where art collides philosoperontap

Great meal out last night with the scouts committee. Celebrating Akela’s retirement after 49 years as a leader, 47 with our group. Amazing. V cold out. Bacon roll for breakfast and finished off the sourdough with a bit of toast and marmalade. Gotta stoke the boiler, so to speak,on a day like today. 

Taking some survival gear with us in the car for the drive to Caadiff. A blanket and an extra cheese roll. Gotta be ready for all eventualities innit. Be prepared. At 9am it is minus two. I am mostly packed and am taking five minutes out to drink my tea in the snug.

THG is doing the first driving stint so I’ll be able to read my book n stuff. That’s one of the benefits of only having her car to drive. She wouldn’t drive my old Defender as it was too bit. I didn’t mind really but it did mean we wouldn’t be sharing the driving and I couldn’t spend half the trip buried in my phone doing social media. Not a bad thing really I suppose, probs.

Gonna wear my trefbash shirt for tonight’s party. That will halve the effective cost per wear. Another three wears and it will be down to the cost of a Tommy Bahama silk shirt! Feels a little out of place wearing a Hawaiian shirt when the temperature is below zero but that’s no different to its first outing in December in London really.

Tomorrow we have a family lunch in Heaney’s restaurant. It’s a posh gaff near Sue’s and I quite fancy a solid Sunday roast though no idea if they do such a thing, being posh an all. It’ll need to be substantial if this weather hangs around. Lettuce is out of season. Exactly one month today when I go under the knife so this is my last weekend “off”. 

Gotta go. Tara.

…

Lovely crisp white countryside out there. Someone has given the roadside trees a light dusting of white. V pictureskew. Minus three. The sun stays low, not rising above the treetops. Long journey ahead.

When we were kids and when we had kids a long journey would have included lots of singing. Took a while for ours to get into that but eventually they did and we got some great harmonies out of the. They all have good voices. Great voices even.

Stopped to clean the windscreen and then again in the garage in Newark to source winter screenwash. I daresay that’s what we already had in but when setting off it was frozen and the windscreen just turned mucky. Sorted now. 

The dirty windscreen has been replaced with fog as we drive through Nottinghamshire towards Leicester. Without the sun it’s just a yucky day on the roads. A foggy day, in Nottingham. There’s a song there.

Were it not for the fact that we are headed to Caadiff for Sue’s birthday the sensible thing today would have been to stay indoors and light the fire. Football on the telly. Tomato soup for lunch with nice crusty bread and butter and a chunk of mature cheddar cheese.

Cup of tea finished & now contemplating the day ahead. THG is out scraping the ice of her car windows. Heavy frost again last night. Will be killing off a lot of bugs in the garden. If I can psych myself up to do it, the issue being the cold, I’ll prune the grapevine this morning now that @Rod Whiting has provided instructions. 

It’s obvious what to do really but only once you know. When you drive past carefully tended vineyards with vines laden down with grapes you know there is clearly a knack to doing it and up until now I haven’t had that knack. It should only take five minutes and I have the secateurs in the shed and a pair of gloves so no reason why I can’t get on with it really.

With a bit of luck next autumn we will be picking bunches of grapes for the table although I’m not sure whether they are eaters or wine grapes. The few that we have managed to pick so far have been quite bitter but I put that down to just not understanding how to look after them.

I quite like this heavy frost lark. Feels clean. You have to be careful when treading on the deck in front of the shed but as long as you take care it’s fine. The shed is toasty and v cosy. A good spot to get on with some stuff today. Got an invitation to send out later. Organising a shindig in Antwerp. Just need to get motivated to do it.

Bit of packing to do this pm. Sue’s birthday bash in Caadiff. Going to wear my tropical trefbash shirt for the occasion. Gorra look good for ya blood and blister innit. The keto diet is on hold for the weekend starting today as it’s the annual scouts leaders Christmas dinner at the Wig and Mitre. Always a good evening. No uniforms allowed, not that I have a uniform. Chairmen don’t wear uniforms. I get to choose the wine he he. Don’t worry. There is nothing expensive on the Wig and Mitre wine list.

A squirrel just hopped by carrying a nut or similar in its mouth. Had my screen specs on so couldn’t make it out exactly. Nature in action. I’m assuming it keeps a stash somewhere. Otherwise all is calm in the shed. There is no wind to speak of. Just a layer of cold air enveloping the structure. No birds even. They have more sense.

We are at the bottom of nature’s cycle.The flicker of light that is spring is still far distant.

…

Pleased with my grapevine pruning efforts. Took more than five mins but it is now v tidy and I had a cup of tea brewing in the kitchen while I was at it so all good. Can’t believe it is Friday already.

Me new book has just arrived: A history of Wales 1660 – 1815 by E.D.Evans. The foreword mentions it as being written for A Level students. The first one in the English language as other books on the subject have been in Welsh apaz. So far it’s a good read.

I am reminded of the time that I bought a second hand French history book. The name escapes me (ohohiho) but the point is THG said she had had that book as an A Level French text book and couldn’t imagine reading it for pleasure :).

Yay it’s Thursday. At last. Made it, phew. What a glorious morning. Joy to be alive. I’ve quickly polished off my gran o la with yo gurt and berries and and nearly ready to take on the day. This includes popping to waitrose to buy some milk and then partake of a very fine cawfee. 11 am at the caff if anyone is around.

