Here I am, back from a week in Cardiff in which I spoke to about a zillion people, added ‘soothing stressed Romanians’ to my skillset along with troubleshooting live web feeds, managing operations for five competitions and generally being the little ray of sunshine that you all know and love.
Yes, it was the WorldSkills UK National Finals again – last year we were in the frozen North (well, Manchester in the snow), and this year it was my hometown. I was placed at University of South Wales (turns out the neighbours are prisoners, not student halls…) looking after 3D Game Art, Graphic Design, Digital Media Production, Accountancy Technicians and Web Development. It’s such a great way to get some perspective, and I also managed to meet a lot of Illustration, Graphic Design and Animation tutors, someone from OfQual (we need to talk, I said) and the head of Inspiring Excellence in Wales. I convinced the library to do a National Illustration Day display, and saw live Welsh music at the launch of the Ymgolli/Immersed 2026 Festival. Students are still wearing Stone Roses and Nirvana T-shirts – nothing changes!
WorldSkills is a brilliant scheme embedding technical and professional education into the skills economy. There’s UK finals, Euros and Internationals and taking part opens a lot of industry doors for young people, building confidence and benchmarking against the rest of the world. My Graphic Design team, for example, were working to a real-life brief set by a marketing agency. Competitors come from FE colleges, apprenticeships, the army and industry, and the two competition days are intense.
I love Cardiff – even after 28 years in London/Essex, Wales is my hearthome – and I especially loved the reactions of my colleagues to normal Welsh interactions. They were initially a bit perturbed that every time anyone came to register, it became a full-on chat. It’s what we do in Wales – we talk to people, we like to know what’s occurring. It’s a habit that’s served me well over the years.
Seeing the Medal Ceremony: my favourite 3D Digital Game Art geek won, I got to escort some overwhelmed winners, got a hug from my stressed Romanian, and met several very proud parents (‘We’ve been divorced 9 years and we’ve been holding hands the whole time!)
Catching up with some of the competitors, tutors and competition leads from last year – sad not to have Cyber Security again though!
Being told ‘Have a lush day, love!’ by someone exiting a lift.
Hearing Welsh and the Cardiff accent everywhere I went.
Dragons. Someone abandoned a flag at the end of the ceremony – I adopted it and brought it back to Essex with me.
Dinner and a good gossip with my friend Jen, who I don’t get to see nearly enough. Fat Hippo burger and a Cherry Negroni, in case you wondered.
Pho with Isla when we’d had enough of hotel food
Happy nighttime buskers under a clock on St Mary Street
The magical projections on Cardiff Central Station, animating Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. I did let Jen off sitting through the whole thing with me
This has been one of those hectic weeks, thanks to one of my moonlighting gigs with We Are FTW – this time at the edie25 show at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Edie is all about corporate sustainability, so there were lots of interesting people to talk to about retrofitting listed buildings, for example. I won’t run out of nice notebooks for a while, either (as if that was ever going to happen!). I love doing these events for my friend Isla – it’s a great way to remember that there’s people doing things that don’t revolve around my current obsession with accessible bathroom fittings. Who knew?
I seem to be spending a lot of time at the BDC, as it’s where the Stitch Festival was last weekend and where I’m attending another event next week. It’s a lovely building which I think used to be the Agricultural Hall, and it had a great illustration of the ‘Oranges and Lemons’ rhyme which features our New River windmill. Their ops team were so helpful and friendly, which is not always the case! It was lovely to see the same agency event staff from previous conferences and to catch up with Anna, over from the Czech Republic for the event.
Detail from linocut Oranges and Lemons, by Tobias Till, 2014
I was most impressed by the catering, however, where the Good Eating Company pulled a 100% vegan menu out of the bag for more than 1200 people over two days – including a mushroom bourguignon that was unbelievably tasty, some oat and raisin cookies that were almost as good as mine, and vegan doughnuts. Apparently this was the first time they’d done a 100% vegan catering job: no repetition of main courses over the two days, either. The avocado and chocolate mousse was a bit gritty and the panna cotta didn’t quite work but everything else was amazing. The speed at which everything disappeared was testament to how good it was. They also have their own small farm, work with the Garden Army to support wellbeing and leftover food was distributed to the local homeless people through a charity based at the BDC.
