Effi o Blaenau

I had only been to the movies recently; Neil and I had gone to Madfabulous. But shortly later, another film would hit the theatres: Effi o Blaenau. I saw the trailer and was immediately interested. A film about a girl living in dead-end Blaenau. Sounded up my street! Not so much Neil’s, so I thought I would go alone. 

The film was really well received by the critics, and got a lot of media attention, and that piqued Neil’s interest. So we went together after all. He had never been to a Welsh film, even with subtitles.

I was a bit taken aback by the title. Grammatically correct it would be “Effi o Flaenau”, but maybe the marketing department wanted to keep the town name intact for those who don’t speak Welsh and don't understand mutations. 

We went to Pontio this time, as they had the most convenient screening time. It wasn’t sold out, but quite busy! And they made us sit through half an hour of commercials and trailers. Then it finally began. 

Effi is a young girl who seems to not work or study but lives in a house with a friend. She has a grandma who cares, but she doesn’t appreciate that. She is rude to the lady living opposite. There is a bloke called Kev she has some sort of involvement with. And she gets wasted every weekend. That sort of seems to be her life.

Spoiler alert

One night she goes to a nightclub to get wasted and meets a handsome stranger, and has a one night stand with him. This time she is really smitten, and really hopes it will lead to something more. But he doesn't answer her texts. And, of course, soon she realises she is pregnant. She goes on a quest to make him acknowledge her, but she finds out he has a wife and a child and gives up. And feeling quite alone, she reaches out again to her grandmother. Who accepts her back in her life. Kev thinks the baby is his, and welcomes it. He is not well pleased when she tells him it's not his. 

With her grandmother on her side she decides to have the baby. And Kev gets over the fact that he's not the father, and is supportive as well. But disaster strikes again. At 28 weeks, she goes into labour. She phones 999, but they tell her it will take quite a while for an ambulance to get there. She just takes a taxi. And she is taken in, but the place is terribly understaffed. They also make a point of portraying the hospital as in a terrible state, with exposed wiring everywhere, and abandoned repair work, and whatnot. The hospital initially tells her that all is well, but when the evidence becomes undeniable that that's not true, they decide she has to go to a hospital that has a neonatal space available. There are two options: Birmingham and Aberystwyth. They send her in an ambulance to Aberystwyth, even though it is snowing, and the roads are a bit iffy.

Needless to say that on the icy road, the ambulance crashes, and the paramedics have to deliver the baby there and then. It's too young to survive in an ambulance, and dies.

Kev figures there might be an opportunity to sue the hospital and claim compensation. A local lawyer thinks their chances are good. Effi has a problem with financially benefiting from the death of her baby. Later, at a hospital check-up, she meets the midwife she thinks should have been there with her in the ambulance and saved her baby, and confronts her. The midwife tells her that the problem in the first place was not enough neonatal spaces, and that having to pay off a bereaved mother would only lead to fewer spaces and more deaths. Effi decides not to sue. But she is not at peace. 

At some point, the lady living opposite where she initially lived finds her passed out on the street, and in spite of everything, helps her out. To be honest, everyone who didn’t see coming that there would be some redemption here had their eyes closed. The next thing is that the grandmother does some babysitting for that lady. And encourages Effi to engage with the kid. Of course they soon have rapport, and go swimming together. And it ends with Effi stating that life in Blaenau is hard, but that the people there are resilient.

We both really enjoyed it! The acting was fab. I really enjoyed the scenery as well. They make a lot of the very empty landscape a bit east of Blaenau. I was trying to work out where the two houses are Effi lives in over the course of the film. I thought there was a bit of a thickly laid on moral, with the not suing the hospital story, but that is not a major thing. Aspects of the story were a bit predictable. Obviously, she would make amends with the lady across the street somewhere along the way. Also not a major gripe. We recognised the actor she has a one night stand with from Madfabulous. Wikipedia told me that even the lead actress had been in there, but I hadn't noticed that. Maybe the pool of Welsh actors isn't huge! And we wondered what Effi lives off. 

I supposed the film paints a bleak picture of Blaenau. They make sure to give it bleak weather at all times, and they emphasise boarded-up houses and fly tipping. Effi’s main calorie intake comes from vodka. The lady opposite can barely feed her kids, and doesn't dare go to the swimming pool because people treat her badly there. And I suppose all of that is real. But they do plant positives. The forgiving grandmother, who takes her in even though she has a badly paid job at the chippy, and a small house, and is willing to see past the abuse Effi has given her before. The kindness of the lady opposite the street. The friends who are there for each other. The young lad who seems to live a life quite like that of Effi, but who manages to buy her a pram for the child that isn't his. I suppose all of that is real as well. 

