Fears had been expressed about the welfare of some of the greyhounds whose owners might not wish to continue to care for them.

All the animal welfare charities agreed to combine forces to ensure that temporary shelter could be found for any animal who needed it, and after the last race, there were people at the stadium ready with mobile kennels to take any unwanted animals to a safe place.

Many animals were saved.

Sadly though, two greyhounds were turfed out by their owner to fend for themselves in the very cold night air, and the busy streets of Swansea.

Many volunteers from various animal charities have spent hours today, searchimg streets and fields looking for these two poor greyhounds. We know that they have both already been hit by cars and are injured. This could lead them to try to shelter somewhere… as dogs do….and the first frost of the winter is forecast here for tonight…. but they need veterinary attention as soon as possible!

Our best hope is that some kind people have taken them in to care for them….
If you know of their whereabouts, PLEASE contact

http://www.greyhoundrescuewales.co.uk/og2009/og2009.htm

and they will ensure that the dogs get the medical help that they urgently need

Please share this and help us to try to find these poor innocent animals.

When I lived in Switzerland, it was not unheard of for the first snows of the winter to leave people caught out and stranded with total chaos for a day or two…just like here….. but there it was accepted as normal…

When I lived in Spain and Portugal, Autumn downpours regularly caused enormous floods (no adequate drainage) and long power cuts….. everybody accepted it.

As we start yet another drizzly weekend in August, I was amused to read the following in ‘The Costa Blanca News’, an English Language local paper about the rain in Spain this week, and the accompanying chaos:

“BENIDORM town centre was brought to a standstill on Monday as a combination of bad weather and an influx of thousands of vehicles saturated the town’s access roads.

The unexpected rain meant many people from other parts of the province opted for a day out in Benidorm leading to a massive overload of vehicles coming into the town.

This led to parking problems in just about every part of the town, forcing many drivers to drive around in circles looking for a space.

Ongoing work on pedestrianising some town centre streets has taken away hundreds of parking places and all of the underground car parks showed they were full for most of the day.

In Dénia continuing roadworks and breakdowns in the water supply network saw thousands of motorists caught in traffic chaos also on Monday.

A combination of road closures, excavation work, rain and hordes of families looking for a parking place was more than enough to totally disrupt traffic flow and heat tempers to boiling point.”

Ah well! Time to get the wellies out again and take the dog for a nice long muddy walk along the estuary, I think! At least the gardens and the countryside benefit from the wetness.

We became involved in this HD TV saga as a direct result of the sudden death of my washer-dryer after fifteen years of reliability, when after several unsuccessful attempts to get a suitable replacement at the right price elsewhere,  we eventually went into Currys in Llansamlet in Swansea.

We quickly found exactly the right product, paid for it and arranged for its’ delivery a couple of days later at a time to suit our timetable….. Sorted!

On the way out, we noticed a huge amount of publicity for a special offer to install HD and multi-room Sky TV.  We made enquiries and were told that we could use this offer to upgrade the Sky TV we currently have …… no purchase necessary (though, to be fair we had just spent £450 on a new washing machine, had we not?)… So for a one off payment of £29, and then an extra £20 per month we would have Sky HD in the lounge and a further sky box in a second room.

Several text calls and Emails from Sky later, we had a phone call from somebody several thousands of miles to the east of Offa’s Dyke, a gentleman called ‘Mo’ with a very pronounced accent.

From this difficult conversation,  it emerged that the amazing offer we had received from our local store was a complete mix up.  We could not in fact have the multi-room offer.  That only comes when you purchase an HD-ready TV from the store at the time of booking (contrary to the information from the salesman).  Also we would have to pay,  not £29, but £79 …. though the monthly increase would be halved to £9.75…. and this would just be for the straightforward HD and Sky in one room only…..

Confused?… We certainly were, with each of us taking turns to try to translate what the man in the call centre was trying to get across.  He said that installation would be very simple, and would not need any wiring, just a card, as we already have a sky aerial.  He tried to persuade us, though, to switch our telephone to Sky, but we refused as we are happy with our current service provider, and we made it clear that we were not prepared to link the TV to the telephone….(we don’t use TV shopping channels)

We agreed to go ahead, anyway with the straightforward installation of the basic HD in one room only, and a date was fixed for Monday, between 9 am  and 1 pm.  We mentioned the fact that there is congestion at certain times as we live opposite a school, and that access to the satellite dish is restricted by a canopy, but we were assured that this would not be a problem.

