Whimsical Musings of a Loon

Architecture is one of my main loves. For someone who adores trees and countryside as much as I do, I find the aesthetic of buildings and structures as beautiful and intriguing as pieces of art. Cardiff has never interested me architecturally like other cities and places do/have done. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, Cardiff was ugly and unremarkable even to a child. Wandering through the city centre in 2018, which I do pretty much daily, I am always struck by the changes this small but sturdy Welsh capital where I was born and raised has undertaken. Rumblings began in the 1990s; a shape-shift exercise. The rugby world cup final in Cardiff in 1999 saw one of the main new developments - a brand new 74,500 seated stadium slap bang in the heart of the city. A spikey ship masted-like structure (with a retractable roof which sometimes reminds me of a giant bread bin); it seemed so space-age and giant. A burst of new bars and hotels subsequently opened - and as an sixth form student at the...

"The very sight of a rugby ball was like a feast to a starving man". When I was 10, I came home from school one day with a homework assignment. I had to write a piece on a famous Cardiffian. The second the task entered my ear drums, and the words diffused into my brain, I knew who I was going to write about. There was only one famous Cardiffian of any note or importance whatsoever as far as I was concerned. And that was Bleddyn Williams, ex-Wales, British Lions and Cardiff RFC rugby legend. Wales lost one of its true sporting heroes on the 6th July 2009, when Bleddyn sadly passed away. To say the term 'legend' is brandished around like a cliche, is in itself a cliche now. But in Bleddyn, Wales did really claim a gem, a sporting great whose name was mentioned in high regard across the rugby world, let alone in little old Wales. Bleddyn's rugby world couldn't be more different from the modern sport of Rugby Union. It was, as he used to say himself, a different w...