What did I do at the (long) weekend?
This is a likely to be a long posting - so long I shall probably split it into two. 'What did I do at the weekend?', and 'What did I discover at the weekend?'.
So - I went to Wales.
Well, I went to Wales on Saturday, and got back last night. Before that I went to a rugby match on Friday night.
I'm a fan of Friday night matches. The chief reason is that they leave me the rest of the weekend to gad around, instead of taking out Saturday afternoon and evening. A secondary reason is that I drink less at them. A 7.45 game doesn't finish until nearly 9.30, and so the serious drinking time is fairly limited. The third reason is that despite the poor lighting, which does cut down what I can see, there's an atmosphere to that lighting, cutting out the distractions off the pitch.
Friday night was Coventry against Birmingham & Solihull. Obviously a local derby, always a bit of a grudge match, and made more interesting on that score in the last two seasons as our rugby director previously worked for them. Both teams have had financial problems this season, and both have been docked points, meaning that as well as meeting twice during the main season we are guaranteed to meet them twice more in the end of season play-offs. This particular match has no meaning beyond the morale benefit of going in those play-offs with the win under our belts.
Coventry won, fairly comfortably in the end. There was a period in the second half where B&S nearly got beck into the match. The main features of the match were two mass brawls, one involving both benches, and spilling into the crowd. Ground security had to be called to stand between the teams - a task they did not look happy doing. The officials were guarded off the pitch at the end - although there had been no ill will shown towards them by the crowd at all.
Unfortunately the trigger that had set off the brawling was partly poor refereeing. Coventry were, for a while, completely dominant in the scrum, on one occasion pushing B&S back a good 15 yards. B&S responded by dropping the scum deliberately - a very dangerous way of cheating, which has resulted over the years in broken necks. The referee seemed unwilling to punish anyone for this, and when after one scrum where he watched from the side where it was happening, and it didn't happen, he went back to the other side and it promptly happened twice more, the frustration broke out into the first brawl.
It wasn't helped when the B&S hooker - who had just been substituted off - came off the bench, went onto the pitch, and a further fight started. Eventually the referee gave a penalty against him for going onto the pitch - but didn't give him the red card he deserved. (Checking with the refereeing assessor afterwards, that was an option - even if he technically couldn't send him off, as he had already been substituted off).
The match and a few beers over, I headed for home, and the next morning started off for Wales.
Dave Holowell's 50th Birthday party was to be a medieval banquet at Ruthin Castle in North Wales. That was a quite good enough reason to go up there. Ruthin Castle is a large country house hotel, largely built in the 1920s, when the Victorian 'restoration' of the ruins created when the castle was slighted int he English Civil War were expanded by the addition of a couple of wings, as it was converted into a sanatorium. My grandfather had worked at the hospital at that time, and my father was born two streets away in 1925. That was the reason for deciding to stay in the hotel on the Saturday night, and then to stay in the town for a couple more days doing family history research.
The roads were foggy, but mainly quiet and it felt very odd reaching the top of the horseshe pass without seeing any of the drops, breaking out into sunshine at the carpark at the top. I made it to Ruthin comfortably by lunchtimem had lunch in the town, and ten headed out to the castle (the gate is only a few yards from the town square. I was just unpacking my car when Emma & Andy Day, and their passengers arrived. Emma had organised the trip and did a fine job.
The afternoon was spent watching the Ireland - Italy 6 Nations rugby match ( a poor game, through the second half of which I mainly dozed), a quick trip to the bar, to see who else had arrived, and then watching the England Wale match (much more fun, even if pretty flawed) and getting into kit for the banquet.
There were a couple of dozen of us for the banquet - so were were one of the two larger parties there. There was an interesting contrast - LRP kit versus Monty Python medieval. The banquet was fun, not massively authentic, but with plenty of Welsh music, and entertainment. Eventually it was over, and we were persuaded back to the bar, then back to the hotel bar, then finally back to a lounge. Much chatting in the luxury. The only disappointment for me was that my camera flash decided to misbehave, cutting down the number of photos I took - with luck that will mean that I appeared in more of them than usual - I am particularly looking forward to seeing Fred Fisher' pictures. It wa a very enjoyable evening.