I think the film is quite a hit in Wales, and it might even be quite successful in England. The day after I happened listened to radio 6, and found Cerys Matthews interviewing the lead actress. It might even make it to the continent. Blaenau might become famous! In its Blaenau way…

Hanging out with Neil’s family

Neil is from a rather close family. To me it felt like they had visited only 10 minutes ago, but they were going to visit again. That's great! They are really lovely people and it is nice to hang out with them. And we had agreed that I would join them on the Thursday evening. We would go for a quick meal in town, and then do a guided walk over the Orme, looking at wild flowers. I was a little bit hesitant about the weather, as it was the hottest day of a heatwave, but at least it would be evening.

I drove up to leave my car in Neil’s street, and then walked down to the pub through the shadows. We had a nice meal, and then we said goodbye to Neil's mum and stepdad. They didn't fancy the walk. With his sister and brother-in-law we made our way to the Orme. When we approached the meeting point, we didn't really see the throng we expected. Neil checked his messages. About an hour earlier, it had been cancelled because of the weather! That was a bummer.

We decided to walk back with a detour, enjoying a bit more of the Orme. We went past Bishop’s Quarry, and saw some chuffs. And we had a cup of tea together before the others went back to their accommodation. 

I hadn’t intended to join them again night after, but they were so inviting I changed my plans. I did have to work on Friday, and look after the cat, and water some of my plants because of the weather, but aside from that I could just be away for another night. In this kind of weather, my cat doesn't sleep in my bed anyway, so I think she misses me less when I am away.

This time we only did dinner, and a cup of tea in the garden of the hotel where the others were staying. That was enough for me! I had had a good opportunity to get to know them a bit better, but I also hadn't been sleeping excessively well recently, and was tired.

Me, Neil’s sister, her husband, Neil’s stepdad, his mum, and Neil himself

The plan is a bit that in the not too distant future, Neil and I will go to Manchester to visit his mum and stepdad. I don't know when I will see his sister again. That might be Christmas. But it was great to see them! I am very happy to have been accepted into this family.

Bethel 5k 2026

A few weeks after the Llanrug 5k is the Bethel 5k. I seem to have a tradition of doing rubbish in Llanrug. Last year, I did better in Bethel. Maybe I could do that this year as well?

When the day approached I figured that the answer was probably going to be no. We were still in the heat wave. During the day, I had been ok, but running is a different kettle of fish. During the day I had barely done anything more than between buildings to have meetings in. 

I got to Bethel, parked up, and got my race number. I went for a little warmup with my fellow Eryri Harriers Mike and Tony (a track mate; not Welsh Castles Relay Tony). I kept a T-shirt on over my race vest, as I was trying to protect my vulnerable skin from the sun. I also made sure to really lather on the sun cream after I took the T-shirt off. In this case I was glad the Eryri Harriers vests don’t leave that much skin exposed. 

Team pic

We set off. It always takes a while for the field to settle. I ran along with my track mate Sion for a bit, but he pulled away from me. He was also faster than me in Llanrug. I didn’t think I would be able to catch up. And in this weather, I am not going to be ambitious. Then I found Tony (the track mate I had done the warm up with; other Tony is way too fast for me) behind me. He is an Eryri Harrier. Not that that matters; if Sion wants to hang behind me he is most welcome too. But it was good to have Tony back; he hasn’t been to track in ages. 

Sweatily running along with Tony

As it was so hot there were several water stations. The first was after one mile; I ignored it. The second one, two miles in, I accepted. I drank some, and threw the rest over my head and into my shirt. I was so hot! It was a bit of a shock to feel the cold water on my back but it was good. By that time, Tony had overtaken me. But he did not run away far. 

Water but no Tony

At 4 km, there was a man with a garden hose, spraying everyone who was up for it. I think that was everyone. And we were in for the last push. 

I overtook Tony again. Shortly before the finish I looked over my shoulder. Tony said “go for it”. I knew I was faster than in Llanrug, but slower than in Bethel last year. And then we finished, me a second before him. 

Almost at the finish

I got out of the sun again. It had been good! Too hot, but I clearly didn’t have heat stroke. And I didn’t know what my time was but I was happy with it. And after some socialising with Harriers and track mates and the combination thereof I decided it was time to go home. 

The next day I found out I had done it in 22 minutes sharp. In my world, a good time in that heat! And I had my category win. Only three women over fifty had competed, so it wasn’t the hardest-fought victory ever, but I was glad anyway. 

I am starting to accept that the shorter distances are not really my thing. I come into my own on the five mile onwards. But I still want to break my 5k record. I think I need a cool morning for it. There is a thought to go run the Newborough Parkrun with Chris one day. That is another chance! 

