Cardiff - My City

A brief trip to Cardiff - My City

I thought it was about time I did a blog, not only because I haven't done one for a while and people will think I have disappeared, but because I need to get into the flow of writing again as there are now two books swirling around in my head waiting to be put on paper, where they belong.

The first book (my third) is to be about someone who works in a supermarket - one of the budget German supermarkets which seem to spring up around the UK with alarming regularity of late.  There are about five within ten minutes drive from my house. I had the - er - 'experience' of working in one for a full two years after I left the Call Centre forever and it opened my eyes I can tell you!

The book follows my experiences there - good, bad and very bad including a bout of Campylobacter from an uncooked chicken - yuk - 7 days - two bladders - just - not for here anyway.

I left the supermarket in July last year to work for a local funeral directors. There is a book in there I am convinced although as I am in the office I need to find a way of getting the truly sticky stories out of the funeral directors themselves. The problem is they tend to be very tight lipped. There is a way, I just need to find it. Then there'll be a book four. Obviously I will have to change names etc to protect people but - well watch this space. 

So for now I will blog about Cardiff. I have lived here for ever, save a few winter seasons in ski resorts. It's difficult to see the beauty in the everyday when you're so used to living in the place you call 'home'.

Yesterday they were holding film extra registration sessions in town from 10-4. Ever hopeful of a part in a blockbuster movie, I decided to go.

Over the past few years the city council have been doing their utmost to spend money they don't have on bus lanes we don't need in an attempt to encourage us residents to use the bus. Bus lanes have been sneakily wedged in to roads barely wide enough for two cars to pass and usually to the detriment of suburban trees, which strangely, and again according to the council, have become diseased after standing for decades, obligingly just as the council want to make more room for a bus lane.

My road, one of the main arteries in to Cardiff, once had lovely pink flowering cherry trees, they were taller than the houses and were beautiful, especially in mid-April when they 'snowed' all over the road. They protected the residents from the disturbing sight of their neighbours opposite prancing about naked in their bedrooms. They rustled in summer and blew about in winter. They provided a place for the birds to sing and drank a lot of the Welsh rain which poured down the road on a regular basis.

So well over £4 million was spent cutting down 27 of the 31 trees on one stretch of the road - they each put up a hell of a fight, to be fair. Where previously, the road was wide enough for the trees, parking on one side and two single lanes of traffic, one each way, to flow quite happily, now there are no trees, small parking bays which hold fewer cars than before, two single lanes of traffic and a bus lane. The result of this huge expense means there is no room to drive around a car which is turning right - so, many queues as on one stretch of road about a mile long there are 15 turnings. Lots of accidents as cars turning have to turn across a bus lane they can't see because the traffic is backed up. Huge lorries trundle past just inches from the pavement and the fumes are horrendous. If you need to walk down the road in the rain, you will get soaked. The cars have no choice other than to drive inches from the pavement, causing a huge wave to cover anyone walking on it. I suggest a long raincoat and an umbrella to be held sideways between you and the road.

The residents were not and are not happy.  Anyway, I decided to take the bus yesterday to town. A day ticket was £4. Granted I could travel all day in Cardiff anywhere I wanted to go, but I just wanted to nip to town and home by 1pm as I was working. Gone are the days it cost pence for a bus ride, £4 was my minimum spend for a ten minute ride to town.

Ye gods! It costs £4 to park my car in town for 3 hours. How on earth does that encourage me to take the bus? Not only did I have to sit on the bus with someone who smelled of wet dog, but I probably caught something from his hacking cough he'd decided to share with the whole bus together with his nasal harvest he was delightfully flicking around. I also had to stand in a wet and windy bus shelter to wait for the bus and then sit there with the shopping I inevitably had to do while I was in the town centre, piled on my lap.

I got off the bus and said 'Cheers Drive' as is obligatory to do in Cardiff and headed for the auditions. Right in the middle of the town centre is a huge medieval Castle, originally built in the 11th century by Norman invaders. The castle is huge and is impossible to miss on a day trip to the city. In Christmas they decorate it with fairy lights and the odd Christmas tree. I say odd Christmas tree because the one they had in 2017 was, truly, very odd. It was the laughing stock of the city. A 40 metre tree was promised, but due to some oversight/admin error, when it turned up it was 40 feet high, barely reaching the top of the castle walls. Not only that but the thing looked like a pile of Ferrero Rocher - it was a conical shaped collection of large baubles, which started to peel after a week or so. To add insult to injury, we found out the council had paid £10,000 for a three year lease of this tree. There was uproar especially because to drive past the tree residents had to negotiate the numerous potholes in the roads whose need to be mended far outweighed a need for a laughing stock outside the castle. Thankfully they were able to re-negotiate for three giant fairy lit reindeer to replace it the following year.

Cardiff also has its fair share of characters. Some have disappeared now but there are new ones all the time. Yesterday there was some chap dressed all in green - like an Irish elf character - with a ginger beard and all the rest of it. He was playing some music whil a girl danced by the side of him. I don't know if she was part of the act or even if it was an act or some political statement. Past characters have included the old man with about 15 dogs - all old and ragged looking dogs as was the man himself. It appeared he had adopted a host of the cities abandoned canines who religiously followed him everywhere.  I know he fed them as once I worked in the city centre in a food store and he used to come in and ask for scraps for 'his friends'.He was the friendliest chap you could meet, always polite and he seememd to be known by many people. 'Hello Charlie - how are you' was echoed everywhere he went.

There was also the Rastafarian looking chap who plays the drums on all the bins going down Queen Street, it's quite loud although the amusement factor makes up for the lack of peace. Also Mr plastic toy microphone man who used to sit outside Boots and sing into a child's microphone. Far from being melodic he used to add a certain ambiance to brighten everyone's day.

Apart from these, there are the usual Big Issue sellers, the religious preachers, the pavement artists drawing massive holes in the pavement to make you feel dizzy. There are the students asking you 'just a few questions' which somehow seem to take hours. It takes quite a skilled person to walk from one end of the street to the other without being accosted by someone.

The extras registration took about 20 minutes and I was back outside in the April sunshine and heading back to the bus stop