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Love comes in all shapes, sizes and colours, which is why Carluccio’s is spreading the amore further this Valentine’s Day. Celebrate the day of love with a sweetheart, family or a best friend by poring over a chocolate-lover’s dream of smooth gianduja, moreish biscuit kisses and the classically-elegant chocolate rose, encased in gift set graphics inspired by iconic Italian brand Fiorucci. Carluccio’s Valentine’s collection has received an injection of Eighties nostalgia with neon lettering, graffiti prints and sharing boxes decked…

February is the month of love with Valentine’s Day upon us and shops laden with hearts, flowers and shelves of cards and gifts sporting ‘lovey dovey’ messages. Whether you love it, hate it, tolerate it or ignore it, I imagine you are definitely aware of it. But, whatever your marital status or attitude towards Valentine’s Day, I propose an idea this February – to show a little love to someone very special in your life – yourself. If there is…

Oh, hello! It’s been a bit mad here this summer. As a full-time dad my days have been spent keeping The Girl happy, busy, and challenged. It’s meant that my ‘writing-space’ has  changed – from having whole days to give to it, this piece has been written episodically, when something interesting happened. Here are some of our summer’s snippets. 21 July. When you are shopping with your daughter and you say a happy “Hello!” to a man and woman you’ve…

According to Jane Austen it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife1. Equally memorable are the by now surely-apocryphal schoolboy excuses: ‘a big boy did it and ran away’ and ‘the dog ate my homework’. When families of kids with disabilities gather on social media, an equally common trope is ‘I blame the parents’. It vies with ‘I blame social services’ and ‘I blame the…

I was born in 1958 and my infant and junior school years were the 1960s. We had lived in Pentregwenlais, a hamlet up the road from Llandybie, near Rhydaman (which translates as Ammanford). As you can maybe tell, this was the heart of Welsh-speaking Carmarthenshire – Y Fro Gymraeg. Mam’s dad had been a Baptist Minister in Gorslas and mam had previously, and briefly, dated Cefneithin’s late, great Carwyn James before working out that his interests lay in other directions….

It is Saturday 30th April 2016. Around midday, I was in the checkout aisle of Sainsbury’s Colchester Avenue superstore. I have been a regular there for twenty-three years and know many of the staff well-enough to pass the time of day with. Before today, I had given little thought to the fact that shop staff must also necessarily recognise customers and their (our) little habits. Then one of the members of staff made me cry. I know what y’all are…

It was earlier this year and the Met. Office was debating what season it was. We’d had torrential rain more or less solidly from November through February. The leaves had fallen from their branches later than usual so there was a case for this being an extended Autumn. Or was it an early Spring? In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote“(1). That may have been…

I was 10 when we moved from Cardiff to Pembrokeshire. To lessen the trauma of the move our parents got my sister and me our first pets. Carlo, pronounced the Welsh way with a rolled ‘r’, was a smooth-haired, black and tan, Jack Russell terrier. Though he was named in honour of the Prince of Wales, as portrayed in Dafydd Iwan’s eponymous song1, it’s safe to say mam was no Royalist. A stupider dog would be hard to imagine; Carlo…

In an informative and clear article, one that I would commend to every reader of the Cardiff Times, the activist and mother of two kids with Down Syndrome, Renate Lindeman, writes “…while governments (rightly) ban gender selection, selective abortion continues to be encouraged for children with Down Syndrome. In the United States and abroad, screenings are a routine part of health-care programs, and the result is the near-elimination of these children“(1). I should declare an interest. The Boss and I…

As this new year bids us welcome, my thoughts have turned to journeys old and new. Memories of my late parents are inseparable from the trips we shared. If dad had a single motto depicting his approach to family life it would have been “if I’m up, everyone’s up“. This rule was applied consistently throughout my childhood. It was quite exciting, endearing even, when we were kids and about to embark on a journey to west Wales; less so as…