I try not to see or hear the news but some of it does get through and I sense that the Facebook empire has now started its decline, as did twitter before it and then prior to that the British and Roman Empires. There will be others I’ve missed, probs. Too many to list here but you get the gist. Nothing lasts for ever.

There is already a serious amount of crap here and I sense it is about to get worse. Not totes sure I’m quite ready to abandon Facebook yet as it connects me to a lot of friends around the world. The future isn’t looking bright for the platform though. Lorra shit happening.

So the question is whether bsky.social is the place to go. It looks more like a replacement for twitter than Facebook and I’m not sure it has any privacy controls. I’ve already started being followed by bots. Attractive women one and all. I have enough attractive women in my life thanks very much.

I already have around fifty real friends there. Mostly from Facebook but one or two new ones I’m pleased to see who don’t do the book. There are only fifty or so people I regularly engage with on Facebook. Probs less. However, sometimes I meet people in real life who are also Facebook friends who mention that they read my posts but don’t leave comments. Most of my friends list are people I’ve met in real life, a few international internetty types usually being the exception plus one or two others.  I guess there is always philosopherontap for people who just want to read this stuff.

Still here for now but alternatively @huworourke@bsky.social is my handle. Mam was an O’Rourke, Huw’s my first name. I think @tref was already taken. I occasionally post stuff there.

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Extra jumper on today. My Ireland FatFace sweater. Together with my extremely warm Himalayan BlackYak sweater it brings me to just the right comfort level. If I was in an office I’d probably still be wearing two jumpers. I suspect it isn’t the temperature inside, which in the shed is set to 21 degrees C, but more psychological due to the icy conditions outside.

At eight fifty five the sun was still very low over the allotments beyond the back fence.

Got a bit of work type stuff to do today. Nothing too onerous that would get in the way of life. THG is off to the gym for her first class at nine thirty. Worrawoman.

I’ve decided that the family tree stuff has for now reached the point of diminishing returns and am easing back on it with a view to doing more work on the history book itself. Will keep you updated with progress obvs but it is more likely to be a 2026 finish than 2025. Whether anyone will want to publish it is a different issue.

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At 9.51am the shadows are still very long – over three quarters the length of the lawn.

…

In waitrose to buy milk. Got a 50 pence off voucher for two pints. Every little thing helps innit. Also bought a bit of bacon and some halloumi. Now sat nursing a large lahtay in da caff surrounded by talk of garden centres and other age related subjects. Two blokes over there with laptops open presumably talking werk.

The caff is almost as crowded as the car park! The car park isn’t particularly crowded. It’s just that they are all in the caff. The trolley park outside the caff was full. I just rolled mine in and left it. 

Couple sat opposite had been to Benidorm over new years eve.  Fireworks display. Apaz. Think I heard it right. Don’t want to.make it too obvious I’m listening in. 

There’s a walk at the end of the month. Terry, who they saw in the store, won’t be there as he’s going in for an op.

…

The temperature in the sunny Waitrose car park had risen to a balmy one degrees btw Not the same in our shaded back garden. The sun ain’t getting up over the trees.

…

Occurred to me btw, what with being about to celebrate my sixty fourth birthday in December this year, we should be thinking about renting a cottage in the Isle of Wight in the summer of 2026. Obvious thing to do really innit. 

Can’t see us scrimping and saving to get there though. Not in my DNA. Also doubt we will have grandchildren to bounce up and down on my knee. Furthermore I won’t be out until quarter to three, unless it’s a long lunch.

…

It is observed btw that the garden is mostly in shade at this time of year. The small bit that was in sunshine this morning is no longer thus as the sun, in its perambulation from east to west spends most of the day behind trees lining our boundary.

Icy conditions out there this morning and not safe to go running so we haven’t. Instead I had a toasted sausage sandwich with half a grapefruit. Eaten separately obvs. That’s the last of the bangers dispatched. Had intended to have simple gran o lah with yo gurt and berries but the freezing conditions swayed me. Stay warm. Fortunately I left the heating on in the shed so should be nice and toasty when I get there in half an hour or so. Heating also on in the house fwiw.

I quite like the cold weather as long as I am personally not cold. Don’t mind a bit of tingle in the cheeks and at the tip of the nose and the freezing breath is for some reason satisfying. Probs some hangover from childhood. That shoebox was not very well insulated.

Considerably later start than yesterday. I get sucked in to family tree research. You spend hours fruitlessly poring over web page after webpage then eureka you hit a little nugget of gold.

Been trying to trace my 5G grandparents from the Llandysul area. Should be doable because the 4G grandpappy was a farmer and Baptist minister of religion and his brother was a rector of the established church. Yesterday I refound another brother who I’d previously found but forgotten where and deleted him from my record as I wasn’t so sure. I also found David Davies the rector’s marriage certificate with an Evan Davies of Talgoed as a witness. Talgoed was the farm where Baptist Daniel lived. I now know the surname of David’s wife Sarah.

Evan is either Dave’s dad or another brother. Daniel’s marriage cert from the same era was witnessed by a Benjamin Davies. Either dad or another brother. There was a Benjamin Davies who served as curate for a number of years. Could have been a relative of Daniel or just a friend. The coincidences are  fairly compelling. Problem is there are lots of missing church records from the pre 1800s era and even where they do exist there isn’t necessarily enough evidence to go on. You need a parent’s name in there.