We later received a letter confirming the installation arrangements, just as we were going away for the weekend preceeding ‘Installation Monday’.

On the Sunday evening we received an Email telling us that the installation team would telephone us at 9 am on the Monday to tell us exactly when they would arrive.

At 9.30 am on that fateful Monday (without the telephone warning) two service engineers arrived (knowing nothing about the Email contact).

Firstly, they inspected the satelite dish…. (cue: sucking in of breath)…. “The problem here is that it will have to be totally rewired.  The wire is the wrong colour.  The original Sky Engineer installed it wrongly, you see.  And you are missing a bit at the end of it that we’ll have to add.  It will all have to be rewired,  and that will be difficult as it is all sealed in”

So we went inside to look at the set …..” Yes, that’s OK, but where is the telephone socket?”

Now then!  Here’s the rub …. despite having told the far-away-gentleman that we were not prepared to link to the telephone…it appears that, if we do not connect the TV to the telephone, Sky will charge us a further £25 in order NOT to do so!

They will also then charge us an additional £60 per month until the full cost of the HD box has been covered.

To connect the telephone would involve having two sets of wires running into the room, over the door and across the room.  In addition, the far-away-gentleman had arranged for “Multi-room Sky” (which we had distinctly said we did not want), which would mean a further two sets of wires coming into the house and over and around several other doors and into another room too! Not a word of all this had ever been mentioned before.

Then they turned their attention to the fact that our TV stands on top of a purpose built reproduction cabinet  (cue: another sharp intake of breath)…. “The trouble there, is the lack of ventilation …. the HD box gets very hot… you would have to sit with the cabinet doors open whenever you want to watch HD TV., or sit the box outside somewhere on a table, (complete with wires)

At this point, we both said unanimously:  “Sorry, boys… forget it!”

However… there is another twist to this farce…Had we allowed them to go ahead with their planned task, they would not have been able to set it up on the same day, anyway, as in their wisdom, the company had not sent us the necessary HD card and we would have been without any TV at all until such time as they managed to get their act together!

The engineers were very understanding, considering that they had spent at least 30 minutes of their time, for which Sky would not reimburse them, and they agreed that we were right to cancel in view of the long term disruption and damage that the installation would  inevitably have caused.

The engineer used our land line to contact the firm and my husband then cancelled the contract and asked for a full refund within 24 hours. (Needless to say,even 48 hours later there was no sign of the refund, and when we telephoned the Sky number we had been given, they knew nothing about it)

At the same time our visitor made a call on his mobile phone to report “Yet another cancellation as a result of poor advice and information, both from the initial salesman and the call centre”.

Why does Sky do this?  Perhaps they hope that people will be afraid to stop the work when the full reality of the lack of truthful information is realised?  Yet these two apparently honest engineers told us there are dozens of people deciding, as we did, that it is all just not worth the hassle.

But then, Sky were quick enough to take the £79 from our account .  On a grand scale over the whole country, that probably could amount to an enormous sum of money available to them for trading, despite its’ having to be returned later…they at least have access to cashflow for fourteen days in the interim.

So….Beware!  If you should decide to take up one of these offers, make sure you read the small print and don’t get too excited about HD until you actually talk to someone who knows what is what.

Despite Wales’ unfortunate defeat by France two days ago in a thrilling rugby match in Paris, the flags are flying high today all over Wales to celebrate St David’s Day.

The sun is shining.

The daffodils are in bloom.

The spring has sprung!

Happy St David’s Day!

Some ten years ago, my husband and I each invested in ISAs in The Abbey National in Swansea.

In 2004, we were notified that they were about to mature.  Unfortunately, we were living on our boat in Spain at that time (this fact in itself is rather ironic since Abbey was later taken over by Banco Santander with whom we had a bank account).

We telephoned Abbey in Swansea and asked for the money to be paid into our accounts at HSBC, giving full details of the sort codes and account numbers.

We were informed that we were not allowed to have the money (OUR MONEY) paid into another bank, or sent to us as a cheque, and it would have to be re-invested in Abbey.

After many frustrating phone calls (mobile phone calls from abroad do not come cheap) we were informed that both sets of money had been re-invested in ISAs with the Abbey and would have to remain in there for five years !

