great package holiday

My earlier satirical blog about package holidays has made some people on Facebook think that we didn't enjoy our holiday in Rhodes, Greece. Nothing could be further from the truth. We loved it. Peace and quiet. Swimming pool. Food and drink. Excellent.

There is much to be said for package holidays - just don't go on the 'trips' and get a ground floor room. Enough!

The curse of email

Why do people still send you work emails when you are away on holiday? Why does the work keep on coming in? Well, life goes on, that's why.

I have developed a method of reducing the stress from this flood, which is occasionally to look at incoming emails whilst I am away, particularly if it is for more than a week. It is often impossible because it is dependent on internet access, but it helps to know what timebombs are ticking away in the inbox. I find this far more relaxing than ignorance. Some people wouldn't, but I do. However, I do not expect myself to respond until I am back at work and nor should anyone else.

package holidays with greasy chips and hot bodies

I cannot decide whether or not I like package holidays. You know the sort - the ones with the bored travel company 'rep' who tries to make you feel welcome by singling out your family to be the only one without the 'welcome pack'. "Oh dear, we are one short, but you won't mind" and "Can I see your paperwork just to make sure you should be here? Nothing to worry about".

This 'welcome pack', if you had it, would tell you about all the rip-off trips to see distant and obscure carpet factories, candy floss spinners or sponge divers. In any of these places you will spend about three hours watching people work, thinking how tragic their lives are, and then being brow beaten into buying a silk carpet, unique candy floss or exceptional bath sponge for thousands of whatever-the-currency-is. Your rational mind will have been washed away by endless cups of sweet hot liquid, purporting to be tea, and you will only realise that the beautiful carpet is quite the wrong colour and design for your home decor once it has arrived through the post about 12 weeks later - if indeed it does arrive.

These holidays generally take place under an azure blue sky, in the blazing sun, by the beach, in a hotel with a swimming pool, and unavailable sun beds. Your room will have a balcony which is constructed with a low enough surround for the smallest child to peer over to enjoy the view of the local builders, at 6 in the morning, power digging foundations for the new hotel next door. If the balcony is carefully designed, the child will be able to scale the railings and fall unhindered and powered by gravity into the cement mixer or the swimming pool some six floors down. Bye bye.

Swimming pool is a misnomer. Actually, very little swimming takes place in a hotel pool because it is generally used as a means of cooling down by simply plunging into it with a very sweaty and very hot body. In fact, very sweaty is enough. You don't have to have a very hot body, but it helps. Where was I?

The food, oh dear, the food. There is a tendency in such places to produce poor quality British style food just because it is assumed that the British won't eat anything else, including good quality British style food. This is the 'greasy chips with everything' mentality. I don't know why they think that people from Birmingham, Bradford and Bognor Regis wouldn't like anything else. At least good British food would be a start - a spicy Chicken Tikka or king prawn fried rice for example.

At least on our just completed holiday in Rhodes we could find genuine Greek food in the local tavernas and nearly everyone spoke the lingua franca, the vehicular language, of, guess what? English. I have yet to go anywhere in the world where I cannot use English to communicate reasonably effectively with the local population where the vernacular was unknown to me. Luckily my rusty French comes back when I need it, but I digress.

The Austrian with whom I got chatting on the local bus in Rhodes assured me that there was no point in the British learning any language but English. He proclaimed that there is only one language which is used in international business and commerce and it is...well, we all know, don't we?

I didn't get onto the cultural and personal identity aspects of language as it felt rather pointless under the circumstances, but I did mention I had learned Welsh. He made no spoken comment but looked bewildered. With a broad smile symbolising the affinity and world peace which can only be maintained by effective communication and understanding, I bid him 'aufeder-whatsit' in his local language and alighted from the bus into the blazing sun.

Now don't burn, don't even allow your self a sun tan, because all this leads to melonoma and melonoma is a serious and potentially lethal skin cancer. Yet so many people still go on these package hols to the sun. Are we all suicidal or merely idiotic? Perhaps we just think 'well, I have to die sometime, so I want to have had a tan before I do'. I guess that's fair enough.

So, do I like package holidays? That requires thinking and you shouldn't have to think on holiday, so I've no idea. Now, where's that carpet factory?

goat

Yesterday I ate goat for the first time in my life. I wasn't expecting it to be so good.

rest and relaxation

Just at the moment I am enjoying a little rest and relaxation with my family. Wonderful!

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

This morning we had a 3 month contract review, with DWP, on the volunteering scheme which WCVA is working on in Wales with the Volunteer Centres here. This matches those who have been claiming Job Seekers Allowance for 6 months to volunteering positions, if they are interested in volunteering. Claimants do not have to do this, it is entirely up to them. This was a helpful meeting.

Chicago

Last night we went to the musical Chicago. On the stage were very attractive and scantily clad young(ish) women singing and dancing raunchy numbers with, I am assured by my wife Rosie, equally attractive men - this was prohibition era Chicago, after all. You know what happened to me that must be the ultimate embarrassment? I am sure you can guess, because it so often happens in semi-darkened rooms and most particularly in bed.... I yawned. Yes, I yawned and my eyelids started to close. I am still trying to recover from the embarrassment!

