Llongyfarchiadau i chi Nicole!

Nicole Cooke from South Wales has just won the Gold Medal in the women’s road race in China. According to the broadcasters, she’s the first Welsh athlete representing Great Britain to have won an Olympic medal since 1972. She’s also won the 200th Olympic medal for Great Britain. Quite a pair of accomplishments in and of themselves. But in the weather conditions during the event, it was a Herculean feat to be sure.

Somehow ‘well done’ just doesn’t seem enough but ‘well done Nicole’! Many, many congratulations to you!

Gwefan Nicole
Wikipedia

But for Chris Bliss this doesn’t seem to be a problem. And what’s even more mind boggling is that he not only gets into the music with his juggling, but with his body as well. He even sings to himself at the end! Many thanks for Sionned on ForumWales for finding this.

A week or so ago, it seemed things were heading in the right direction, namely warm and sunny. So like many women I excitedly assessed my wardrobe with an eye toward new clothes. Realizing I had virtually no shorts, skirts, summer dresses or any other appropriate summer gear (having left all that kind of stuff in California in favor of Welsh language books) I happily went off on a shopping spree.

Well, after an exhausting day of shopping all round Swansea, I headed home with enough summer wear to keep me going for the rest of the season. Unfortunately, that amounted to about a half hour.

So, armed with new shorts, skimpy shirts and summer wear galore I have not-so-gleefully turned from sexy summer to gloomy winter in favor of warm and dry.

Meanwhile, since I was stuck inside watching torrents of rain stream down the window and form puddles on the lawn, I figured I might just as well study for my driver’s license test(s). Yep, being a driver from the U.S. means I must take the theory test as well as a hands-on driving test. I haven’t done a driving test for…..erm……well, let’s just say a WHOLE bunch of years.

I’m not looking forward to this.

Anyway, after completing the online application the DVLA informed me that I needed to submit a photo, signed by someone in the UK who’s known me for 2 years. Well, I can tell you this, if he looks at the photo that I sent him to sign, he’ll be convinced that I’m not the person he actually knows. It’s JUST that horrible.

Now, mind you, the fault lies less with my looks than it does with the regulations placed upon me by the DVLA. They specify that one is not to (among other things):

Smile
Wear glasses
Wear anything on your head (there are exceptions)
Have hair hanging on your face

Ok, well, I can understand no hair in face and I can understand no glasses on your nose. I can even, sort of, understand having nothing over your head. But no smiling?!

Come on! What’s wrong with a smile?

I was complaining about this to a friend - she said the mindset behind the submission of austere-looking photos is to enable the police to recognize you when they stop you for speeding. The idea is that you will not be smiling at them when they stop you for speeding and, in fact, you will look quite austere and properly horrified when they tell you what it’s going to cost.

Well, I guess I can live with that. At least they won’t be handing me a ticket and telling me to have a nice day like they do in California.

So come take a look and give us your feedback in the Site Comments section.

My favorite character on Caerdydd is Peter. I adore Peter. He has the looks that attract me and he’s not afraid to sleep with an older woman. Yeah Peter! So why’d they have to do him in!?!

That’s right. Peter is no more. Well, truth be told we don’t specifically KNOW that he’s no more but it seems pretty likely. Here’s why….

There I was minding my own business revising madly for a highly dreaded Welsh lit final exam the following day when screaming and yelling emerged, suddenly, from my tv screen. It was Peter. He’d flipped his lid (as my mother would say) and was running amuk someplace other than Caerdydd.

Don’t you love the sound of that word; Caerdydd? It’s magical somehow - conjures up scenes of castles and knights and Welsh kings with gorgeous black hair and……

*sigh*

ANYway, after slugging his best friend (whom he later declared his love for and kissed) he ran off into the city eventually making his way back to Caerdydd and the apartment. To make a long story short, with everyone out looking for him and having the inability to get in his car and sky off to parts unknown, he went completely over the edge, ran into the flat, ripped of all his clothes and stood sobbing, naked, against the sliding glass door overlooking beautiful Cardiff Bay.

His friends arrive awhile later and find him, still naked, sitting on the balcony doing nothing in particular. I really admire that actor. I don’t think I could sit naked on a balcony next to Cardiff Bay and look like I wasn’t cold.

Time marches on, we go through a series of everybody trying to bring him back to the edge of sanity and it very nearly works until he goes ballistic, cuts his sister’s partner with a knife, runs off down the hall, locks himself in the bathroom and does a hari kari kind of thing before our very eyes.

By this time my revision papers had fallen to the floor and I was screaming at the tv “DON’T DO IT PETER. PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!!” But did he listen?

He’s a man, remember?

Meanwhile out in the hallway all the people who love him were frantically banging on the bathroom door telling him to open it.

Now, really. If you saw a small flood of about 15 pints of blood pouring out from under the bathroom door wouldn’t you maybe consider calling 999 or perhaps kicking the door in rather than demanding he open it?!

So now we’ve left him, sitting there in a pool of his own blood, the camera blurs as we see the bathroom through his eyes and the show ends.

Unfortunately, so did my revision because by now I was devastated and in tears. Absolute toast. And I have no idea why except it was such a bloody (no pun intended) sad thing to do.

So much for a happy ending.

And then there’s this one:

And finally……guess he’s not getting any tonight:

Link: BBC Story
Link: Kew

Anyway, saw this today on Ordovicius’ blog, e-cletig:

This is a piece by Astor Piazzolla, the music I was listening to the other day (this video shows Yo-Yo Ma too!)…

Link: Astor Piazzolla
Link: Astor on Last.fm
Link: Yo-Yo Ma