Well…..here we are five years on.

We are back in Wales.  The ISAs  both matured on January 23rd this year.  On January 5th we both tried by telephone to arrange for the money to be transferred into our accounts at HSBC.

No Chance!!

At this point, had this been an Ingmar Bergman film,  a cloud would have moved across the face of a full moon to symbolise trouble ahead…..The letter they sent us gave the wrong telephone number!

When we eventually found the correct number,  we were told we had to make an appointment with the ‘Investments Manager’ in order to decide which kind of Abbey account the money should go into.   Nothing would persuade the person at the end of the phone that this was OUR money and we wished to do with it whatever we pleased, and did not want to waste an hour speaking to their representative when we did not wish to re-invest in their bank.

We were told we would each have to make a personal visit to the bank taking with us a recent bank statement from the bank into which we were trying to transfer the money (OUR money, remember).

They could not understand my reluctance to show them a statement from HSBC.  Frankly, it is in my opinion, none of their damned business!

However, as a way of getting our money, we reluctantly decided to play their silly games and duly went into Swansea, paid  a hefty fee to park the car, went into the Abbey office where we were told that we could not proceed without an appointment…yes, you’ve guessed it…. with their Investments Manager.

Eventually we were allowed to see the Branch Manager who completed two forms himself for us,  in order to release our money as soon as the ISAs matured a fortnight later. Again, we were told that they were not allowed to write two cheques for us, and the money could only be transferred to another bank after we had allowed them to photocopy our current bank statements from HSBC.

Well, the maturity happenned and we waited….and waited….and waited.

Many telephone calls later, it was established that both amounts of money would be paid into their allotted accounts by close of business on February 9th.  To our surprise (?)  it was not.  A further telephone call established that both transfers would be made the following day.

Two days later, on February 11th, I checked my statement and found that my money had been released at long last.  Stupidly however, I  assumed that both transfers would have been made, since they were for identical amounts and had been supervised personally by the manager at the same time.

But No!!

Today, twenty seven days after the ISA matured, my husband still has not received his money, despite many telephone calls to many different members of staff.  We have been passed from pillar to post incessantly.

On occasions we have repeatedly been told that we had “pressed the wrong option button, this is 3, you should have pressed 4″…. but like the original wrong telephone number, there wasn’t one!  (After several tries somebody clearly rectified this and the right list of options appeared.)

We shall be putting in a demand for compensation for all the phone calls (thank goodness for itemised telephone bills) when (if) we ever do receive payment.

Finally today, we spoke with the ‘PEP & ISA Customer Relations Manager’ in Glasgow and were told that ‘the computer had made a mistake’.

Yes, in true Little Britain fashion, “Comptuter Says No…..”

But… and this is where I blew my top….. she told us that all is to be resolved this afternoon

“….. somebody is going to physically walk down the road today to the Glasgow branch of the HSBC and pay in a cheque”….. made out to my husband’s account at HSBC.

So why could that not have happened five years and twenty seven days ago?

I wonder how many other people are trying to rescue their own money from the clutches of Abbey Santander?

At a time when just about everyone in the country is fitting energy saving bulbs in their homes, tightening their belts against the economic crunch we are facing, having cavity wall insulation installed, closing curtains at dusk, turning down the thermostat and wearing extra clothes, switching off pilot lights and lights that are not strictly necessary……

At a time when many Local Councils are switching off street lights completely to conserve energy and cut costs…

Penyrheol Primary School is lighting up the sky again.

It is, however, not quite so wasteful as it used to be.  Only eight of the massive globes were lit this week.  They also went off by 2100 hours which is a slight improvement.

On other occasions, there have been 18 globes lit from before dusk until after 9.00pm  Indeed, on more than one occasion they have all been left on all night.

Now…. at this time of the year, all the children are safely home before dusk.

These lights are presumably there to help adults to find their way into the school to attend keep fit classes and the like.  There was a grand total of 5 cars in the car park on Thursday

There are already adequate street lights in Penyrhoel.

They are on all night.

There are already adequate security lights around the school.

Why cannot the people attending the school in the evenings, each purchase a small torch …possibly like the one I myself use when I take my dog for a walk at night?

Presumably it is our Council Tax which is used to pay for this blatant extravagance?

