Panic, Custard and Rygbi

Now my retirement has settled down into a regular pattern, I come to a Friday afternoon and wonder, 'now what shall I blog about this week?'  Yesterday I was thinking that so little had happened of note that I would have to resort - as I did when I was driving - to the diary.  But now, of course, there is little recorded there either.  By this morning, however, all had become clear; I had two items, one of shame the other of triumph upon which I could expand ... so here goes.

For a day and a half a week I volunteer at the distribution centre that serves a small chain of high street charity shops providing income for our local hospice.  On Tuesdays I sit at a computer and on Friday mornings I'm out and about on one of their vans visiting some of the shops.  When I got home yesterday, I was cold and tired.  The ideal reviver, I decided, spotting a couple of spare donuts in the cupboard, was to cover these with custard to provide a suitable pudding to follow my lunch.

The trouble was that my feet were cold, too.  Instead of taking the wise course and sitting at a table to consume my feast, I lounged in my office chair, with the feet on the heater beside the desk.  It's an ideal posture for playing a game on my phone late at night, but not for eating custard-covered donuts!  It only takes one dribble, doesn't it?  Now, I've got one particular jumper that I keep for work (it's an old courier jumper and it's nice and warm) and I didn't fancy turning up in the office on Tuesday with a yellow stain on the front ... even though my day is mostly spent facing the wall.

So now, as I write, I'm surrounded by laundry, brought forward a few days instead of my usual habit of letting it dry overnight mid-week.  And it was at this desk that my other 'topic' occurred last evening.  My vicar and I have a standing joke regarding the Welsh language.  Although she grew up in Wales, she's not a Welsh-speaker and, although I have a Welsh name, try as I might I can't find any Welsh ancestors and certainly didn't speak the language ... until I retired and decided I should learn it.

Last night saw the first match in this year's Six Nations tournament, in which Wales visited France.  In the exciting build-up to the game an appropriate post appeared on Facebook from my clerical friend, to which I felt I had to respond ... in Welsh, of course!   I've found that learning the language from the textbook has become rather boring of late, and it's degenerated to the same level as learning a computer program.  If I have something to do, it's a challenge, and I then find out the way the program can be applied to do it.  Last night, I knew what I wanted to say, and then had to find the words to use.  A final check with the online translator and a last-minute correction - the curse of mutation puts many off Welsh! - and it was posted.

I then turned on the radio and heard the commentary on the exciting second half, in which Wales < spoiler alert! >



won 24-19!  Cymru am byth!