Uncovering David and Sarah’s marriage cert gives me more problems as their eldest son, the famous Baptist preacher and divine, JP Davies was notionally born three years before his parents got married. Wasn’t apnin in those days especially amongst vicars. It is unlikely that JP’s birthdate is wrong as he was a high profile person with much written about him. The parents’ marriage certificate must also be right.

There will be an answer. I just need to somehow blow away those obscuring mists of time. Doubt a David was a Dave in those days btw 🙂 Reverend Davies more likely.

Anyway I’m boring you. Likely to be a warming bowl of Heinz tomayto soup for lunch. THG got 6 tins for four quid in Lidl yesterday which I’m sure you know is a steal. My Fast800 chicken tagine last night was also a winner (winner chicken dinner) and we have plenty left for another meal. It’s quite satisfying when you follow a recipe to prepare a meal and it turns out well. 

The remainder of the week is looking v cold with a very slight increase in temperature at the weekend. The wind direction is all over the place moving from a SouWesterly this morning to a NorthEasterly this evening. V cold indeed. Not that it is particularly windy right now.

Dressed and up and at it by seven thirtyish this morning. Woot, I hear you say. Is this a new Tref? There is an element of shaking myself out of a relaxed and easygoing attitude that I felt would waste my life away. Life is too short to not be dressed by seven thirty. Well maybe that is a bit extreme but you get the idea.

Been at the family tree research. Last night whilst my life partner was watching a cookery programme I stuck my headphones on and distracted meself by listening to a bit of Nina Simone. Her live stuff on YouTube is v good, if a bit sad.

Anyway whilst listening to NS I looked at checking a few facts on the family of my great, great, great, great, grandfather Daniel and looked up his gravestone. Amazingly I found a few other family graves that I’d taken photos of and promptly forgotten so I was able to add some more info in than I had been looking for. Death dates and names of spouses. Stuff like that.

Well the new information prompted Ancestry to push a few hints my way and I found that Daniel’s grandson, also Daniel, had married his cousin Margaret who lived less than a mile away. I now have a whole new batch of hints that will soak up my time.

When you dig into your past like this it reveals a lot about life in the period you are exploring. For example cousin/wife signed her marriage record with “her mark” suggesting she couldn’t write her name. This was the same for her sister Mary when she married Benjamin Davies from Cwmduad. Their mother Margaret however, who was the daughter of Baptist minister Daniel could write her name.

Mother Margaret had nine children including four girls. You wonder which of them could read. I’m going to see if I can find all their marriage records to see which of them signed their names. Shame really but that was life in the hinterland of nineteenth century rural Wales. We are talking 1820s and 30s.

Just finding this info out is going to take ages but I think it is worth it 🙂 In the meantime I will fit in a little work work at some point. Keep it ticking over, knowworramean.

Outside the shed the birds are bellowing away. It is a nice, if somewhat crisp, sunny morning. A pesky squirrel scampers along the deck foraging for nuts. The football, which was more or less in the middle of the lawn, has moved to about eight feet from the path. This must have been down to wind effect. I doubt anyone has kicked it. Just a small example of how the powerful forces of nature shape our environment 🙂 

…

Took a break from the research to sort out my somewhat large in/filing tray. Removed some bits of paper for actual physical filing (gawd knows when that will get done but it is now in a different pile on the spare desk). Some went to shredding and a few sheets of paper left for actual action. This is mostly tedious stuff I’ve been putting off for months but will need to get done sometime soon.

The shredding is typically the most satisfying bit of it all. On this particular occasion the shredder was playing up and on examination found it to be chock a block full of shredded papier. I knew what to do obvs and emptied all the shreddings (?) into the now quite full compost bin at the side of the shed.

Shredder still didn’t work so set to picking out all the bits of paper that might be blocking up the mechanism, gave the waste tray a good shove into place and hey presto I was in business.

Emptying the shredder does result in collateral damage in that I then have to sweep up bits of paper from the floor to the side of the desk. OK not a biggie I know but the whole shed really needs hoovering. A job for tomorrow maybe. Manãna.

So the decks are almost cleared for action. The desk certainly needs a bit of a tidy bit it isn’t urgent. I do have an old acoustic guitar, a banjo (needs a few bits) and a telescope up for grabs if anyone wants them. They were just taking up space in the corner in front of the hatstand. Lemme know.

Next up was the neon tropical trefbash sign. It was delivered a few days ago but at some stage needs putting up. To this end the sign company sent me a very good ceiling hanging kit (fair play) but one of the holes in the perspex wasn’t quite big enough to take the bolt. I jumped into action and gave it a bit of a filing down using a suitable drill bit. Hey presto again, the bolt fitted.

That was the relatively easy bit. The sign now needs hanging from the shed ceiling but I have not totes decided where. This act will also mean drilling into the pristine plasterwork for the first time. I have held off doing this on any of the shed walls and ceiling since it was built a few years ago but I feel that the time is now right.

The question is whether I hang the sign somewhere that can be seen from the outside or whether it goes in the obvious place in the corner above the spare desk. The other alternative is to my left when sat at my desk but that would mean I’d have to find somewhere else for the yacht which does look good on top of the bookcase there. Decisions decisions.