Grrrrrrrrrrr !

The South Wales Evening Post today reported a ‘shock’ increase in animal cruelty in the last year.

The BBC ran a similar story this morning.

However, whilst the figures are distressing and the number of badly treated animals is disgracefully high, the fact is that the 2007 Animal Welfare Act is doing exactly what it was meant to do.

As a direct result of last year’s legislation, which came into force on 26th March 2007 in Wales, RSPCA Inspectors are now able to intervene at an earlier stage to give advice to animal owners rather than, as used to be the case, having to wait until real cruelty had occurred and could be proved…….. they can now do what their title indicates, PREVENT cruelty, rather than simply come in when it is too late and merely prosecute.

Early intervention means that owners are given a chance to change their behaviour. If they do, the animals get a better life, but failure to comply with advice will result in prosecution at an earlier stage than was previously possible.

The people in the picture above are members of the staff at Llys Nini, but we have personally transported both Roxy the Rotti and Clancy the King Charles Spaniel, to and from the vets’ surgery for treatment. Both are now looking for new loving homes

It is rewarding to see how well animals progress from the pitiful condition that they are often in when they arrive at Llys Nini, to the happy and fit animals they become thanks to the applied TLC at the re-homing centre.

Perhaps then, the increased numbers of successful prosecutions for cruelty is not a shock, but is rather an opening up of what we knew was there all along….. and proof that action is at last being taken to stop the terrible mis-treatment of helpless animals.

Our own lovely dog was a rescue dog from Llys Nini, and a better companion would be hard to imagine, but we often wonder what her life would have been were it not for the intervention of the RSPCA…..

If you are looking for a pet, why not try the re-homing centre first, and give a new lease of life to a dog, cat, rabbit, ferret, bird, etc., etc.?

Or if you would like to volunteer to do something positive to help, why not go to your local centre and offer your services?

Sadly, the cockle beds in the Bury Inlet and the Three Rivers area of Carmarthen Bay have had to be closed today because an outbreak of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) has been detected.

The news was issued by the City & County of Swansea Council in a bulletin this afternoon

They say that it is still OK to walk on the beaches and even to bathe in the water.

However, with a brisk westerly wind blowing up the Loughor Estuary and the rain battering horizontally, probably nobody would chance a swim today!

Here’s hoping the problem will be quickly sorted, though, to allow the local cocklers to get back to their work.

It is to be hoped also, that this time around, the tests are more accurate than those conducted in 2001 when DSP was detected in this area, closing the beds for fourteen months …. and unnecessarily, as the readings were later found to have been unreliable.

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus Iawn

Happy St David’s Day

Because it happened to fall on a Saturday this year…….. schoolchildren all over Wales celebrated the special day a day early, though that will not prevent their celebrating all over again tomorrow. Most schools devote the day to mini Eisteddfodau, where children preform songs, both choral and solo,recitations and dramas.

One of the great things about being brought up in Wales is the traditional emphasis placed on culture and public performance which stands children in good stead for the future.

Most children wear Welsh costume for the special day (and this year they get two days).

Girls wear check skirts, red jackets , white blouses, red or check shawls, frilly white mop caps all topped off with either tall black hats or the prettier ‘cockle’ hats.

Legend tells that on one occasion this ‘uniform’ saved Wales from invasion from the French under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte .

With too few soldiers to defend against an invasion by sea at Abergwaun (Fishguard), the local women moved swiftly up and down and around a hill, giving the French the impression that the area was heavily guarded, so like the redcoats uniforms did the ladies’ costumes appear. The raiders took both fright and flight, fearing a massive army had arrived to quell them, and the instigator of the women’s rebellion, Jemima Nicholas has been a heroine in Wales ever since. She was known as Jemima Fawr (Jemima the Great), and I know of at least one school where her story was acted out as a drama today.

Towns and cities throughout Wales will be the brighter tomorrow when everyone will head for town in their Welsh costumes to show off!

When I was a child, little boys wore tweed jackets and voluminous caps, but these have  gone out of fashion and most little boys (and some girls too), now sport Welsh rugby shirts as their contribution to a happy and colourful day.

Of course everyone also sports either a daffodil or a leek.

Let’s hope the sun shines on them all!

So get out the chocs and flowers and give somebody you love a hug

Happy St Dwynwen’s Day !