Author: Jeff

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Thursday saw the new year dawn cold and clear, a little warmer than the day before which had been very, very cold! Sam spent new years eve in Bristol (and returned home yesterday – Saturday) Sophie was at home with Becky and I – we watched a film (Wake up Dead man (Knives are out 3) that rather enjoyed, but I don’t think anyone else did. Sophie then returned to Cardiff on Thursday morning (1 Jan), Sam has trudged of reluctantly back to work today and I am back in tomorrow morning, and Becky invigilates tomorrow afternoon. It seems a long time (because it is!) since I was last at school.

Goals, aims and ambitions for 2026

Looking back at my blog from last year, I didn’t make any resolutions, or cite any aims or goals. Reading through it, I was becoming increasingly fed up with work, stating that something had to change. Well, that change came in the form of a change of year group, and the last term (autumn 25) was much better than Spring and Summer ’25, and I hope that this positivity continues.

My big goal for the year is to learn Italian. I have already started, picking up the basics, and am challenging myself to do some Italian study each day – even if it is only a few minutes each day.

Running – I finished last year/ started this year in a better place than this time last year. I am enjoying my running again and finding it easier than for much of last year. Encouragingly, in today’s 7K run, I ran four of those k’s in sub 5 minutes, something I have not done for a long time. So my goal is to run 400Km this year.

Weight – I end the Christmas period with the scales just tipping into the 13 stone mark – this needs to change. By Feb half term I would like this down to 12 stone 6 and the stabilize at or below this value.

Refereeing – I am enjoying that again, too and want to continue with it, finding the right balance between doing non-school games, and having enough time for myself.

That’s probably it for aims and ambitions – nothing grand or lofty!

Yesterday evening, at circa 4.15pm, the moon began to rise from behind the Tor, quite a sight to behold, and worth recording:

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It’s Christmas!

So Christmas has been and gone, and it was a lovely few days for the four of us together.

But before that, on Monday, we all headed over to Wells Weatherspoons to meet upwith Dad & June, Jane, Mark, Ollie & Ben, and Rog & Lisa, Joe and Lois. Unfortunately we have no photos of the day (for reference, we went for 1pm, left circa 6pm) but it was nice to catch up with everyone.

And this week the rain has stopped falling, the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. We had a lovely day on the 25th – plenty of presents and lots and lots of food!

On Boxing Day we wrapped up warm and headed off to West Hay to walk off some of the excesses of the previous day

before heading home to lunch and then some fun and games together – the drawing game was particularly amusing

Some semblance of normality is beginning to return to the household – yesterday the table cloth came off, I washes it, and hung it out with the rest of the washing. In the early afternoon I thought I had been pranked by Becky – it was no longer on the line. Couldn’t see it anywhere, got my ladders out, peered over into next door’s garden to see it sat forlornly on their lawn. It was a very windy day!

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Homecoming!

On Tuesday Sophie came home for the holidays, and on Wednesday the three of us went to Bristol for the Christmas spectacular which was, as ever, a fun night out

Then on Thursday it was back to Bristol for me to collect Sam who was back from staying with Poppy in Carlisle.

The weather, though, has not been good – very wet for much of the time leading to the river Brue overtopping near Pomparles bridge

Although in between the deluges, on Friday and then Saturday morning, I did manage to jet wash the decks – a job that had become increasingly necessary as the wet autumn had led to a big build up of green algae, making them very slippery and unsafe. Not a pleasant job, but a satisfying one, probably something I should do more regularly throughout the year,

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Lucca

Spent most of the last week in Italy. On Monday, we flew to Pisa (at a very civilised 10.50 am – a good time to fly: no need to get up insanely early, but still giving you time to enjoy in your destination) and, after a long, wet late autumn/early winter it was an absolute delight to step out into the Tuscan sunshine. I shan’t repeat everything here – visit the Hap-pea travels blog to read more about it https://hap-pea-travels.co.uk/italy/tuscany-and-no-tinsel-day-1/ – but it was a wonderful five days away, enjoying some better weather (other than one morning when we went to Pistoia – a bit higher up, and found ourselves in cold, damp, low cloud all morning) we had warm sunny days, with chilly mornings and evenings, lovely food, culture and style. Italy has won me over – my faltering learning of the language continues, and whilst away, we booked our flights for October ’26: originally we were going to fly to Malaga and stay in Grenada and Antequera, but after one day in Italy the flights opened, my head had been turned and we’ve booked a week in Bari instead.

Returning on Friday evening, we have enjoyed a rare couple of dry days at home. Yesterday I went out for a 6K run, today I refereed Ashcott U16s. I end the year felling fitter than I have done in a long time. Today, I also gave the lawn a quick mow – there is quite a lot to do in the garden, but everything is just so wet, its not very enticing to go outside even when its not raining. What a good job it was to have four sunny days in Italy!