I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out. The Lagunitas sign is visible to the outside when switched on and is an indication to the whole world that the bar is open. Not that you can see the Lagunitas sign from anywhere other than the back of our house. Wouldn’t want any old scrote coming in.

For Mara’s benefit I need to decide what to have for lunch. Still got some nice ham left so could have another ham salad but tbh I had that yesterday. Dunno. Couple of sausages maybs. I’ll have to see what’s in the fridge. These are the important decisions we all face every day of our lives. The make or break survival decisions. Do or die. Liven up your life or blandly plough ahead with the same old thing day in day out.

I can understand doing that for breakfast. Lots of folk just have porridge for example. Fills em up. Sets them up for the day. I don’t particularly like porridge. Too bland even for me. You have to strike a balance somehow.

In “the old days” people often had no choice. My miner grandfather David Charles Davies for example was the only person in the house given bacon for breakfast. He needed it to sustain the hard physical work that lay ahead of him. They hung the bacon in the pantry after slaughtering it. It would last all winter afaik.

We don’t hang a pig in the pantry. We haven’t got one. No pantry or pig for that matter. We did used to have one together with a coal hole next to the downstairs loo but they all disappeared when we extended the house. It was quite nice having a pantry but it’s gone. The coalmen would be able to fill the coal hole from the outside. The forgotten practices of yesteryear.

Gotta go. Food to be hunted and gathered…

Snowing again. Walked to the shed at around eight thirty. Had to switch to a warmer jumper before setting off plus I’m wearing my mustard colour felt hat/fedora/whatever it’s called. Had switched the heating off before leaving on Friday afternoon which makes sense. Sgonna take a while to warm up again now.

The snow ain’t going to last. Not cold enough. Cold enough though. Two degrees according to the boffins at the Meteorological Office. Boffs. The heating is set to twenty one degrees. Half thinking of nipping back to the warmth of the kitchen for half an hour or so but we shall see.

Whilst we were watching a fairly tense Liverpool v Man U game last night played in atrocious conditions I caught up a bit on THG’s family tree. Others had done the work but we currently are back to 1605 in Scotland. Och aye. The Fletcher side of her family only made it to Liverpool at the end of the eighteenth century. Presumably for work. He was a Fletcher but the move wouldn’t have been to make arrows. Unlikely anyway.

…

The shed has warmed up. Twas fair cawd nay freezin when I got there this morning. Getting back into the swing I have tidied it up a bit and started shredding the pile of waste paper that’s been there for weeks if not months. The pile in the in/filing tray still needs addressing. I’ll leave the shredder in place for a bit as I’m sure I’ll get the motivation to run through that at some time today.

Biggest conundrum right now is where I’ve put my leatherman multitool. I need to open the box with the new neon sign but I’ve put it down “somewhere safe”. Used a broken Stanley multitool I came across when looking for the Leatherman and can confirm the sign is working. Needs properly hanging it its final resting (glowing?)  place now.

As part of the tidying I’ve decided to chuck the old acoustic guitar that’s been hanging around forever. Bought it maybe 15+ years ago from the British Heart Foundation shop in Fareham when we were down visiting an ISP we bought. Embarrassingly I’ve forgotten the name. We acquired at least eight in my time. It’ll come to me.

The banjo is also going. It was a thirtieth birthday present to meself (from THG) but whilst I could play it the chord shapes were different to those on the guitar so I always found it easier to just pick up the geetar instead. 

Finally the telescope needs a decision on its future. Picked up cheap somewhere but we never really used it. 

I also need to decide on a book strategy for the shed. Currently the bookcase is packed with miscellaneous blokey stuff. How to tie knots, wood identification, History of railway signalling. Good stuff like that. I am however thinking I should consolidate all my family history stuff in the shed for ease of access. No rush to decide when things move at the pace of tref.

Excellent afternoon at the rugby. Extremely boozy day out. Lincoln got walloped. Good time was had by all though the home players would probs (defo) have preferred a different outcome. Ended the afternoon singing rugby songs on our table in the corner. Great culture. Got a lift home with Adie and Zara. Thanks Zara.

Delighted to see THG home from da smoke. Doubt I was much company.

Light dusting of snow overnight but it will soon be gone. We are back to the usual miserable wet and not quite cold enough to freeze weather.

It is now nine ey em. Breakfast over and in the snug with a cuppa enjoying the company of THG before she jumps into action to get ready for church. I will not be jumping into action. Tref’s the name, easing into the morning is my game.

The last day of the Christmas holidays. Tomorrow the roads will be busy again. Mummies and daddies dropping little darlings off at school before heading to spin their grindstones. Slowly at first no doubt but it won’t be long before they’ve forgotten they ever had a holiday.

Rain now lashing down. At least sounds like that on the conservatory roof. When we built the conservatory we had the choice of polycarbonate or glass roof. Cost apart, the difference seemed to be that polycarbonate would be slightly cooler at the height of summer (??) versus noisier when it rained. There wasn’t a right answer and we went for slightly cooler in summer. That’s why I can hear the rain despite being three rooms away. When it it really pelting it down I quite like sitting in the conservatory.

