Local History

Is just fascinating to me, it turns out the house next to where Alison lives now used to be a pub, the 3 Swallows if we read the old map correctly.

Where we are moving to is next door to the old synagogue, which looks just like a normal house to me. Turns out the house two doors up used to be another pub (The Heathcote) and rumour has it there is a secret room in the attic from the Chartists days which still has writings on the wall.

Next to and behind that is the old abattoir! which is so co-incidental as my old house in Leeds was also next to an abattoir, albeit a working one rather than one where the stockyard has been built on and the buildings converted into housing.

There is a map of Brynmawr which details all (or maybe only most of) the old pubs, I want to see if the landlord would let me borrow it and scan it, as so many houses that look, to be fair, to be to tiny to be pubs, turn out to be taverns of some sort.

I am intrigued.

And some of the stories that came out tonight I am not even sure I should post!

Got my

New little boy lying here beside me, wide awake, quite happy looking round at the world.

I know he needs a nappy change, that's job no. 2 after this, but he doesn't seem to be discomforted.

He's being breastfed but mum needs sleep so I have an emergency bottle of milk ready for action.

I just have to say

god he's cute :D

New Baby Blues

No, not really, more like new baby technology overload!

I remember I washed babies bottles in the hottest water we could stand, in the early days that meant from the kettle bloody carefully. Now we have a gadget the size of Birmingham on our worktop which does the job for us, takes about 3 weeks!

Well it feel like it when you have a screaming baby wanting milk and you weren't prepared!

Then there's the baby milk warmer, saves time and effort to bring a bottle up to the proper temperature, see above for average timings!

The first time I used it it overcooked everything, maybe I should have read the instructions but for some reason baby felt he shouldn't wait.

I used to leave a bottle in warm water for 5 minutes, I knew how warm it would be from how warm the water was when I started, easier? yes I think so.

What else? what other gadgets can they sell us? you know what I really want? I want a baby timer I can set myself, one that makes sure he's awake during the day and asleep at night! surely modern science can manage that?

Maybe I should resort to the remedy of our grandparents? a drop of whiskey in the final nights feed? (joking, I think)

Still, love him, he's sat next to me in his basket, chuntering away quite happy to himself and looking cuter than I imagined possible.

Love? I knows it!

*Edit (5 mins later)

And the bottles! what an amazing combination of biological reproduction and fluid mechanics! I know I sound like an old fogey but it was only 6 years ago I was bottle feeding my little girl, back then they were easy, bottle, teat and cap, no bloomin polarity reverser and Heisenberg compensators (OK maybe a little exaggeration! poetic license I call it) this bottle has a whole extra bit to stop pressure build up and air coming through on the teat! clever but quite simple, just glad I didn't have to think of a "better bottle"

Matthew George

7lbs 3 oz or 3.25 kilos was born at 11:59pm on the 1st Noveember 2008

My 2nd baby boy, my third child and between me and Alison, our 5th baby

apparently (poor child) he looks like me

Welsh road sign mix up

As reported on the BBC yesterday, and the Gruniad today, council workers need a Welsh translation of an English sign, so emailed the English version to their interpreter for translation. What they got back was an email in Welsh, which they promptly used for the Welsh part of the sign.



The problem being, what they got back was "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."

This displays such an odd attitude from all concerned, why was it blindly assumed this email ONLY in Welsh said what it was supposed to? certainly when we received work translated into another language we got the relevant English with the other language alongside (or below) for comparison, along with an English note from the interpreter, usually a thank you or general "compliments slip" type acknowledgment.

So do English speaking council staff expect such incivility from Welsh translators as routine? And also why was the "out of office" notice not in both Welsh and English?

Sounds like bloody mindedness on both sides to me.

Welsh sign mix up, full story.