We stayed in a very quirky (!) little hotel in Prebend Street called Angel Townhouse, which possibly caters mainly to the naughty weekend market as there’s mini hot tubs in each room, no dining facilities and good sized showers. I assume it’s a converted pub, with rooms over two floors above a wine bar and very thin walls. The bed was comfortable and my shower on the first morning was excellent, but sometime over the day the boiler packed up and no one on the first floor had any hot water by the evening – RUINING my plans for a hot tub and a good book after a busy day – or the following morning. I might be happy to hop into icy lakes in subzero temperatures but I don’t want to do it in my bathroom!
We ate at Pizza Express on the first night and Thai Square the second – excellent pad thai and lovely lemony satay chicken.
Conversation over dinner on night two – as all conversations have over the last couple of weeks – veered towards Adolescence, the brilliant, thought-provoking but absolutely terrifying series on Netflix. 66.3 million views in less than two weeks, the first streaming show to top the UK’s weekly viewing charts: the hype is deserved. National-treasure-in-progress Stephen Graham is angry and bewildered as the dad, Owen Cooper as his furious, radicalised son is remarkable (especially in the scenes with the psychiatrist) – as is the entire cast, actually. The cinematography ratchets up the tension right from the beginning. Each episode was shot in a single take and I can quite understand why Ashley Walters was going home in tears each evening.
My Beloved and I watched it over two evenings and I’ll be watching it again with Thing 3 whether he likes it or not, quite honestly. I can’t add anything to the reams and reams of print that the series has already generated but if you have teenagers – of any variety – watch it with them. If it doesn’t win every award going next season then something is very wrong. It will make you angry and uncomfortable and sad in equal measure but what it’s saying is vital. You could also listen to this episode of The Trawl (thanks to Tan for introducing me to this gem of a podcast). But watch it.
Things making me happy this week
Loop earplugs, as even on a quiet street London is noisy!
A good day at the Stitch Festival with Heather – I didn’t buy anything!
Mother’s Day Moomin biscuits – thank you TT2! And Moomin sweets – thank you Miriam!
The local library ordering service
Setting up my fundraising page for the half marathon I wrote about last week – it’s here if you’d like to start me off towards my target. On a slightly related note, the hotel in our village, also mentioned last week as I worked with some of the asylum-seeking families at the local school, caught fire on Friday night. Everyone was evacuated and no one was hurt, fortunately, but the event caused the usual spewing of racism and hate on social media including accusations of arson and one person whose only concern was whether the road was open yet (while the blaze was still, well…blazing. Oh, the humanity.) If I’d lost everything and fled to safety with my children once I don’t think I’d be in a rush to do it again. This event did not make me happy, but did highlight the need to choose love over hate every. Single. Time.
An unexpected journey – only to Harlow with Miriam and E to see Edith and do a bit of shopping but I did get to go to Lidl which is always exciting. I did not buy a chainsaw. The box was damaged.
A potential crochet commission – more on this later!
Asda delivering 94% of the things I ordered, and sending sensible substitutes for the others. Wonders may never cease.
An email from Thing 3’s head of year informing me that he was pupil of the week, which is nice.
Proving once again that you can’t take me anywhere without running into someone I have a connection with – this time the Uber driver bringing us back to Essex.
Making friends with a tiny Jack Russell/poodle cross called Figgy – four months old and a wiggly, wriggly puppy with a tail that wagged her rather than the other way round.