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All wrapped up!

So Wednesday was Spotify unwrapped day, when you get to find out what you’ve been listening to all year. A new metric this year was your listening age, and I came in at 62, a little over my actual age. (Becky is the baby in the house – having spent a lot of time listening to Benson Boon she has a listening age of 19) I have been listening to quite a bit of late seventies music, and it seems that Diana Ross was both my favourite artist, and sung my most played song:

In part, I suspect this is due to my running playlist – anything on that is going to get a fair few number of plays,

I’m pleased that I listened to fair few different genres – I’m not completely stuck in my ways!

That is one of the dangers of a service like Spotify – you can easily get locked into a loop of similar sounds and songs and unwittingly narrow down your listening habits.

Curiously, Sam’s consumption has fallen a little, although I still think we probably get good collective value from Spotify, despite the price continuing to edge ever upwards.

Riding the coat tails of Spotify unwrapped, YouTube have created a similar service called recap. It seems that, in the main, I watch aviation videos, car repairs, learning languages, and more recently, exploring my pension.

But, it seems, the music I listen to on YouTube is a little different from Spotify:

In other news, term finished this week (hooray!), other than Wednesday – which was a beautiful sunny day, and I enjoyed refereeing a good U16A cup fixture – the weather has been pretty wet.

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Another 10K

A few years ago, running 10K would be nothing to write home about, a regular, weekly occurrence, but over the last couple of years my running has got shorter and slower. But my running mojo is returning – the “slower” bit remains, but I’m finding it easier to clock up the ks, and today I cruised round another 10Km loop. (Only slight irritation is that my map my run stopped working shortly after I had passed the house at 7K, so my times for the last 3 kms are lost to the mists of time. But these days I’m less bothered by the timings.)

After another wet day yesterday, today dawned cold, clear and windless and it was a nice day to pound the pavement. On my return, and after doing two loads of washing, a got the ladders out to put up the Christmas lights. Before I put the lights up, I took the opportunity – with the ladders out – to wash the upstairs front windows and clean the guttering and facia board on the extension, before finally putting up the lights, extending a 30 minute job to a couple of hours. But the suns was shining so it made for a pleasant morning chore, whilst getting my winter daily dose of vitamin D.

Its hard to believe that its December tomorrow, and in five days time we break for the Christmas holidays. At the tail end of this week, Becky went to Cardiff to stay with Sophie for a few days, Sam has been working long hours into the night as its Christmas party season at school and I have been slowly learning a few words of Italian when not at work.

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Mush

This week, as forecast, the cold came and Tuesday and Wednesday nights, in particular saw a frost that has turned many of my unprotected plants to mush, The Bizzie lizzies have gone, along with several geraniums towards the bottom of the garden. But those that I have protected with my fleece blanket remain in cheerful bloom, as if nothing untoward has happened -it would be good if I could see them through to a new flouring season.

But Friday night into Saturday morning the weather changed back into the more normal heavy rainfall and grey skies. After a showery start to today, it has unfolded into a blustery but bright day and, around lunchtime, we were treated to the magnificent rainbow pictured above.

My legs held up yesterday, refereeing a fast and fit U15 side, so today I went for a run – my first in November. Nothing special, but a fairly comfortable 7K and I did toy with the idea of carrying on to make it 10K, but that thought didn’t win out!

My battle with fungus gnats continue – I have them quashed, but not totally defeated and today I watered them with a BTI solution to further my cause.

Hard to believe that we only have two weeks of term left and inspired by our trip to Lucca two weeks tomorrow, I have begun to learn some Italian – molto buono!

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Birthday Girl Part 2

After Sophie’s birthday at the start of last week, this week ended (on Friday) with Becky’s birthday. The weather, though, was terrible, with biblical rainfall (which led to bad flooding in Monmouthshire.) On Saturday she went to Bristol to meet Sophie and see Mamma Mia, before rendezvousing with Sam and all of them coming home on Saturday evening.

The weather has been unseasonable pretty much all year, and that has continued with a very warm week, certainly it hasn’t felt like mid-November. Plenty of my plants are in still in full bloom, although next week the weather is set to turn, with the cold arriving and the possibility of overnight frost – and snow if you believe the hype. So today I took some time to move my geraniums from the front to behind the gate in the hope that I can over-winter them.

On Wednesday evening, Sam was sat outside and had company:

and the ‘hog returned again on Friday night:

I didn’t run today as I have a “tight calf” (left leg). I first noticed it whilst refereeing last weekend, and it was quite sore on Wednesday evening (having ref-ed that afternoon) Yesterday it wasn’t too bad until about 20 mins into the second half when my right leg slipped and I felt a stabbing pain in the back of my left calf. I probably could have run today but wisely chose not to (and went for a haircut instead!)

