Some photos from my trip into Cardiff today. We were at the Hamster Show which was held in neaby Radyr (congratulations to our Winter White hamsters who won the Dwarf Hamster categories apart from Best In Show).

This was my first time in the city and I was impressed by the place. Cardiff Bay seemed to be one continuous collection of cafes, bars and restaurants. The city centre itself was ok but I didn't have time for a thorough explore. It rained quite a lot while I was there so I had to be a bit selective with my photos and avoid too much washed out sky.

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The Tesco near the Walsgrave Triangle has a bilingual sign in the 'ready meals' section. The thing is, we are about 60 miles from Wales (as the crow flies) so I don't know who the sign is for. I was unaware that Coventry had a significant Welsh-speaking population.

... but Waitrose thinks they are in England.

On a related note, we have just finished drinking a bottle of Asda Premium Gin. We first tried it in a Gin & Tonic but were disappointed with the flavour. When drunk on its own, it actually tastes really good but as soon as you mix it with something, the flavour completely disappears. Even adding a splash of soda water is enough to destroy the flavour.

We drive a long way to attend some hamster shows. Today we were at Radyr, near Cardiff. It seems wrong to drive so far then spend the whole day cooped up in a church hall. I decided to visit Caerphilly Castle.

After lunch, Emma joined me to visit the open air museum at St. Fagins. A lot of old buildings had been moved to the site. There were boards describing the buildings and giving their history.

Inside the old tannery building.

Most of the buildings were genuinely old but the 'Celtic Huts' were modern reconstructions.

We've had quite a tiring weekend. We were down in South Wales for a friend's wedding. The welsh weather didn't disappoint - it rained most of the time. The wedding was indoors so that didn't matter much. Apart from the bit in the conservatory where the roof leaked so there were buckets placed to catch drips.

It was a long drive down to Wales and back and I'm still feeling a bit tired so this will be a short post.

(Entry backdated to when the photo was taken)

A photo of the newlyweds having their first dance. I don't know about you, but I always think newlywed looks like it should be a welsh word or place name.

I spotted this on the BBC News site. From the page:

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed. Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".

These pinhole photos were taken in the abandoned lead mines around Cwm Rheidol, in 2004.  

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The mobile blood van was outside the office today so I popped down this morning to give them a pint or so. I didn't realise it had been over 2 years since I last gave any. I must have been out of practice which would explain why it took such a long time.

I first started giving blood when I was working in North Wales. When I went to Aberystwyth I decided to continue doing it. It was made easier by the blood donor service turning up on campus every few months. The first time at Aber was a bit confusing because they couldn't get my details from my blood donors card. It turned out to be an English issued card which was not compatible with the Welsh system. Although I'd only ever given blood in Wales, the vans in North Wales were run by the Liverpool service.

This week's episode manages to keep up the 'wierd quotient' of this X-Files/Men in Black hybrid. The story was about a bloke who had an 'alien eye' in his possession. He got run over by a car but his 'ghost' followed Gwen's investigation into his death.

Part of the episode was set at 'Aberystwyth University'. I thought: OK, they've got the name slightly wrong but we should see some shots of the town and maybe the Old College building. Instead what we got was an interior scene which was actually filmed in the National Museum in Cardiff. I don't know whether they failed to get permission to film at the University, or whether it was too expensive, or whether they were just too plain lazy to drive to another town to film. It was a bit disappointing but didn't detract from the episode.

Update: Since I wrote this, Aber has split from the University of Wales and is no longer University of Wales, Aberystwyth and is just Aberystwyth University, as shown in the programme.

When I was publicity officer for one of the university societies in Aberystwyth, everything had to be bilingual and we had to get all emails and publicity materials translated into welsh. I was warned not to use any machine translators on the Internet. This is a good reason why you shouldn't:

Cyclists have been baffled by a new road sign which warns: "Your bladder disease has returned."
The sign - in Welsh - was meant to tell them to dismount at roadworks. But council chiefs made an error using an online translator and confused the words 'cyclists' and 'cystitis'. Amended signs are now being put up as soon as possible in Penarth, near Cardiff.
Welsh speaking cyclist Matt Lloyd, 27, said: "I thought someone was having a laugh. I've never even had a bladder disease."

I read this in the Metro newspaper on the train this morning but the story was also covered on the BBC News website, where they have a picture of the sign as well.