It isn’t that bad now. Just miserable. A double decker bus just raced by. It’s all apnin.

Had a funny dream last night. I seemed to be sat on a train/bus/plane/wasn’t obvious when someone I knew on Facebook, no idea who now that I’ve woken up, discussed a project relating to grapes and wine. Can’t even remember what the project was. I do remember looking him up on Facebook at the time and sending a message as a placeholder. Needless to say there is no message there this morning. Strange innit. Armchair psychiatrists speak now or forever hold your peace.

Twelfth night today btw. If you haven’t already done so, get those decs down. Well actually it’s up to you. I’m (almost certainly) not your dad but the notion is out there. You can’t cling on to the Christmas holidays forever. Move on. It’ll soon be Easter. It’ll soon be summer for goodness sake.

…

Interesting to see how things change in life. At Waitrose I bought some milk and a pack of chestnut mushrooms for tomorrow night’s risotto. Also got some coal, kindling and logs. We have plenty of wood for kindling and logs but it is v wet out there and it all needs chopping to size so took the easy way out.

At Waitrose I let a young woman go before me. Her trolley was rammed full of provisions that looked as if they were for a young family. Mine was as previously mentioned. I pushed my trolley, not without difficulty (arthritis) to our Peugeot 208. THG’s Peugeot 208. She unloaded her stash into a SUV type of family car. New looking car and unlikely to have been cheap. That car probably cost a fair chunk of their monthly budget.

At home I unloaded the boot and am about to start setting the fire using a copy of the Weekend FT as a starter, brought home from the Soho hotel we stayed in before Christmas. The hotel stay cost roughly a third of what we paid for THGs car.

Not totes sure what point I am trying make here other than I found the contrast between her shop/car and ours interesting. I’m not sure I’m about cars n possessions, although I have plenty (no car). We don’t need two cars, living in town as we do.

Fire now lit and roaring away in the grate. Who needs the telly when you have an open fire. Mind you the fireplace doesn’t stream Liverpool v Man U at fourth thirty this af. V relaxing though.

Outside the snow continues to turn into slush. The Waitrose car park was v wet underfoot. The result was no queue in the caff for a coff. Folk clearly preferring to stay indoors, or go to church. THG said there was a good crowd in attendance.

Did you know it’s a Saturday. For some time yesterday felt like Saturday but at some point in the afternoon the realisation came that it wasn’t. Today doesn’t particularly feel Saturday like yet but there again I am still in bed listening to the wireless.

The name of the game today is rugby. Lincoln 1st XV v Hinkley 2nds. Whilst the game is I’m sure important, isn’t every rugby match, the main attraction is the lunch beforehand. Crowd of us meeting for beef stew and dumplings with a pint or two of Guinness.

There are two issues with that paragraph. One is whether the game goes ahead. The weather is v cold and it is touch and go as to whether the pitch will be frozen and consequently the match postponed. Happens a lot at this time of year. As a former player having the game called off used to be a bit of a result when it was v cold. Safety considerations are obvs the main reason but for players it is not nice running around with a ball in that weather.

The other issue is the countrywide shortage of Guinness. The rugby club will of course

have alternatives but on such occasions Guinness seems to fit the bill. 

Will find out later this morning after a pitch (and barrel) inspection. Fingers crossed eh? My gut feel is we will be ok, touch wood, rabbits foot and any other good luck charm that may happen to be to hand. 

Other parts of the country seem to have worse weather. Being in the flatlands of the east we tend to get less “weather” but it does get cold, especially when the wind blows across the North Sea from Siberia or down from the arctic circle. Wrap up warm folks or stay inside in front of the fire, or both.

I must now force meself out of bed to stick some bacon on. A hot breakfast is essential on a day like this.

THG is in London and must brave the train network to come home later this afternoon. Trains don’t like weather.

Ciao bebes 

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In other news the continuation of my drop in status amongst the travelling elite continues, if that’s the right way of putting it. With BA I’ve gone from Gold – Silver – Bronze in three years and Hilton has just dropped me from Diamond to Silver in one go. I knew it was coming. 

It doesn’t matter anymore. It may have mattered when I was doing a lot of business travel. Use of the lounge, priority boarding, upgrades, that sort of thing makes it easier to travel. I have very few trips planned for 2025.

When we went on Ajax & Coops’ 60th birthday weekend to Moscow I got us all checked in at the First wing in LHR T5. Coops and I went through the fast track security to the first class lounge and drank champagne. Then when we got to the hotel everyone got an upgrade to the exec floor with lounge access which saved a fortune on booze before going out for the evening. Happy hour (2 hours) free drinks versus ten quid a pint or similar in the hotel bar! Plus I got a load of points for booking all the rooms. Happy days. No going to Russia anymore so I don’t need the travel benefits.

Sausage (sausage) sarnie for breakfast. Up earlyish as I need to drop THG off at the gym. The bangers (sausages) are sizzling away as I write, perched on the end of the butcher’s block. Tis a freezing cold morning out. The car windscreen will need some defrosting before we set off.

Our last visitors leave today and THG sets off for da smoke to see a show with Hannah. Daresay they will also take in some shopping. Who wouldn’t? This is all best left to the experts. Not moi.

