nice to look back on this picture of them all, young and smiling with their lives ahead of them.

I know, I know, these holiday picspams are going on forever! What can I say? We packed a lot into a week and I like taking photos and showing them off!

One of the places we went during our week in Norfolk was Bressingham, the home of Blooms, which is a nationwide garden centre chain. Heh, I visited the Cardiff branch just last weekend, in fact! Bressingham is the home of the original garden centre, though, established by Alan Bloom, with his sons Robert and Adrian continuing to build up the family business after him. But the thing about Blooms of Bressingham is that it isn't just a garden centre. There's the garden centre, sure...but then there's also the gardens of Bressingham Hall, which are stunning, and there is also a steam museum - and it is also the home of the Official Dad's Army Collection!

( Piccies behind the cut )

I'm away on my holidays tomorrow - going for a week's family get-together on the Norfolk Broads for my dad's 65th birthday. Here's hoping we get to see the sun once or twice!

So today I've been packing. Trying to, at any rate, except that every time I try to put something in the case, this happens

Somehow, I think they may be trying to drop some kind of hint...

Then when we get back from holiday, it's going to be a mad scrum to clean the house, as the estate agents wants to hold an open day on the bank holiday Monday, so it needs to be spick and span!

Also today was my Auntie Ivy's funeral, bless her. It was held at Splott Baptist Church, where Ivy was baptised into fellowship in 1939, became a deacon in 1971 and an elder in 1995, on the street where she lived her entire life, both before and after her marriage. A good service - they're always so much more meaningful when delivered by someone who actually knew and loved the deceased. Afterward it was the usual race to get to the crematorium for stage II, and then after that we gathered at the labour club for the traditional game of 'pin the name on the cousin', always so popular at these gatherings. My granddad was the oldest of 11 children, 10 of whom survived into adulthood. There are a lot of cousins and second cousins and removed cousins and in-laws, and so forth.

Of all those siblings, my great-aunts and great-uncles, Auntie Mai is the only one left now, about to turn 81 and still going strong. "There we go, last but not least," she said to me after the service, in that mongrel half-Welsh half-Irish accent of hers, "So when I go, which won't be for a while yet, but when I go, I don't want anyone wearing black - you all wear the brightest colours you can find." Bless her.

Rest in peace, Auntie Ivy.

My Dad's cousin Kay has been sorting through all her mum's stuff since she died just before Christmas (that was my great-aunt Marj), and she's started scanning a bunch of old photos and posting them on Facebook for the family - much as I did with Lel's photo collection a couple of years ago. Marj's dad Alf lived with her in his old age, so she ended up with all the old family photos from that side of the family, which means the pictures Kay is putting up now are of a branch of the family I'd not seen many photos of before now - including my own grampy as a toddler, the youngest picture I've ever seen of him.

My gramp is the little dwt standing in front of his father - looking at the ages of the children, it must have been sometime in 1917 - my grampy Arthur would have been two years old in Dec 1916 and his brother Kenneth was born in Sept 1916; they are pictured with their parents, Alf and Edith, who'd have been only 23 and 21 years old at the time. I've always thought I mostly took after my nanna Vera's side of the family, but looking at Edith here...well, I can see myself, put it that way!

For comparison, this is the family again about 20 years later, in the late 1930s - by which time it had grown exponentially! Edith was notorious around Splott, where the family lived, for always having one in the pram, one on her hip and another one on the way!


I'd always known that my great-grandfather Alf served in the First World War - he was gassed and was never quite the same after, so the stories go. I'd never seen any pictures of him in uniform before - but Kay has scanned quite a few.


There aren't any younger pictures of Alf, but there is one of his parents, Thomas and Lavinia, taken probably sometime in the 1880s or 90s, when the family was still living in Bristol (they'd moved to Cardiff by 1901)


And there is also a rather sweet photo of my great-grandmother Edith as a child - she was born in 1896 and looks to be maybe 6 years old here, or thereabouts?


I'm now interested to see what else Kay turns up!