The musical Chicago is actually anything but soporific. Once I had awakened myself from my near slumber, I concentrated on the show and enjoyed it. Afterwards wife and daughter loitered around the stage door for autographs whilst I went for milk at Tesco. Well, someone has to do these mundane chores, don't they?

Translation from Welsh to Gobbledeegook

I have been asked to translate the blog I wrote in Welsh about the Eisteddfod using an online translation service in order to test it. I did and it leaves me bewildered and incredulous. It translates what I wrote as:

he went me girl Jennie , I go I I ' group Eisteddfod crookedly the I Dig today. He was ' I do much he people in he was going he y the field I see everything. I did I speak he things Russell Owen he Mantle ) , the Minister Health I Fade Hart AND Graham Benfield the prime workmen WCVA Nerys Biddulph Hughes he Brestatyn , Bran Targett he ' group Council signs Everything Wales I go someone he ' group embassy America crookedly London I go much he people friendly other also. we were we signs the field between 10 I go 4.30 o'clock. He was everything excellently!

Clearly the final sentence above does not refer to the translator. For my next trick I will translate English to Welsh. Let's try:

I am quite sure that this sentence will make complete and utter sense in Welsh when it is translated online here.

'Dwi eithaf 'n ddiball a hon ddedfryda ewyllysia gwna chwblha a draethu bwyll pryd dydy cyfieithedig online 'ma'.

Come on you Welsh speakers, how accurate is this?

Yr Eisteddfod heddiw

What follows is a brief account of today at the Eisteddfod, in the Welsh language (which I hope is understandable to those who speak it).

Mi aeth fy merch, Jennie, a fi i'r Eisteddfod yn y Bala heddiw. Roedd 'na lawer o bobl yno oedd yn mynd o gwpas y maes i weld popeth. Mi wnes i siarad efo Bethan Russell Owen o Fantell Gwynedd, y Gweinidog Iechyd Edwina Hart AC, Graham Benfield y prif weithwyr WCVA, Nerys Biddulph Hughes o Brestatyn, Fran Targett o'r Cyngor ar Bopeth Cymru a rhywun o'r lysgenhadaeth America yn Llundain a llawer o bobl cyfeillgar eraill hefyd. Mi fuon ni ar y maes rhwng 10 a 4.30 o'r gloch. Roedd popeth yn ardderchog!

Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru

The idea is to go to the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru tomorrow in Bala but the forecast is 'light rain', which means a very muddy 'maes' (field), which is by no means unusual for this national cultural, bardic and musical event. The white, blue and green robes of those in the Order of the Bards (Gorsedd) are a sight to behold. Really, they are. That says nothing of the way we will look in our sou'westers, oilskins and waders or similar.

The Eisteddfod is at the very heart of Welshness, at least amongst those who speak the 'language of Heaven'. That's the Welsh language. Well, it wouldn't be ancient Greek in Bala, would it?

Anyway, we will see if we make it. I am definitely going with work on Monday because WCVA is officially opening its pavilion, known as Spardun.

Cymru am byth!

A medley

I should expect London to be noisy, but this is ridiculous. I am in the Wellington Hotel by a main road junction very close to Waterloo station. I am provided with shampoo, shower gel - so far, so normal - and ear plugs! These would be great if I could hear my morning alarm with them stuffed in my ears. I may have to take the risk as the ambulance and police sirens are piercing and the buses moving off from the traffic lights growl like wild cats in a temper.

I had almost forgotten what a concrete and asphalt maze this bustling city is. There are oases of green here and there, which is a great relief. The description given to London by William Cobbett in the 1820s, as the 'great wen', is perhaps a little harsh, but there is truth in it nevertheless. A 'wen', of course, is a type of cyst or boil.

Maybe all this just means I have become the ultimate country bumpkin, a small minded peasant or village idiot, but I could not work in London again. Let me get home to north Wales to my family, my friends, my hens, my sea and my mountains. The Welsh word 'hiraeth' has no easy English translation but represents a longing for the spiritual home.

If I am truly honest, this spiritual home, for me, is Gloucestershire with its honey coloured limestone, its Morris dancing, its rounded rolling vowels, its scrumpy cider, its great sweeping River Severn and the secret Forest of Dean where I heard the pixies singing all those years ago. Don't ask - much too complicated. Yet this feels so long ago, as if in another life, another being.