Same time next week then…
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
White Nights/Telling Tales/Blue Lightning/Hidden Depths – Ann Cleeves
Saturday night – post-writing of the blog – degenerated into a noisy card game called Sussed where we proved that we all know each other way too well (yes, family, the best invention for me would indeed be a remote control to stop people talking!), a hot tub complete with cheese buckets as we didn’t think the cheeseboard would float, and much listening to tawny owls squawking in the trees around us, possibly in hopes of us sharing the cheese.
On Sunday I walked the Christchurch to Symonds Yat Rock trail in blissful solitude as I knew there was going to be an extremely peopley week ahead. There were deer and evidence of the wild boar, though none came into sight, and some excellent dogs to make friends with. Tan and Jane caught me up at the viewpoint, and a very confident robin hung around for a while.
In the afternoon I headed up to Manchester to be an operations lead for the World Skills UK National Finals. I remembered not to change at Crewe for Preston – Crewe station was as gloomladen as ever – and Miriam picked me up from Piccadilly and dropped me at my hotel. I was quite concerned that there was a chain on the inside of the door but not as concerned as I was when I noticed it had been smashed through at some point. The bathroom door handle came off in my hand but that seemed less worrying…
I had dinner in the ‘Pub and Grill’ which was possibly the noisiest hotel restaurant I have ever been in. ‘A good time guaranteed’ is the strapline, and if you like football being blasted at you from three massive screens this may indeed be the case. This is not my idea of a good time, which would be a lot quieter and probably involve being allowed to read a book. Still, the cheeseburger stack was excellent.
There was NOTHING on the television so I ended up watching What We Do In The Shadows on iPlayer, crocheting tiny Christmas jumpers and having an early night.
Monday came, and despite the state of the door I had survived the night. Breakfast was anaemic bacon with grilled tomatoes, large flat mushrooms and toast, and then I had to negotiate the Manchester public transport system to get to the day’s venue. The tram was very exciting, the buses less so – one went out of service and the other was on a long diversion so the journey took an hour. The possibility of snow was in the air, with up to 10cm predicted, so we were all slightly worried that no one would be able to get to Manchester the following day. Over the day I clocked up 17,000 steps, mostly between floors as I put all the competition things in the right classrooms. My packed lunch had been delivered to the other site, so I made a dash to the local Greggs – no corned beef and potato pasties! What is the north coming to? I had Asian-style salmon fishcake for dinner, followed by a M*A*S*H four-episode marathon on the TV and yep, more crochet. I was told ‘you seem very capable’, which is nice if somewhat patronising – I’m not employed for decorative purposes, after all!
Tuesday began with a sprinkling of snow, far from the predicted 10cm, but it was apparently enough to stop the bread deliveries. The hotel had no bread or waffles, and breakfast carbs were represented by only a few stale croissants and no jam. I was seriously considering rioting , probably joined by the hordes of dismayed Cadent, Fire and Rescue Service and other van-based service people also looking for carbs. Coco Pops and a stale croissant with honey had to do instead of Marmite on toast.
Most of the morning was a stark reminder of how much I hate spreadsheets, especially those which are not sorted! The whole day, in fact, was a chaos of spreadsheets – I have some strong opinions on how these can be better organised, to say the least. The reception in the evening, catered by the hospitality and catering students at the college, was great – excellent cheeseburger sliders, battered fish on giant chips, caramelised onion and goats cheese tarts, and tiny caesar salads on little gem leaves.
Wednesday was bitterly cold but sunny – but they had bread for toast and Marmite in the morning so I was quite well-disposed towards the world. The morning was quieter as almost everyone had registered the day before. I was in charge of group photos, so spent some time herding the teams into their t-shirts and posing nicely. They don’t seem to understand that not everyone can be at the back…. I had a good natter in the morning with fellow Welshman (from Penarth) Mark, who was in charge of the results process. I ended up doing several tours with various groups of people, escorting them around the competitions – I suspect that while our comps aren’t very exciting to watch, they will have some lovely outcomes from Graphic Design and Digital Media Production! I like the fact that the briefs for these mark on soft skills and problem-solving as well, as these are quite useful attributes in the real world.
