I could (not) have been a Boat Race blue…

The Churchill College ladies’ eight in winter 1973 – that’s me in the front row on the right, during my first term at Cambridge University…

Today is the traditional Varsity Boat Race on the Thames in London, between Oxford University and Cambridge University, about which I am always nostalgic, although I have never been there to see it. There is a preview, from the point of view of Cambridge, here…

The first men’s race was in 1829 but nowadays there are four races – men’s and women’s plus the reserve crew races between Isis (Oxford) and Goldie (Cambridge) for the men and Osiris and Blondie for the women.

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Working From Home: A year of living differently

When I’m not working – my desk with office laptop switched off

This weekend is the anniversary of my starting to work from home. I don’t really want to talk about it and there is no need for you to read this, but I still feel I must mark this most unusual of years!

I have been one of the lucky ones, working full time from home for Cardiff Council Highways and earning a wage. With fewer distractions I have probably achieved more than I would have in the office. I am blessed with great colleagues and with bosses who don’t micro-manage me. We keep in touch through Teams – a business equivalent of the much-mentioned “Zoom”.

In a way I feel jealous of those who have been forced to do “nothing” for a year as I have found so very little time for myself and my hobbies. But that is churlish and ungrateful. I am not starving, I am not alone and I have no children to home school.

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Four remembered stories…

Girls reading, a painting by Henri Lebasque (1865-1937) (Source:Wikimedia Commons)

Once upon a training course we were asked to think back to the earliest stories we could remember. Some people recalled true stories, some recalled fairy stories. When we revealed our most persistent memories we realised they seemed to say something about ourselves and what drives us.

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From the non-digital archive: Connemara in the 1990s

The landscape of Connemara in Ireland in the summer of 1996

Summer’s coming and its that time of year for thinking about faraway places. I have been going through my old 35mm negatives and decided to sort out some shots from Ireland in the 1990s. They aren’t too bad, but it’s sad to think what better pictures I could take now with a digital camera!

We went to Ireland for several years in a row, ranging farther and farther to the west, and for me the most wonderful landscape of all was in Connemara, an area of lakes and mountains to the north and west of Galway city.

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From the non-digital archive: Garden Festival 1992

The red dragon of Wales at the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival in 1992

I can’t believe that 2017 sees the 25th anniversary of the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival that brought two million visitors to Blaenau Gwent in South East Wales.

The festival lasted six months, from May until October and transformed a derelict industrial wasteland into a blossoming landscape nearly two miles long.

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Threads of thought: Paisley prints

A typical modern paisley design

One of my minor “hobbies” is paisley spotting. The distinctive design has never really gone away, but it does have its moments and I think one of them is right now.

I say this because as I walked along Cardiff’s main shopping street yesterday I spotted five examples of paisley-patterned clothing – one of them a dress on sale in a boutique window. And there was one more on the bus, another in a random magazine advert last weekend and another in a TV drama I was catching up with last night.

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From the non-digital archive: Irish dancing 1995

Celtic designs on an Irish dancing dress

That great show Riverdance is in Cardiff this week, at St David’s Hall for a couple of days as part of a tour to celebrate 21 years since the first performance. By chance it is now 21 years since I took these pictures of young people dancing in the Irish style in Kinsale, County Cork, in the summer of 1995, before the Riverdance phenomenon began in earnest.

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From the non-digital archive: Yabusame 1991

A Japanese horseback archery contest took place in Cardiff in 1991

Occasionally I look back at the pictures I took in the days before digital cameras. This time the subject was a Japanese Yabusame (horseback archery) event in Cardiff’s Cooper’s Field, part of Bute Park, on Sunday, September 15, 1991. That was a particular boom time for industry links between Wales and Japan and we all loved anything Japanese.

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Threads of thought: Gingham

Black gingham shoes with rosebud trim by Betsey Johnson

I suppose gingham is a fabric we all remember from our childhood and teenage years – mine were in the 1960s and 1970s – and with a revival of fashion from that era it now seems as popular as ever. Or was that LAST year? But this post is about words as much as fashion – did you know the word gingham came from Malaya?

My mother made me some

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Never can say goodbye…

An interpretation of Goodbye by vuzel (Marianna Stelmach) on DeviantArt

I have realised lately that I have a big problem. Many work colleagues have been leaving the company at once and I find it impossible to watch their office leaving presentations and listen to the speeches without crying. And it’s nothing personal, but I NEVER go to after-work leaving “dos”. I’m not particularly sad, it’s just that tears are a reflex I can’t stop.

I am hoping

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