The (roughly) half of us who had stayed int he hotel reconvened for breakfast, and then a group photograph, before making our various ways. In my case this was around the town centre to the Olde Anchor Hotel. Once I was checked in I recce'd the town a little more - finding out where the old Gaol (now the County Archives) was located. Discovering that it was only open for visitors at weekends in winter I did the tour, took a few photos, and was generally impressed . Then back to the hotel, to watch the Scotland France game, and doze through quite a bit of it. I needed my early night on Sunday.
The archives had been closed for the previous week, and so I expected them to be busy. For this reason I'd booked a microfilm viewer for all of my visit, execting quite a loft of my research to be in the Parish registers. The viewers, and public access PCs at the archives are located in the ground floor cells of the more modern wing of the gaol - with document storage (in part, I think) in the cells above. Within an hour I'd finished with the viewer, and had moved into the more conventional search room. The rest of Monday and Tuesday morning was spent in here, filling in slips to get paper archives retrieved from the stores, and searching through them.
It was a pleasant archive to work in, documents came quickly, the lighting was very good, and it wasn't too busy. I found out quite a few things I didn't know, and when it closed at 4.30 on Monday I dashed out to try to find some locations int he town before it got too dark to photograph them. All in all three good research sessions. I found a decent little café for Monday lunch, ate at the pub on Monday night, and then went on a minor pub crawl. On a cold Monday night the town was dead.
On Tuesday, once lunchtime was approaching, I headed for home. I'd planned to stop for lunch at Llangollen, but parking was busy, so I headed on to grab a pasty at a chippy at Froncysyllte, just before Chirk. A short stop at Shrewsbury - seeing the chaos still being caused by the gas explosion that made the news early in January, and I was home early in the evening.
All in all, an excellelnt weekend. A good bash onthe Saturday night, plenty of rugby to watch, and some successful family history research. What more could I ask - except the money and time to do more like it?
So - I went to Wales.
Well, I went to Wales on Saturday, and got back last night. Before that I went to a rugby match on Friday night.
I'm a fan of Friday night matches. The chief reason is that they leave me the rest of the weekend to gad around, instead of taking out Saturday afternoon and evening. A secondary reason is that I drink less at them. A 7.45 game doesn't finish until nearly 9.30, and so the serious drinking time is fairly limited. The third reason is that despite the poor lighting, which does cut down what I can see, there's an atmosphere to that lighting, cutting out the distractions off the pitch.
Friday night was Coventry against Birmingham & Solihull. Obviously a local derby, always a bit of a grudge match, and made more interesting on that score in the last two seasons as our rugby director previously worked for them. Both teams have had financial problems this season, and both have been docked points, meaning that as well as meeting twice during the main season we are guaranteed to meet them twice more in the end of season play-offs. This particular match has no meaning beyond the morale benefit of going in those play-offs with the win under our belts.
Coventry won, fairly comfortably in the end. There was a period in the second half where B&S nearly got beck into the match. The main features of the match were two mass brawls, one involving both benches, and spilling into the crowd. Ground security had to be called to stand between the teams - a task they did not look happy doing. The officials were guarded off the pitch at the end - although there had been no ill will shown towards them by the crowd at all.
Unfortunately the trigger that had set off the brawling was partly poor refereeing. Coventry were, for a while, completely dominant in the scrum, on one occasion pushing B&S back a good 15 yards. B&S responded by dropping the scum deliberately - a very dangerous way of cheating, which has resulted over the years in broken necks. The referee seemed unwilling to punish anyone for this, and when after one scrum where he watched from the side where it was happening, and it didn't happen, he went back to the other side and it promptly happened twice more, the frustration broke out into the first brawl.