Dinner was a very salty pizza with Miriam at my hotel, followed by more M*A*S*H and crocheting of tiny mitten ornaments.
Thursday began with toasted waffles, although the item missing from the menu that day was maple syrup so I had to make do with honey again which is not the same at all. In the cab ride from the hotel to the venue I listened to the competitors (from two different digital media production teams) discussing their strategy for the day and a competitor from another team who was apparently trying to get them to form alliances to take other people down. He was, according to them, too tall (but in a weird way) and in his neon blue jacket and red hat bore a striking resemblance to Papa Smurf.
The catering students produced another excellent buffet lunch, this time aimed at teenagers on a tour of the competitions: pizza, fried chicken, sausage rolls and cheese and potato pastry, pasta salad and sandwiches. The visiting students were certainly appreciative of their efforts.
The relief on the competitors’ faces as they arrived back in the restaurant as they finished their tasks was huge – even the Cyber Security team were positively chatty for a change. I learned about Sigilkore and how much it is to get into a club in Ibiza, for a start! One of them had had their 18th birthday on Day One of their competition so they were telling me about their adventures in Manchester that night. By the end of the competition days I’d spent a lot of time with the teams and had got quite invested in what they were doing.
Snow started coming down hard about 6pm, as I was waiting for the last of the teams to finish and for all the judges to complete their marking – it was freezing as it hit the ground so the trek back from the tram stop to the hotel was interesting. Dinner was a burger and salad, and I treated myself to a ‘Frozen Hot Chocolate’ dessert as I think I had earned it. No crochet, as I’d started a new book the night before and I was hooked. It’s called Witherward, and it’s excellent – an alternative London peopled with warring magical factions, highly recommended. (Turns out there is a sequel, which is excellent news)
On Friday I was sent to the other college campus to look after the final day of activity, so after breakfast (cereal and fruit, and Marmite on toast) I skated back to the tram stop and found my way over to Beaufort Road where the engineering competitions were being held. I had a hug from a robot, and scored a rather nice Middlesex Uni fleece which was much needed on a very cold day!
The site was clear of kit by early afternoon so I hopped on the tram* to central Manchester to check into another hotel before the medal ceremony that evening – this time, the Leonardo where they put me on the sixth floor. The room was compact but I was so tired all I needed was a bed.
The ceremony was at Bridgewater Hall and I was tasked with the helpdesk, checking in guests and people who despite many reminders still managed to forget their lanyards. One very breathless family turned up saying their son was due to play the euphonium in the band at 7pm, and were insistent it was at the Bridgewater Hall – it transpired that they actually needed to be at the Manchester Hall on Bridge Street, and there was no way they were going to make it.
I managed to watch the medal ceremony until ‘my’ competition winners had been announced – I got quite emotional when G, a Cyber Security competitor, was awarded the gold medal. He was so painfully shy, and it turned out he had been working full time and studying at the same time – he got very emotional backstage – his family were all watching online. And then his flight back to London the following day was cancelled due to Storm Bert and I think it was the final straw. I was unable to resist telling them ALL how proud I was of them…
Miriam and I made it back to the hotel with ten minutes to spare before the restaurant closed -I had steak frites, and it was very good. And then I slept…..after breakfast (no mushrooms or Marmite!) we leapt in the car and braved Storm Bert to head down the motorways in time for Miriam to meet some friends at the Tiptree Team Room while I wandered round the rather disappointing ‘craft village’.
Either the cats have missed me or my reappearance triggered their dinnertime clock, but they were the first to greet me at the door. I think everyone missed me….
*I find trams good in theory and they were a novelty but I have decided I do not like sharing the road with them. It’s weird.
Things making me happy this week:
Snow. I love snow.
M*A*S*H. I love M*A*S*H.
Uninterrupted evening reading. I love reading.