My war on the fungus gnats has definitely swung in my favour – too early to claim total victory, but certainly far fewer of the little buggers.

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Birthday girl!

On Monday it was Sophie’s birthday – 26! I do find that hard to believe: that I am a father to a 26 and 23 year old! Sophie and Becky went to London to see Benson Boone, and by the sounds of it, it was an excellent show! Brian May was a guest appearance at the end, accompanying the boy Benson in a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody.

For me, a far more mundane week, with a return to school, and dark evenings to walk home in. It does, however, remain remarkably warm – still no need to break out the winter clothes and coats. In the garden, my geraniums remain in full bloom, ably supported by the Bizzie Lizzie’s that keep on doing their thing, and offset by the lush green growth of some nasturtiums (which are also sported the odd orange flamed flower). There is a general dampness to the weather (and we’ve just had a quick downpour, soaking me as I rushed to retrieve the washing) but its not been too wet this week, although that is due to change in the coming days.

Progress is being made in the fungus gnat problem, the sticky traps are showing a much reduced incidence of the annoying insect, although I did give up on my avocado plant today, and took it to the compost bin: it had suffered through my reduced watering regime, with leaves curling and blackening, plus it still seemed to have a significant infestation, as manifested by both the the number of gnats on the yellow sticky trap, plus you could still see the little blighters crawling around the surface. For recording purposes, I took some photos of some of the yellow traps in my room before I replaced them today, after a week. (The one’s in Sam’s room I changed on Wednesday)

Today, I refereed on the Bridgwater District League – was aske by Keith to do so on Wednesday as they were short of refs, so I agreed. First ten minutes I was doubting my decision, but once I’d established myself on the game, and everyone recognised my levels and tolerances, I did come to quite enjoy myself. Of note was when one player commended me on a good advantage played, another when, with only about 10 mins to go a player from the losing side (8-0 down at this stage, ended 10-0) asked if I was a new ref. I explained I used to do this league, but hadn’t done for a while – he was very complimentary, him and his mate agreeing that I hadn’t got anything wrong. I’m not going back to doing this every week, but I am enjoying my refereeing at the moment, at whatever level.

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ABC!

On Friday we headed up to see ABC at Cardiff Arena. I’m not really sure if Becky enjoyed it, but I did.

We travelled up to Cardiff that day, dodging (well, not really) the showers, crossing the bridge, and meeting up with Sophie, who very kindly was hosting us for the evening.

We had a nice meal at Honest Burger, before she left us to head to the show, and was waiting for us in her nice warm flat afterwards – was good to be “home” before 11pm having been out to a concert!

On Saturday, after breakfast of Lidl’s pastries (delicious!) all three of us headed back over the bridge to Bristol, Becky & Sophie going to the theatre to see the Book of Mormon (coming out after the show, they both said how good it was) and I was left to do some shopping on a Saturday afternoon in Bristol. The first couple of hours were fine – purchasing from Primark, and the perusing a few other stores, but then my enthusiasm began to wane and I wandered aimlessly before rewarding myself with coffee and cake, and then just sitting on a cold stone bench in Cabot’s Circus waiting for the show to end. It wasn’t tooo bad, but I don’t think I shall be rushing back to a shopping mall any time soon!

I didn’t blog last week as we have been away in Lisbon, from Wednesday through to Monday. You can catch up with our adventures on our travel blog: https://hap-pea-travels.co.uk/portugal/loving-lisbon-day-1/

Before we went to Lisbon I dug up the front bed, so that on our return from Lisbon I was able to plant up all my spring bulbs, now we just need to batten down the hatches, endure the dark, cold winter to come, and await their colourful arrival next year.

Inside, I’ve been waging war against a legion of fungus gnats that have been plaguing the house – bought in, I think, when I re-potted all my Monstera plants. Although harmless, they are a bloomin’ nuisance, buzzing around your head. I’ve employed a three pronged plan to eradicate them: I have bought a load of yellow sticky traps -it is quite amazing (not sure that is the right word) to see how many of the little flies get stuck to these, I’ve applied a physical barrier of gravel on the tops of each worst affected plant, in an attempt to stop the adults reaching the soil and laying their eggs, and, most recently, I have tried biological control by watering Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis onto the plants in an attempt to kill the lava in the soil. I think I’m winning with the plants in my room, the verdict is still out on the infestation in Sam’s room.

On our trip to Cardiff, we had hoped to dovetail in a visit to the house she is buying, but we couldn’t be accommodated on that day. However, the day before, she had had her info back from the solicitor, and it stated that the garden was at significant risk of flooding, so after much heart ache and discussion, she is pulling out of the purchase. That does leave us with a big box of loo paper that she had purchased and delivered to our house – I do like the picture above of Sam taking delivering!