Dunno if you’ve ever been shopping on a high street, be it Oxford Street or where you live, but it is nigh on impossible to walk in a straight line. There are so many people! What’s that all about? Where’s the enjoyment? Queuing up for the instore caff and then trying to find a free table! Nah!

I did go to John Lewis in Liverpool with THG last autumn. Only because it was next door to the hotel. She was already instore and I met her there to “do” lunch. 

My lack of understanding of the system really came to the fore. THG had a voucher for a free hot drink (beverage). Our paths diverged. Me for the sandwich section and she for a bowl of soup (soup). Something like that anyway. I paid for my sandwich at a different till. No hot drink voucher! She waved at me but I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me across the crowded cafe. 

I had a bottle of sparkling water anyway. We took advantage of the voucher after finishing the food so all was well. Like I said, I’m an amateur. Well I didn’t say that. I just alluded to it.

Didn’t buy anything in the shop. I don’t need anything and at the time didn’t know I “needed” a serrated grapefruit spoon which has since been acquired. I doubt whether John Lewis sells grapefruit spoons at £1.99 for two anyway. Had they sold such an item, which they likely do being John Lewis, price would not have been an issue as they are never knowingly undersold. 

I guess there are grapefruit spoons and then there are John Lewis grapefruit spoons. I would probably not have had to wait a month for the spoons to arrive from China had I sourced them instore which is their proposition innit.

When I bought the grapefruit spoons it wasn’t so much the price that attracted me. It was more the fact that I only needed one and most offers were for a set of six at a higher price (natch). The two for £1.99 therefore did it for me and I can now eat grapefruit in the comfortable knowledge that should I ever mislay one spoon I have a spare to fall back on. They aren’t particularly posh spoons but yanow what, it’s only a grapefruit spoon.

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Observations from the drive to the gym:

Hard frost on the car windows at nine am. Had to get the scraper out. Yesterday I just let the engine run but today time was more of an issue. Car dashboard said it was minus one degrees out. Metoffice says it would be three degrees by ten o’clock.

Recycling day on Newport. Lots of packaging left over from Christmas put out including a flymo box. Presumably someone got what they asked for in their letter to Santa. I imagined it was a bit like buying your partner an iron or a new hoover. Could have been bought in the the sales I suppose. Won’t be using it for a few months. Not sure the sales are much cop these days.

Sun was very low and quite dazzling on the trip back. It has its work cut out if it is going to raise the temperature by four degrees by ten am.

At the traffic lights I saw someone I’m sure I knew but hadn’t seen for a long time. Aged a bit but I guess we all have. She was pushing a pushchair containing a small child. The things grandparents do! I assume it was a grandchild. I’d like to bet that the kid was wondering what on earth they were doing out on a freezing cold morning such as this. Me too. I’m nice and snug back home in the snug.

Got home and checked the thermometer in the greenhouse. Barely above zero. Needs sunshine to improve its effectiveness as a place for growing plants. The plants in the heated propagators seem to be doing ok though.

In case you are wondering, the words in brackets (parenthese) are the American words for the original English. Communication is my middle name 🙂 (actually it’s Trefor).. Up earlyish as I need to drop THG off at the gym. The bangers (sausages) are sizzling away as I write, perched on the end of the butcher’s block. Tis a freezing cold morning out. The car windscreen will need some defrosting before we set off.

Our last visitors leave today and THG sets off for da smoke to see a show with Hannah. Daresay they will also take in some shopping. Who wouldn’t? This is all best left to the experts. Not moi.

Dunno if you’ve ever been shopping on a high street, be it Oxford Street or where you live, but it is nigh on impossible to walk in a straight line. There are so many people! What’s that all about? Where’s the enjoyment? Queuing up for the instore caff and then trying to find a free table! Nah!

I did go to John Lewis in Liverpool with THG last autumn. Only because it was next door to the hotel. She was already instore and I met her there to “do” lunch. 

My lack of understanding of the system really came to the fore. THG had a voucher for a free hot drink (beverage). Our paths diverged. Me for the sandwich section and she for a bowl of soup (soup). Something like that anyway. I paid for my sandwich at a different till. No hot drink voucher! She waved at me but I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me across the crowded cafe. 

I had a bottle of sparkling water anyway. We took advantage of the voucher after finishing the food so all was well. Like I said, I’m an amateur. Well I didn’t say that. I just alluded to it.

Didn’t buy anything in the shop. I don’t need anything and at the time didn’t know I “needed” a serrated grapefruit spoon which has since been acquired. I doubt whether John Lewis sells grapefruit spoons at £1.99 for two anyway. Had they sold such an item, which they likely do being John Lewis, price would not have been an issue as they are never knowingly undersold. 

I guess there are grapefruit spoons and then there are John Lewis grapefruit spoons. I would probably not have had to wait a month for the spoons to arrive from China had I sourced them instore which is their proposition innit.

When I bought the grapefruit spoons it wasn’t so much the price that attracted me. It was more the fact that I only needed one and most offers were for a set of six at a higher price (natch). The two for £1.99 therefore did it for me and I can now eat grapefruit in the comfortable knowledge that should I ever mislay one spoon I have a spare to fall back on. They aren’t particularly posh spoons but yanow what, it’s only a grapefruit spoon.