Heatwave

The weather is all over the place. We tend to have heat waves with cold, rainy weather in between. There was a heat wave I was in the Netherlands. It was cold and wet when I ran the Llanrug 5k, hot when I ran with Jacko and in Deganwy, cold and wet when I was marshalling the Tuesday race on Gyrn Wigau, et cetera. We are back to hot. And not just a bit!  The Met office has issued amber and red weather warnings, and they expect us to break the British record for the hottest June day ever recorded this week.

In the weekend, it wasn't very hot yet. On the Monday, I stayed at home and did cool things. Cool in the sense of not at high temperature, obviously. I kept a lot of curtains closed and (selected) windows open in order to keep the heat out. And I have been sleeping upstairs, behind the very thick walls of the old part of my house. Not in the extension, with its thin walls and south-facing windows.

My house in heatwave setting

On the Tuesday, I had a lot of meetings. That was a bit trying. In the morning I was in a meeting room that was too hot by everyone's standards, and in the afternoon I had all my meetings online in my office. These are all about academic integrity, and for privacy reasons, and in order not to be disturbed, I keep my door closed when I have them. That means my office doesn't ventilate. It gets unpleasantly stuffy.

On the Wednesday, I was back at meetings, but that day it was actually surprisingly cool in the morning. My office was quite bearable, and so were the rooms in which I had my meetings. This must have been a perk of North Wales, as in some of the rest of the country it must have been unbearable 

The Thursday would be the worst, with initially temperatures forecast of 35°. It was later adjusted to 33°. It really was super hot. In England, the record of the day before was easily broken already.

The Friday should be the last they where it was really too much. On the Saturday things should be ok again. I came through locate. The temperature in my living room went up to 25°, which is a lot more modest than what some other people were experiencing. Given that it is not term time, I can work from home if I want. I have double glazing, and a north facing office. I also have a standing fan. My office on campus is not that suitable and/or adaptable.

I didn't bike for the entire week. On Tuesday that wasn't a choice; I just suddenly thought at 8:45 that I had a meeting at 9. That was not true; that meeting was on Wednesday. But as I believed it was true I jumped into my car and went to campus. On Wednesday I would go to Bethel straight after work. On Thursday I worked from home. On Friday again I had to go places straight from campus. But anyway I was glad to not spend an additional 80 minutes or so in the unforgiving heat. And having got sunburnt on Sunday, I was quite happy to not expose my fragile skin to the sun, not even through clothes.

I also barely ran. I only did a race on Wednesday (blog post to come). My skin was not grateful. But I did enjoy it. I skipped the track for reasons of heat and sunburn, and I would have skipped the Thursday Hill run anyway for similar reasons, but I was also otherwise engaged. Not much exercise for me this week.

We will have to be ready for more of this! I suppose one thing I should change is be more careful and not get sunburnt. I might invest in a fan for my office. And I might try to think of something that is more efficient in keeping the heat out of my conservatory than the improvised curtain I have now. It is a conservatory, though, so although I am sure gains can be made, keeping it anywhere near bearable wouldn't be easy.

I'm sure there will be more times like these even this summer. I'll be OK! But I can't say I'm enjoying it…

Last exam board type meeting of the year

It is done! We have come to the end of the exam board meetings and all associated meetings. We know now which students will progress to the next year, which ones will graduate, and which ones might suffer a less happy fate such as having to do supplementary assessment or repeat the year. We have gone through all the modules, and we know which aspects of which ones need changing. 

The idea is after the last one of these meetings, you can start taking your annual leave. There isn't much timetabled anymore. Im looking forward to it after the rather frantic marking period. It's not going so well! Things keep cropping up on the days I would like to take off, such as meetings about the future of our "physical" teaching (as opposed to the teaching of the biologists). But this is a big change. I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts! 

Welsh 3000s training

Neil got it into his head to do the Welsh 3000s; this is some challenge where people walk or run over all the hills that are more than 3000 foot high. The people who walk do it in three days, or within 24 hours. I personally think that doing it in three days is something you can do without having to think too much about it. The real deal, though, is doing it in one go, within 24 hours. And that is what he wants to do. I don't want to join him. I think that after a full day’s worth of walking, my feet would be totally fed up, and the rest would be torture.

It is quite a slog, so he wants to train for it. He had already been training for it in spring, as originally he would do it in spring, but he got an injury, and had to postpone until September. And now he is training again.

We would do the Glyderau range; start on the A5, then climb Tryfan, take the detour to Glyder Fach and then Glyder Fawr, and then just follow the ridge all the way to Penrhyn Quarry, descend it, and walk home. It's a sizeable walk! Only 20km, but with its 1340m ascent and 1500m descent, and bits that are either scrambly, crumbly or bushwhacky, quite trying. 

We got the bus into the valley. We soon got off the road onto a path that would lead to the base of Tryfan. And then the scrambling could begin. 