Not getting on the tube for a week.
So this week it’s back to the day job, where I’ll have to look at emails and make my own packed lunches. Still, it’s been great to stick my head over the parapet again, to make some excellent new contacts across the UK and talk to some FE lecturers about National Illustration Day. Next weekend is the first of this year’s Christmas markets so I’d better get on with things!
Every so often I stick my head up above the arts and heritage parapet and remind myself that there’s a world out there of people who probably really enjoy spreadsheets and who can do magical things with apps and technical things and who aren’t at all fazed when month-end and year-end come around. A fabulous friend of mine runs an event planning company and one of their big events is the Digital Accountancy Show, this year held over two days at Evolution Battersea. She brings me and two of our other friends in to support the event – if I tell you that over the three days I logged more than 80,000 steps that should tell you how busy it is.
I love it. My role is officially exhibitor support, plus anything else that looks like it might need doing – covering breaks for other staff, lugging giant water bottles around, answering questions about access, unloading courier deliveries and more. On the first morning of the show I arm myself and my little team with about a million HDMI cables, acquire a notebook and pen from one of the stands and troubleshoot everything in sight.
This year there were many tech queries so I spent a lot of time fetching the people in charge of the USBs. Some things I can fix myself – upside down logos on the stands are pretty simple, for example, by removing the panel and rotating it through the required number of degrees. Some things are harder – my stand isn’t where I thought it would be, something’s damaged or broken, there’s no TV/lights – so I listened to stressed digital types, soothing ruffled spreadsheets. I collect feedback to give to the Show team, check in with people throughout the show, herd people over to the marquee for the evening show, wrangle fire-eaters (yes, really) and generally fly about the place.
Taste test required – I think I’ll stick with the wafers
The show is pretty spectacular and the venue is more like a club than a trade show – laser shows, silent disco style earphones for the talks so all the stages can run simultaneously without the sound bleed, dry ice, light rigs. So much so that when we had a thunder and hail storm on day one a lot of people thought it was sound effects. The companies up their game every year too – when the event was held at the Tottenham Hotspurs ground it was quite straightforward, but now teams bring fancy coffee machines (some bring baristas to work them!), and one brought an ice cream machine. Scottish firms ply everyone with Tunnocks teacakes and caramel wafers, which are always winners. The show swag gets better every year too – a firm called Apron had the best tote bags this year, and put the team in funky work overalls. Some firms give away good coffee, others seed sticks or seed packets. This year there were interactive elements – darts, safecracking, those buzzy puzzles and an electronic thingy. SuperAcornomics dressed their poor lad up in a red squirrel costume and his handler trundled him about giving out mints. There was a red panda mascot, but I couldn’t convince the organisers that we ought to start the night show off with a mascot wrestling match, unfortunately. It would have been great. These shows keep me in notebooks and socks too, which is handy.
Days are long and although we were in a rather nice hotel in Battersea, we didn’t get to see much after Sunday when Miriam and I had a wander round Battersea Power Station and tested out the spa (very small and uncomfortably couply – we were doing widths in the pool to avoid the other end, where one of those ‘no petting’ posters from municipal pools would have been appropriate). A nice lady in the Curated Makers shop told me if I ever wanted to make jackets to sell to come to them first, which was lovely to hear.
At the end of Day 1 we made it back to the hotel and I was in bed by 9, having stayed in a hot bath till everything stopped hurting. By the end of Day 2 I was so ready for my own bed…
Having been working on closed projects since 2020, things like this remind me that I rather like interacting with people – I love my day job but I’m really looking forward to having some visitors again! Four-legged ones will do, like this tiny cub who kept having to be rescued from the venue while build and strike were underway.
Other things making me happy this week:
A visit to Westminster Abbey to meet the team there. I also met a cat.
First of the summer swims at Redricks – 12 degrees!
Sleeping in my own bed again. Hotels are all very well but lack cats.
What Kirsty did next 