…

Observations from the drive to the gym:

Hard frost on the car windows at nine am. Had to get the scraper out. Yesterday I just let the engine run but today time was more of an issue. Car dashboard said it was minus one degrees out. Metoffice says it would be three degrees by ten o’clock.

Recycling day on Newport. Lots of packaging left over from Christmas put out including a flymo box. Presumably someone got what they asked for in their letter to Santa. I imagined it was a bit like buying your partner an iron or a new hoover. Could have been bought in the the sales I suppose. Won’t be using it for a few months. Not sure the sales are much cop these days.

Sun was very low and quite dazzling on the trip back. It has its work cut out if it is going to raise the temperature by four degrees by ten am.

At the traffic lights I saw someone I’m sure I knew but hadn’t seen for a long time. Aged a bit but I guess we all have. She was pushing a pushchair containing a small child. The things grandparents do! I assume it was a grandchild. I’d like to bet that the kid was wondering what on earth they were doing out on a freezing cold morning such as this. Me too. I’m nice and snug back home in the snug.

Got home and checked the thermometer in the greenhouse. Barely above zero. Needs sunshine to improve its effectiveness as a place for growing plants. The plants in the heated propagators seem to be doing ok though.

In case you are wondering, the words in brackets (parenthese) are the American words for the original English. Communication is my middle name 🙂 (actually it’s Trefor).

At 0737 this morning THG declared it was time to get up and flung the curtains wide open. It made little difference to the light level in the room and I  continued to hibernate as most honest folk would deem sensible for this deepest midwintertime. 

Outside the temperature has plummeted. Yellow warnings of snow and ice are evident. We have a supply of fuel and still plenty of food in the larder and will see it through to easier times.

I’m glad I left the heating on in the shed and should be able to make it along the garden path if I wrap up warmly. My plan this morning is to restore the hatstand, removed to the house for additional coat hanging capacity over the festive period, to its rightful home int shed. I will take the opportunity to  clean out “hatstand corner” before putting it back. An overdue exercise. In fact that corner has never been touched.

The restoration of the hatstand will have the knock on effect of tidying the rest of the shed as the collected garments and tote bags that had made it their home are moved back into place from the floor under the spare desk where they were peremptorily dumped before the start of the yuletide holiday. A final act of the restoration to the normal state of affairs, were it not for the fact that tree is staying put until after the weekend. With this I am OK.

Right. Time to pause hibernation and join THG for breakfast. 

…

Fire is lit and blazing away in the front room. Just right for today’s weather conditions. It is a nice sunny day but bitterly cold. I’ve been reading my new book – SAS Daggers Drawn. Boys own stuff. I am a boy. The fire gives off a perfect heat for the size of the room. They knew what they were doing when they built the house in 1939 although at the time the windows were single glazed and metal framed so bloomin cold.

Dawns the year twenty twenty five. A time of hope and optimism. A year ahead that has not yet had the opportunity to disappoint. I predict big things. 

The shed, for one, is going to undergo a revamp. Nothing drastic but some of the posters that have adorned its walls, perhaps since the dawn of shed time are going to be replaced. Some are irreplaceable and are part of the fabric of tref but tref is an evolutionary being and as tref time moves on shift happens. Small touches that keep the shed alive and make the difference.

I’d like to make more of the shed. In my mind it is at once a place for discussion, drinking, sport, creativity, a destination, meeting place, at once a haven from the outside world and a place that influences and shapes the world around. Everything to all men.

My hip is going to undergo a revamp. The right one at least and we will see about the left when the right one is sorted.

We have a wedding in the family. Hannah is marrying George in September. 9 months of planning and looking forward to the big day.

…

Already a dramatic start to the year as a large tree fell onto the Dawkinses cars writing three of them off and blocking the road. Interesting to think that this sort of thing has been a regular occurrence in nature for millions of years without anyone noticing it happening.

…

All is calm in the Davies household. Was going to wait for a couple of visitors to get up before having breakfast but have now been informed that since they didn’t get to bed until 4am I should just crack on.

The decs are gradually coming down and being returned to their boxes ready for next year.

Just ordered A History of Wales, 1660-1815 by ED Evans. It was referred to at the end of the chapter on primary sources in The People of Seion and figured it was in the sweet spot for my continued research into the family tree. One of the primary sources referred to was The Religious Census of 1851 which coincidentally I took delivery of just before Christmas. Happy days.

THG mentioned the ED Evans was v niche but I replied that it wasn’t nearly as niche as The Welsh Methodist Society: The Early Societies in South-west Wales 1737-1750 which as you can imagine was an interesting read.

Being of Baptist extraction I’m not specifically interested in the Methodists. Just with the general dissatisfaction in the way the established church was run and how it led to the formation of dissenting alternatives, which is where I come in.

Had a couple of breakthroughs yesterday in the ole research. I’ve been trying to trace the footsteps of various ancestors using the Census but google provides no data on some of the places they lived. The answer is old OS maps. In the nineteenth century they specifically named farms and mills. After some poring over different maps and correlating what I’ve found with the names of surrounding properties in the census I’ve been able to identify some of the places. Even got modern street view images of the name of the place at the farm gate. Before registering the usefulness of old maps I was virtually “walking” the roads in areas hoping to find clues as to place names.

