redwelly.co.uk

Quite possibly the most worthwhile 37 minutes of YouTube I’ve seen.

Watch: Barak Obama’s speech ‘A More Perfect Union’.

If someone this intelligent and balanced, and - it seems to me - downright good, can become the President of America then something amazing will have happened.

I don’t have a vote there, but I can still hope…

Disclaimer: Yes, it’s a home-made YouTube ‘embedded link’ screenshot; I still haven’t fixed the bug with this blog template which brakes YouTube videos. Terrible inconsistency, bad usability yesyes… all those things.

I’ve been away from Aberystwyth for a week. With about 50 other student type people I went to spend time with a church in Hyson Green, Nottingham. There is a small (about 20 people I think) pentecostal (amen, yeah! testify…) church there who are passionate, passionate people. They are commited to their community and to building the Kingdom of God there. Us white (yes, every single one of us), privilaged (university students) people got to let some of that rub off on us. We did some stuff they wanted doing too.

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Unless there is something I don’t know about, I am not called Mr Jones, and nor do I live in Anytown.

This was included in an envelope which also had my account statement in, so that showed the correct name and address through the envelope window.

Thanks for the reminder, Nationwide - I do mean to put my savings into an ISA this year, but it’ll be with the Co-op bank, as they are already in a Co-op account, and they sent me a similar reminder last month. And they didn’t call me Mr Jones.

Let the leeks be plentiful, the daffodils be bright and may impractical double-bowled lovespoons be given to any who wants them. That’s right, it’s Saint David’s Day (Wales’ national day, in case you hadn’t guessed.).

There will be a Welsh Old Lady fun run on the prom here in Aberystwyth at noon.

And also Happy Birthday, or Penblwydd Hapus, to Tim, Dave and Steffan, all of whom have the delight of being born on the 1st of March.

Google have also go in on the celebration on their UK homepage…

Mark Beaumont has completed an 18000 mile route around the world to return to Paris, where he started 195 days ago.  See the BBC’s Pedaling Around website about his trip.

Congratulations Mark!

Now there’s an idea…

For those not familiar with bike-geek stuff, this is not how a pedal is meant to look.The spiky bit on the top is meant to be bolted to the sole of your shoe. Then you can twist your shoe and it becomes unclipped from the pedal.

But when one of the bolts fails then it becomes impossible to twist the cleat and your shoe is fixed pretty securely to the pedal, however you wiggle it.

Error.

Luckily it was only a few miles away from home.

P.S. Using clip-in (also misleadingly called “clipless”) pedals on a unicycle is ‘a power for the hills’ and generally a pretty cool thing. Why I didn’t try this longer ago I don’t know. But it has risks.

The BBC’s forecast for tomorrow looks interesting:

Come on, snow, you can do it.  Tell you what, I’ll go and take photos of you if you come?

When the news is of ‘Floods! Argh!’ getting wet up to the ankles isn’t much to claim. But then my ankles do start half a metre of the ground riding like this.

Minor Admission: I could only ride a couple of metres like this - it quickly becomes a case of wading at knee-depth with numb feet. But worth going back in to get a decent photo! :)

Luckily we do have plenty of drops to drink though. This photo was from 7.30 this morning, on the A44 at Lovesgrove near Aberystwyth. Usually that sign is standing in a field.

There are stories about the trains being cancelled and roads impassable into Aberystwyth. The Pont Dyfi bridge at Machynlleth often closes during floods, but that’s not the main route in from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth.

Still, it’s pretty, isn’t it!

Walnut halves look a bit like little dried brains, or is that just me?

I have just made a banana cake with them in (chopped) though, so I hope that they don’t think too much.