Most of the time I love North Wales and I like conversing in Welsh. My own language of English is so dominant the world over, so vital as a language of business and commerce, that it inevitably imposes itself irresistibly within this island and beyond. However, I respect the Welsh culture and want to support and promote it by using the Welsh language, which is spoken by about 20% of the population of Wales. There are moments, though, when I feel put down for being English and that makes me indignant. I have as much right to be proud of my own culture as anyone else and I welcome the opportunity for us all to learn from each each other. A cosmopolitan world is an enriching world. I cannot cope with a parochial raise-the-drawbridge attitude which exemplifies intolerance and a victim mentality, shown by a few in North Wales, which will lead to an ever declining influence in the world and a besieged state. The words of the metaphysical poet John Donne spring to mind:

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

We are all in this life together, so let's make the best of it for each other and for ourselves. I will reflect on all this as I lie in bed listening to the traffic through the night.
Hiraeth

Rosie's 50th - more

Saturday was a wonderful celebration of Rosie's 50th birthday, albeit it didn't actually fall on the right day. We were governed by when Piggin' Marvellous was able to do the lunch for family and the evening hogroast for a range of family, friends and neighbours. Simon, the roaster, was cheerful and efficient and, after roasting the pig, prepared mouth watering pork baps with coleslaw, new potatoes and Waldorf salad along with a roulade for the evening. This was supplemented with birthday cakes, the best made by a friend, and supplemented by 2 from Costco.
The lunch was lighter fare, with sandwiches, fruit kebabs, prawns in lettuce, chicken legs and so on.
The weather stayed fine for people to wander around the garden as well as mingling in the house and and there was some dancing. I gave various people lectures on chicken keeping (no surprise there) and I think some may take the plunge. The hens were very well behaved!
The last guests departed in the early morning and Rosie and I went over the day until about 4.45am to ensure we would remember it. We had a wonderful time so I hope all those who came also did. I think so. I just wish we could have extended the invitation list even further to encompass more people, but there have to be limits.

Rosie's 50th

We have just had a brilliant day celebrating Rosie's 50th birthday, starting with lunch and going on until now - 3.45am. Coastal Catering provided lunch (for family mainly) and the evening hog roast with salads. Put simply - excellent time!

There is something in the water

What makes people say and do eccentric, strange or unacceptable things? Yesterday my wife let out the chickens and then shut the hen house door. If you shut the door they can't get to the nesting box. If they can't get to the nesting box, where do they lay their eggs? Outside, right by the door, just to make the point, that's where. Poor girls! Rosie was suitably contrite and would probably have begged their forgiveness had her husband and daughter not been watching with wry smiles on their faces. These things happen. Maybe there is something in the water.

Then there is work. Most of the time things zip along smoothly with the usual little stresses, strains and challenges balanced in with successes and achievements. Normal. Then there are times when things go horribly awry. Normal too.
There is something in the water.

Deaths in Watford

I am finding it hard to stop thinking about the death of Pam Handley, after her short terminal illness. I think she was about 61 years of age. She was my mentor and Vice Chair at Watford Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) when I was chief executive there and she was such a steadfast and loyal trustee. Much of the third sector in Watford can give thanks to Pam for her wisdom, knowledge and support.

Much the same can be said of Geoff Harris of Watford, who was also a trustee of the CVS and a good friend with a quiet sense of humour. He was elderly and I understand he died after a fall.

Watford will miss these two special people.

Americans link up

I am pleased that my natural father's side of my American family seems to be strengthening its connections. My nephew Zak, who lives in Oregon, in the Pacific north west of the USA, is soon to fly east to see his uncle and cousins, in Maine, in New England. They live about 3300 miles apart so they don't see each other very often. Blood runs thicker than water.

Jobs at home

I have taken today off work and am doing small jobs around the house, like hanging pictures, whilst the glazier is replacing glass in a couple of doors and the floor man is replacing part of the top hall flooring because it became very bouncy, just short of being a trampoline.

The lethal drive to Carmarthen

I drove down to Carmarthen from Rhyl yesterday afternoon. I cannot believe it takes so long: hour after hour of curvacious A and B roads behind tractors; ancient behatted drivers driving at 40mph on the straight and slowing to 25 at every bend after something resembling an emergency near-stop; road works just around blind corners where you wait with bated breath at temporary red traffic lights praying that a speeding car won't race round the corner behind you and ram you up the rear; very young men in baseball caps driving at 80 in the middle of the road and straight towards you whilst making a phone call, lighting a cigarette and talking to the girlfriend who must think she is on a big dipper ride at the fair, at best, or a suicide mission at worst. The odd camper van or towed caravan is light relief after all this.
Mark my words, this journey is far, far more dangerous than driving on the motorway.
I came back to North Wales this afternoon after the Regional Policy Event, which was the point of my visit. I survived, this time.

jaded hens

The hens are looking a little jaded so I am going to administer various potions and powders this morning to see if that perks them up a bit. I have already put cider apple vinegar in their drinking water and moved their run to virgin grass. If only they would poo less, things would generally be more hygienic. Chickens will be chickens, so no chance of that.

Rycote Park post script

So, to do it proper justice, the dinner at Rycote Park was:

Lobster

Rare Roasted Fillet of English Beef, dauphinoise potatoes fresh pea purée, fine green beans and a wild mushroom sauce

Dark Chocolate Truffle Torte with lightly poached summer fruits coulis crème fraiche and an almond tuile

Tea/Coffee