I found one former mill that is in the census as Glandwr but on the map as Lan Dwr. A streetview zoom showed a stone embedded in the otherwise whitewashed wall with LD1776 on it. Glandwr and LD1776 are without doubt the same place.

Some places still remain hidden, I suspect no longer there, as might be the case with the “woollen factory” building in the map shown. I think places like this will involve actual visits and walking the ground which will have to wait until after the hip op. Still, it’s progress. I’m planning to spend a week touring all these locations sometime in 2025.

Anyway enough of this talk about old things. Today is New Year’s Eve and will involve looking ahead to new things. Hope you have a good one.

I feel a period of monastic austerity approaching. After the rampant hedonism and over consumption of December the body, as is normal for this time of year, is saying no, Tref, enough is enough. It will help that all the nice Quality Street chocs were eaten some time ago and I’m about out of tonic water making the surprise presence of gin left in the bottle quite superfluous.

I have a pile of Michael Mosley Fast 800 recipe books on the desk beside me and will shortly be compiling some menus for consumption over the next week or two. There are some outliers. We are off out on the lash early doors New Years Eve and then there’s the lunch at the rugby club on Saturday but other than that there is a clear run of healthy eating until my sister Sue’s birthday bash on the weekend of the 11th Jan.

In the meantime I have a proposition to make. A prize giveaway. The first person to post a genuine photo of Easter eggs in a supermarket either in my timeline or as a comment in this post will be the winner. You need to be honest to yourself. No digging out photos from last year please. I won’t be checking because I trust you but others might.

The prize is a fantastic pair of tropical trefbash tiki cans left over from the night plus some custom trefbash beermats that the club forgot to put out. These are v limited edition. No more will be printed, ever!

Thassit. I have menus to compile. Ciao bebes

It isn’t New Years Eve yet but the media is pushing out 2024 retrospectives. Maybe they use NYE to look ahead. I did start writing some stuff about the highlights of 2024 but decided not to publish. You will have seen them here as they happened anyway. Time to move on and look forward to an exciting 2025.

The biggest change I always need to get my brain around is the fact that it will be 2025 not 2024. An irreversible change. I guess we could extend 2024 to having an infinite number of days but that would truly mess things up. 

Think of calendars already printed and online. The chaos would be tremendous. We would need to invent new months. The change would need to be planned well ahead of time and would inevitably cause rows as people would have different opinions on the subject. Worse even than Brexshit.

On balance I think my vote goes to keeping the system as it is and just changing the number to 2025. It’s a good enough number anyway. I’ll leave it at that.

Feast of the Holy Innocents today. This is one of the most popular and entertaining Christmas traditions in Spain. December 28 is the day when everyone is allowed to play practical jokes and when it is customary to buy prank items at Christmas markets like the one in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Not here. Anyway Lincoln council pulled the plug on the Christmas market, miserable gits.

The spiel about Spain came from the country’s official tourist website. Came up number one in search results. A bit strange. All the other sites majored on King Herod massacring babies which is v gory but highly relevant. I think I prefer the Spanish attitude to the day.

No feasting here. Don’t think it’s appropriate plus we’ve had enough food to last us a while. We can now go into hibernation in the happy knowledge that we have enough bodily reserves to last until the snows start to melt.

Coincidentally, ish, it’s the pope doing thought for the day on’t wireless. I guess they line up their top attractions over the festive season. Trying to take advantage of the mood of the moment by fielding big hitters. I would. Get the message across while people are still receptive. Suitably boring delivery mind you with a voice over in English. Tuning out. All you need is love ❤️. 

I am downstairs in the snug. THG is in the kitchen having an early breakfast before doing the park run, fair play. Still a bit misty out there but as long as you can see the person in front of you you should make it around the circuit.

After yesterday’s start the process of emptying the house of offspring continues today as another leaves for home. This time Berlin. In my mind it will be cold there with icy winds blowing across from the east. Shutting my eyes I can hear the sound of jackboots ringing out across no mans land and a shout as someone is spotted trying to escape. 

Not like that anymore obvs. That’s just an influence from a childhood growing up during the cold war. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Stuff like that. When we moved to the Isle of Man dad, as a senior civil servant, was offered a place in the nuclear bunker there. Told em to stuff it. 

I remember one evening standing in our front garden hearing the wail of a siren coming from Douglas three miles away. Dad and I looked at each other wondering whether that was the three minute warning (or however many minutes it was supposed to be). Turned out to be the signal for the Douglas lifeboat to go out. 

We don’t want to get back to those days do we? Nostalgia doesn’t apply.

Today I start to throttle back on the feasting, as I said. This does have to be a controlled throttling back. You can’t just go from full on feasting to totes austerity and dieting in one day. It would be like falling off a cliff. There are some planned feasts that will be difficult to avoid. New Year’s Eve for one plus the lunch at the rugby club on 4th Jan. 

I guess I could drive to the rugby club but the temptations will be great and manifold and peer group pressure needs adding into the mix. Also the last time I drove to watch the rugby I got done for speeding on Bunkers Hill. 35mph. Bar stewards. 

Not really a New Years Eve fan but our pals get together mid pm in the White Hart to avoid the rush and have a meal at six. Means we can be home in plenty of time for an early night and avoid the false bonhomie that comes out every year on that evening. Should be in bed by ten as usual. Phone will be on silent so don’t bother ringing. Bah humbug.