Strawberries and Cream

Wimbledon is fast approaching. The world famous sporting event that sits beside Ascot as one of the more refined pursuits of athleticism available in britain. Apart from living in cardiff during the six nations, I've never worked or lived near to the centre of a major spectacle such as this, which is leading me to wonder what, if any, effect the weeks of Wimbledon might have on my work life.
In a first for the sport, this year the BBC is offering tennis coverage in 3D, and all without needing a subscription (but of course you still need the 3D HDTV and 3D set-top box, which will set you back a few quid). This jump in viewing technology is probably the biggest thing to happen to the sport since centre court got a roof built over it.

I probably won't get to see any of the 3D coverage, or much of the live bog-standard 2D SD coverage, as I'll be working a mile or so away, but this video has got me a little excited, I just hope that I'm still able to get a seat on the train with all these tourists swanning around with their huge sunglasses and punnets of strawberries.

As June swings into view on the 400 metre running track of 2011, I begin the process of figuring out ho to move my remaining belongings out of Cardiff, changing my dozens of contact addresses and looking or somewhere else to dump all my things so I don't end up being the straw that breaks my parents house.
It's strange going back to cardiff on the rare visits I make. Even after living there for 5 years, and only being away for 3 months, I sometimes feel like I've been gone for years and that it was a place from a dream or a past life. Or maybe it's just because getting there takes so long that it feels like a lifetime!

The start of June also ushers in the end of my three month probationary period at work, and the start of my proper contract as a member of permanent staff! It was a pretty safe bet that the management would deign to keep me aboard the good ship White Light, but it's still nice to have got my appraisal out of the way so I don't have to keep wondering when it might happen.

Though this job and the associated riches and comforts it brings with it is a welcome change from floating on the financial breeze that comes with freelancing, I will admit that being a monday to friday worker wasn't where I was seeing myself when I looked forward in January. I've now got a commute, a lunch hour, a swipe card, and even an oyster card! I'm just thankful I don't have a suit and a desk to complete the set,  that could be disastrous!

Summertime, and the living is easy

Gordon Bennet, it's been a bit warm recently hasn't it?! I'm not  a fan of overly hot...heat, but summer sun is great under a shady tree with a book and a cuppa.

I've been getting plenty of sun after a week in Somerset with my old you group from home, but this time I'm playing the role of the leader (eep!). It was great to be back at Spring Harvest at Butlins in Minehead, back to the old haunts like the beach, the ice cream hut and the Poundshop. But the best thing about the whole week has probably been finding out what it is like to be on the other side of the age gap, seeing what my youth leaders had to go through when I was a whipper-snapper at SH.

This time around it was 22 kids versus 6 leaders all sharing 4 chalets, which made for some interesting balancing acts and times that were sometimes akin to herding cats.

The week has been a great start to the summer months, we just have to get through the traditionally rainy april, then dash through the month of maybugs, and arrive puffing and panting at the official start of the summer.

I just hope my hayfever doesn't get any worse, my eyes have been streaming while writing this, for which i blame the plants in the kitchen. Curse them!

Take a deep breath

It feels like I've been working solidly for weeks on end, but in reality I think I'm just experiencing what normal people call "day-to-day living".  Five days on and two days off? Repeating again and again? That's inhuman!

Having saturdays off is a great relief as it allows me to take stock of my progress in the week, see where I've learnt new things, where I've made stupid mistakes and try and create a sort of chart (in the executive boardroom in my head) of how I'm progressing in my "Trainee" role.

I must say the most refreshing thing about having a real job is that i have actual, real money! Not that there's much of it to go around, but being able to predict my earnings helps when I think of the things I'd like to buy. Like a shiny new pocket watch for instance...

Sometimes I wonder if buying these old-mannish items is like wishing my life away, as if buying a pipe will get me a cottage, reading good books will get me a comfortable life and getting a pocket watch will get me a good wife and kids. Ha!

Oh my word, I've just seen the most amazing bassist on TV, he has a beard to rival dumbledore!

Read it and weep!

That's one thing I don't think I'lll have in my old age: a beard that could sink the Titanic. That would drive me nuts, and I wouldn't have the patience to comb it everyday.

home, home on the range

I've been pretty bad at keeping up to date with my blog since moving back to dear old england, sorry Ruth!
It's been a strange transition, moving from freelancer that flits from job to job, location to location, to warehouse monkey with a set pattern of work hours and days. Luckily working on the evening shift means I don't have to drag myself out of bed before the sun rises and cram myself onto a rolling sardine tin, just to repeat the cramming on the way back! Yes, the hours I keep are quite anti-social, but the off-peak trains keep it cheap and I get a seat every time!

It's been nice being back in dear old england, being able to see old friends, spend time with my family and have my favourite ale easily available! I get to come back to the land of my uncles this weekend though, as part of an ongoing adventure with Ignite in Cardiff Students Union and the great tech team that work behind the scenes to get the show moving and (hopefully) running without a hitch.

A bit of trivia for you: the angel that sits on top of Guildford Cathedral sits on top of mobile phone masts from a couple of mobile networks, the angel itself was added when scenes from The Omen were filmed at the cathedral.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

The time to leave wales has finally come, I should really be doing some packing but I never liked packing, least of all when I end up with a huge pile of "essentials" that I can't carry to the train station, and have to whittle it down to two bags-worth to have any chance of storing it in the luggage rack.