It wasn't helped when the B&S hooker - who had just been substituted off - came off the bench, went onto the pitch, and a further fight started. Eventually the referee gave a penalty against him for going onto the pitch - but didn't give him the red card he deserved. (Checking with the refereeing assessor afterwards, that was an option - even if he technically couldn't send him off, as he had already been substituted off).
The match and a few beers over, I headed for home, and the next morning started off for Wales.
Dave Holowell's 50th Birthday party was to be a medieval banquet at Ruthin Castle in North Wales. That was a quite good enough reason to go up there. Ruthin Castle is a large country house hotel, largely built in the 1920s, when the Victorian 'restoration' of the ruins created when the castle was slighted int he English Civil War were expanded by the addition of a couple of wings, as it was converted into a sanatorium. My grandfather had worked at the hospital at that time, and my father was born two streets away in 1925. That was the reason for deciding to stay in the hotel on the Saturday night, and then to stay in the town for a couple more days doing family history research.
The roads were foggy, but mainly quiet and it felt very odd reaching the top of the horseshe pass without seeing any of the drops, breaking out into sunshine at the carpark at the top. I made it to Ruthin comfortably by lunchtimem had lunch in the town, and ten headed out to the castle (the gate is only a few yards from the town square. I was just unpacking my car when Emma & Andy Day, and their passengers arrived. Emma had organised the trip and did a fine job.
The afternoon was spent watching the Ireland - Italy 6 Nations rugby match ( a poor game, through the second half of which I mainly dozed), a quick trip to the bar, to see who else had arrived, and then watching the England Wale match (much more fun, even if pretty flawed) and getting into kit for the banquet.
There were a couple of dozen of us for the banquet - so were were one of the two larger parties there. There was an interesting contrast - LRP kit versus Monty Python medieval. The banquet was fun, not massively authentic, but with plenty of Welsh music, and entertainment. Eventually it was over, and we were persuaded back to the bar, then back to the hotel bar, then finally back to a lounge. Much chatting in the luxury. The only disappointment for me was that my camera flash decided to misbehave, cutting down the number of photos I took - with luck that will mean that I appeared in more of them than usual - I am particularly looking forward to seeing Fred Fisher' pictures. It wa a very enjoyable evening.
The (roughly) half of us who had stayed int he hotel reconvened for breakfast, and then a group photograph, before making our various ways. In my case this was around the town centre to the Olde Anchor Hotel. Once I was checked in I recce'd the town a little more - finding out where the old Gaol (now the County Archives) was located. Discovering that it was only open for visitors at weekends in winter I did the tour, took a few photos, and was generally impressed . Then back to the hotel, to watch the Scotland France game, and doze through quite a bit of it. I needed my early night on Sunday.
The archives had been closed for the previous week, and so I expected them to be busy. For this reason I'd booked a microfilm viewer for all of my visit, execting quite a loft of my research to be in the Parish registers. The viewers, and public access PCs at the archives are located in the ground floor cells of the more modern wing of the gaol - with document storage (in part, I think) in the cells above. Within an hour I'd finished with the viewer, and had moved into the more conventional search room. The rest of Monday and Tuesday morning was spent in here, filling in slips to get paper archives retrieved from the stores, and searching through them.
It was a pleasant archive to work in, documents came quickly, the lighting was very good, and it wasn't too busy. I found out quite a few things I didn't know, and when it closed at 4.30 on Monday I dashed out to try to find some locations int he town before it got too dark to photograph them. All in all three good research sessions. I found a decent little café for Monday lunch, ate at the pub on Monday night, and then went on a minor pub crawl. On a cold Monday night the town was dead.
On Tuesday, once lunchtime was approaching, I headed for home. I'd planned to stop for lunch at Llangollen, but parking was busy, so I headed on to grab a pasty at a chippy at Froncysyllte, just before Chirk. A short stop at Shrewsbury - seeing the chaos still being caused by the gas explosion that made the news early in January, and I was home early in the evening.
All in all, an excellelnt weekend. A good bash onthe Saturday night, plenty of rugby to watch, and some successful family history research. What more could I ask - except the money and time to do more like it?