I had only done this mountain once before. It had been a while ago! And the weather conditions had been quite different. I like a bit of a scramble, so I enjoyed this bit. Not too far from the summit we came across a little guided group; father, daughter and guide. The guide was talking about jumping between Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve are big rocks on top of the mountain, and the tradition is that you jump from one to the other, and only then have you really done the mountain. I am not a particularly big fan of jumping from one thing onto another, so I have never done this. Neither has Neil, who has done the mountain several times. 

Neil on the Cannon Stone

Graded quartz nodules! 

Onwards

Without much further ado we came to the summit, and so did the guided group. Neil still didn't want to do the jump, but he did say he wanted to stand on one of the rocks, so he climbed up. And then he stood there. And then I saw a flicker in his eyes! Would he jump after all? He didn't in the end, but he admitted he had been very close. I didn't even climb onto either of them. The mountain guide showed just how easy it can look. Such a little hop. I still didn't want to do it.

Will he? 

We started to make our way down. The most direct way to the Glyderau is over Bristly Ridge, but neither of us was comfortable doing that without a guide. So we took the long road. And there were streams crossing it! Neil had fresh memories of his birthday, when he had taken me on another ridge walk, and I had brought so much water he had offered to carry some of it for me, and worn himself out. He had been thinking about refills from the beginning.

Once on Glyder Fach we had a nice chat with a solo hiker lady, and then went to the cantilever, to have lunch. We took lots of pictures of hikers on top of it after having eaten our sandwiches. And then we went on.

It was a warm day, but not scarily hot. That was good! There has been weather warnings out all over Europe. We would not escape the heat ourselves. That day, though, it wouldn't quite reach us.

The landscape in that area is amazing. So much bare rock with spectacular formations. But we had further to go, so we kept moving and soon hit more grassy ground. But that wouldn't last; we knew it would give way to the moon-like landscape of the descent to Devil's Kitchen. That is nobody's favourite part of the hike! But it is there. The rock is very crumbly and steep. At the bottom of it, I refilled my water bladder for the last time. And then we went up on the other side, to y Garn.

Crazy Glyderau landscape 

On that summit we bumped into a bunch of men who were doing the Welsh 3000s in three days. This was their second day. They had planned it months ago, and been very lucky with the weather! I did say that the next day they would get a bit boiled, but that didn't discourage them. 

We went on, and decided to have a second lunch on Mynydd Perfedd (intestine mountain; maybe not the most obvious choice for a lunch break). Before we got there I needed an emergency glute stretch. My bum wasn’t feeling it. But the stretch helped. And we made it to our second lunch spot.

Second lunch

From there it was a gentle walk until we would leave the main path and head for the quarry. Along the way, we (again) admired the Atlantic Slabs. We still want to do them in the not too distant future. 

Atlantic Slabs

I wasn't a big fan of the last part; the path is minute, and it is difficult to see where you put your feet. And at some point it almost vanishes. The going is bad; it is unpleasant to the feet, and to lower legs which get attacked by the hostile vegetation. By that point, I was pretty tired and had sore feet, but I was obviously committed. I was glad when we finally hit the path in the quarry, because then the going gets easy. 

Because it was quite late by now, we stopped by the pizza van in the village to have a quick evening meal. All in all, we had done quite a large part of the route Neil will have to do in one go in September. And it had been a beautiful day! I had enjoyed it. It was lovely to be on a hike with Neil, and it was nice to meet all sorts of people along the way. But now I just wanted to put my feet up. So that's pretty much what I did for the remainder of the day…

No underground trip

There was another ladies’ underground trip in the diary, on a Monday. Then things got complicated. There were two! One during the day, and another in the evening. I wasn’t sure why, but there was an Eryri Harriers committee meeting scheduled in the evening, so I was committed to the daytime. I took the day off. 

It was a hot day. And I was particularly non-heat-resistant. I had been careless in the mountains the day before, and got sunburnt. So I set off in long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt to keep my skin out of the sun. 

I drove to the Gwydyr Forest without issue. But when I got to the junction to the actual mine, I found a ‘road closed’ sign. Oh no! How to get to it then? I decided to drive on a bit, to get myself out of the way, and have a think. There was a parking lot nearby. And it turned out that everyone else had done the same. I parked up and joined the others (in the shade). 

Trouble!

We considered our options. Maybe we could drive around? That is quite the detour. And would complicate the planned pub lunch between the underground trips. Another option was to just go to a different mine, but that wasn't really popular either. The last option was to just suck it up and walk from the parking lot we were on. That was the most popular option, but not with me. I couldn't expose my skin to the sun yet, so I would have had to at least wear my furry suit. In that kind of weather. I did not fancy that at all.

In the end, the group stuck with that decision. And I decided to just go home. I had done that mine many times before! Never with this splendid group of ladies, but for me, the circumstances were just not right. And I had plenty to do at home. Better luck next time!