Now isn't the time for reminiscing, I haven't left yet! But regardless I still think back to the first time I crossed the severn bridge as a fresher, with a laptop, some clothes, bass and amp, and a pile of kitchen utensils thrown together courtesy of my older sister and grandparents. I was excited to arrive at university, in the Wales that I spent many childhood summers canoeing and sailing and fishing, a great big world to explore and new freedom to enjoy.

God has been good to me all these years, guiding me through the myriad of life choices, ensuring I ended up in a good place with good people whatever I did, and I trust that this new chapter that has started will continue that trend, and shape me for the better.

If music be the food of love...

Ever since I first listened to a CD compilation of my mum's called Hits of the 80's I have been intrigued and captivated by music in all its various forms.

Some music makes you want to do this

The list of genres for which I have no love is usually only one or two words long, depending upon the current crop of artists that dwell within it. Some past residents have included Rap and Hip-hop. Most of my choices are based upon whether they exhibit any traits of a Normal and Caring human being or if it's all about Guns, Bitches and Bling.
One genre that has always stayed firm in the list of must-listen genres has been Indie Rock. Not the out-of-tune screamy girl punk indie, but the vague whistful thoughtfulness of acoustic guitar and piano-based rock that causes you to lean back in your chair and have a quiet think to appreciate what you have. (or that may just be me)
One band that kick started this was Coldplay with their album Parachutes. Now,  now, hear me out. This album appeared before I really knew what indie or alternative rock was, I was still having a history lesson off ELO about glam rock and the role of the synthesiser, but in later years, about the time Coldplay released their second album, I started to get curious about this well-spoken group that my friends had all discovered.

While the second, more rocky album was the first one I heard, the quiet simplicity of the first album became one of the albums that formed the soundtrack of my last year or so of school. That was the time when I discovered the freedom that choice and age brought, when I had my first taste of independence: when I paid for nought but snacks and the odd train, but could hang out with my friends all day long, when the weather didn't matter and you were in the company of like-minded young people who had their own hopes and dreams for the future and couldn't wait to ram into life head first.
Parachutes has always taken me back to an earlier time, to one which I look back on fondly, but wouldn't want to visit again, for fear of breaking my rose-tinted spectacles. You may think that Coldplay is for manic depressives and art students but it has its place. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, I'm just waiting for R'n'B artists to become a bit less narcissistic and more socially aware so I can have an empty list.

Social Media and being sociable

It's interesting that, in this era of Web 2.0, we tend to get caught up in statistics. Statistics about how many people read our blog, how many friends we have on Facebook, how many followers we have on twitter; and I'm not immune to this.
This past week or so I have been watching numbers of views on one of my videos since it got embedded in the homepage of my local church. Vimeo tracks not only views on your Vimeo channel, but views of the embedded videos too. This has given me an insight not only into the number of people who view my video, but because the video is set to play automatically, it also tracks how many visitors to the church website there are.
With all this information at our fingertips we should aim to put faces or names to the numbers, to try and understand what the effect of these numbers means to us, and to those who have now become a statistic. We've got to try not to let them make us vain in the pursuit of bigger numbers, more frequent views, more "friends" but to help us shape the way we communicate: to better inform people, to spread a feeling of community, to push the world into a more understanding and tolerant state.
We've seen recently in Egypt how the power of the internet has been harnessed an all levels, how it can be used to rally around a cause and to make a difference. It was used as a social and political tool and not an ego-booster, it wasn't about trying to create a huge group on Facebook, or for a single person to take charge and create a following, it was the voice of the people, and the voice of the world, amplified.

Nothing to see here...

I'll probably write a bit about the last few days touring soon, but we've just got back to Cardiff from Ealing and I'm dog-tired. But before I go I'd like to share an amazing thing with you good people.

Choons, Chilling and Chester

He looked at me as if to say "bust a move or I'll bust your gut"

We are just over halfway with our stint of north Wales, combining Cath's tour, Dai's tour and some schools work and by some miracle we managed to end up with a day off! We heard about the various charms and attractions that Chester offered, only an hour and a bit away along the A55, so after a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast we pootled across in the VW to see what we could see; cruising to the latest offerings from Soul Survivor and Beth bullock.
In the end, we couldn't see as much of chester as we had liked, because as soon as we reached the park and ride, a dense mist had set in all across the city. We weren't put off though, so we soldiered on into town, stopping off at a few shops in the main shopping centre before breaking into our individual errands around town. Dai opted for the Wifi in starbucks, Cath wanted to have a nose around Jack Wills and I found myself walking around not even looking at the shops, but looking at all the old buildings that there were.

There is an archway halfway down the main shopping street in Chester, which I found could be accessed from the street and forms part of the city wall that encompasses the city centre. I had an hour to kill so I decided to have a quick stroll around and see what cultural tit-bits I could find along the way.

Part of the city wall

As well as learning bits of the history of chester and seeing how the old city has integrated with the demands of 21st Century travel infrastructure (Roads needing widening and turning part of the wall into a footpath over the railway) I found remains of some buildings built by the Romans, including a half-uncovered Amphitheatre near one of the city gates.
The wall is almost continuous around the city centre, breaking only once by the river for a road to go over. At one point the castle, which now accommodates part of the university, looks over the weir almost menacingly. The castle was a royalist stronghold when they were fighting against the parliamentarians and also served as a base for attacks against the Welsh.

I hope some day I can go back to chester when it's sunny and there's no mist, although the mist did lend itself to a sort of victorian london look, making the Abbey and tudor-style shops look quite majestic and timeless.