Weren’t we lucky with the weather?
All week there had been downpours, but Saturday was better, then on Sunday, the weather was bright and sunny.
Eight fine strapping chaps got to the Broomby’s for 9:30am and proceeded to erect the gazebos for the gathering. Although rather early for me on a Sunday, it is still one of my favourite pastimes, with lots of teamwork and camaraderie, as we tried to remember how everything fitted together.
My best quote from the morning (referring to how two poles fitted together) was – “No, it’s not an A and an A1, it’s an A1 and an A!”.
Anyway, after about an hour of trying to get 9 guys to coordinate their efforts, the tents were up – not bad.
(L to R) Gwyndaf John, Colin Mitchell, Ralph Broomby, Gwyn Owen, Graham Beavan, Bill Jones, Colin Thomas, David Powell, Peter Day
Margaret Broomby rewarded us with teas, coffees and biscuits, while we admired our handywork and congratulated each other, feeling quite proud of ourselves, before going home to get washed and dressed up.
By 12:30 people started gathering at the Broomby’s . There were plenty of parking places, with kind neighbours offering their drives for the afternoon, and people started talking about the weather, how good the trip to North Wales had been, and of course the football (Wales had just beaten Northern Ireland).
Ralph amazed the visitors
Kay Day welcomed everyone and Ralph Broomby entertained us all with a magic act involving a cooker which converted grapes into bottled wine.
Catering was provided by ‘To Dine For’ and everyone enjoyed the beef, salmon and salads, as well as the excellent chocolate roulade and berries.
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Gwyndaf John had organised a quiz, to which the answer to most questions was ‘Gareth Bale’.
Kay then thanked the organisers, the ladies who’d created some really pretty flower displays and of course Ralph and Margaret Broomby for kindly hosting the event for the third time.
Loads of people helped with putting things away, and do you know, it was well gone 4pm before we’d finished – where had the time gone?
The tourist office calls our mountain the “Electric Mountain” and we didn’t go up it but inside it to visit the Dinorwig pumped water storage power station. When the Dinorwig slate quarries closed in 1969, a project was conceived to use the site and the workforce to create a hydro-electric scheme in which water descending 500 metres through tunnels inside the mountain generates electricity during the hours of peak demand. The unique feature of Dinorwig is that all the equipment is capable of going into reverse and pumping the water back up again in the middle of the night using the surplus electricity of nuclear and coal fired power stations which have to run constantly 24 hours a day. Although it consumes four units of electricity for every three which it produces, it generates electricity when, for example, millions of people all switch on a kettle simultaneously at the end of a TV programme. When in standby mode it can react in 12 seconds to produce the electrical output of three nuclear power stations and switch off again just as quickly. We had an excellent tour guide here who helped us understand its important role in aligning electrical supply to demand over the whole of the National Grid.
There was then a chance to chat to our neighbours at the table. At our table we wished Eilwen Turner a happy birthday as she was born on St David’s Day.
This competition is held biennially at the London Welsh Centre (“Y Canolfan”) at Gray’s Inn Road in central London. It is open to promising singers who must be aged under thirty and with strong Welsh connections, either from Wales, of Welsh descent or studying in Wales. They compete for cash prizes as well as the prestige of winning.