En Garde

It's been a while since I last donned my fencing gear, and crossed swords (foil or epee) with anyone.

The 10th anniversary of the annual Triangular competition between 'Town' and 'Gown' and 'Old Boys' didn't see me come out of retirement either, but it was great to see so many old friends.





The competitors had a great day of fencing, followed by a gala final in the Marine Hotel - with the 'Old Boys' carrying the day, and taking the 'Taylor Trophy' which commemorates the legend that was our fencing coach Munro Taylor.  It was particularly pleasing to be able to cheer on the lads from my own 'era' to victory in the Men's Foil and Epee.

With the swords packed away, it was time for dinner, dancing, drinking (naturally!) and a good deal of reminiscing - might have to break out my fencing kit in 2014 . . .

Explore Your Archive

Today saw the launch of the 'Explore Your Archive' campaign in Wales - a UK and Ireland effort to raise awareness of our archival heritage and what is on offer in the archive services that preserve and provide access to it.






So this is me - as an archivist - doing my bit (as it were) . . .

Go on, have a look (check out the videos on the Archives Wales YouTube channel), you might be surprised at what you are missing!

Christmas is Coming . . .

Work trip to London, but with a bit of spare time to wander round Covent Garden, where the forthcoming Christmas season was already well in evidence . . .

There was a busker just out of shot of this picture trying to attract an audience, and moaning loudly that people were more interested in a giant tree in a tub than they were in him!

Guttered . . .

The leaking roof is becoming something of a theme here . . .


This time it's the porch roof, where the water run off from the drain pipe had eroded away at the concrete tiles to the point where water was getting in where the roof meets the window pane.


We'd known for a while that we needed to look at the lounge roof (which also has concrete tiles) and where we'd been told the underlying roofing felt was rotting away.  So it looks like 2014 will see some major roofing works!



In the meantime, we've solved the immediate problem by fixing an extra piece of guttering between the drainpipe and the porch gutter.