An old ruin and Granny

I finally have a new post on my author website blog. I have been shockingly lax about writing and I'm trying to pull my self together. Or should that be myself?

Yesterday would have been my mother's 100th birthday and my post commemorates that.

In other news, yesterday we took two of the grandchildren to Gnoll (pronounced Noll) Country Park. It's a large area with a lake, woods, old ruins, playgrounds and café. I don't think I've ever seen so many tadpoles all together as we saw on the edges of the lake. It's a bit late for them as well.

The playground for younger children has specially adapted swings and roundabouts for wheelchair users. I've not seen them anywhere else locally. It also has pipes for banging, although they did seem more attractive to the grown-ups than the children.

A bit like these only bigger

Last night Swansea City Football Club managed to play their way into the Play-offs final at Wembley next weekend. If successful they will be promoted to the Premier League with the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. It means a huge increase in income (mostly from television rights I think) but they've struggled a bit this season, so promotion might prove a bit embarrassing.

Sadly the current owners of the club seem more interested in making a profit from their investment than they are in doing the best for the club i.e. investing more money in players and development. Okay, that's the limit of my football knowledge, but I thought I should record this possibly exciting event for our city.

On to something I know more about: grandchildren. The other local ones called in this afternoon. It's always lovely to see them though GrandDaughter1, at eleven, now comes up to my eyebrows. They grow up so/too quickly.

And that's about it. I have bolognese sauce bubbling away on the stove ready for dinner, while Husband simmers away in the bath. 

Oh yes, I nearly forgot: this last week saw Swansea have its first riot! At least it's the only one I recall in my lifetime. It wasn't on the scale of big city rioting but it made the BBC news. I'm not sure of the details, but apparently it was supposed to be a vigil for a recently deceased young man, that somehow was waylaid by troublemakers. But I could have got that wrong.

The good thing was the way the neighbourhood turned out to clean up, and all the offers of help on social media the following day. There are still many more good people than bad in the world.