A-Z of summers in Rhiwbina
Jul
Summer in Rhiwbina is often a genteel affair – from drinks in the garden to the Summer Festival. Here’s our A-Z
Afternoon Tea
A very British affair, afternoon tea is best enjoyed in the garden. If you have friends coming around, remember to make the sandwiches very, very tiny and to charge your friends £30 for the privilege.
Barbecues
There are two types of barbecue in Rhiwbina. The first is when you have one – they’re the best things ever. Great friends, delicious food and a time to unwind. The second type is when someone else is having one. Then barbecues are smelly, noisy and a disturbance of the peace.
Caedelyn Park
One of the finest places to spend a summer’s day. Acres of open space, a playground for the little ones – and the scene of local panic when travellers pull up and park their caravans there during the summer months.
DIY
When the temperature reaches a certain point during the summer months, Rhiwbina’s DIY-ers emerge from their homes where they have laid dormant and begin their annual ritual. Swarms of workers converge on their houses, stripping out the old and installing the new. This tradition is often accompanied by the sounds of drills, electric saws and Talk Radio.
Elvis
Yes, you read that correctly – that really was [not really] Elvis you saw ‘leaving the building’. The King is usually spotted entertaining the locals in the Juboraj during Festival Week.
Festival
You know when it’s been a good Festival Day when you’re sat at home in the evening with a glass of wine, you’re rubbing after sun into your sunburn and the kids are asleep with their face paints on.
Grass cutting
If there’s ever a sound that captures the essence of summer, it’s the lazy fizz of a lawnmower. Sadly, this does not apply at 8am on a Sunday morning when there’s some idiot disturbing everyone’s lie-in with their Flymo and hedge strimmer.
Hedges
You know how it goes. The man down the road comes out and does his hedge. The next door neighbour takes one look at their own and decides that they need to do theirs. This continues until everyone is well-mastered in the art of topiary.
Invasion
Usually by those little fellas – ants, wasps, fruit flies, bluebottles, earwigs – why can’t they just leave us all alone and let us eat our barbecues in peace?
Jacuzzi
If you’ve got one of these in your garden, you can consider yourself one of Rhiwbina’s poshest residents. What you need to do now is open it up to the rest of us so that we can come over and try it out. It’s only fair.
Ketchup
Often overlooked when it comes to planning a barbecue. Luckily, the Co-op holds an emergency stock in case of these last-minute emergencies.
Laughter
Wander the streets in Rhiwbina on a summer’s evening and you’ll hear laughter spilling out from people’s gardens. That and the sound of lawnmowers and kids on trampolines.
Music
“If music be the food of love, play on,” said some writer once. Clearly, he’d never been sat at the traffic lights at Beulah Road, listening to the car next door thumping out Bump N’ Grind on volume 11.
Neighbours
You may not see them for the rest of the year but come summer, you can’t really miss them. Yes, summer forces us to interact with them so it’s best just to accept that and get on with it whether you want to or not.
Overcoat
You know it’s summer in Rhiwbina when some of our older residents undo the top button of their heavy overcoats.
Pimms
Anyone for Pimm’s? Yes, quite a few of us actually. You can spot Rhiwbina’s Pimm drinkers on bin nights – they’re the ones gently placing the plastic green bins on the ground very, very carefully. This is to avoid making very loud clinking noises and making the neighbours think that they have a drinking problem.
Quaint
This is what outsiders call Rhiwbina as they drive through the village and see us drinking Pimms in our gardens.
Recreation Club
What sums up summer more than a gentle roll-up on the bowling green? The soft knock of ball on ball, the affable ripple of applause and the delicate murmurs of a few choice words when a shot is missed.
School
No. There’s no school. School’s out. Forever. Well, until the end of the summer holidays at least. This means that there will be no rush hour at either end of the day in the village but you will have kids bouncing on their trampolines in gardens until 10pm every night instead. Hooray!
Tomatoes
In all the greenhouses in all the village, there is one fruit that threatens to take over the world in the late summer harvest – the prolific tomato.
Ukulele Nights
A recent addition to the Rhiwbina summer scene, this kind of thing would be unheard of a few years ago. Just don’t expect George Formby to be there. He’s probably cleaning windows or something.
Vapourisation
To convert or be converted into vapour. Often occurs when sat on a Cardiff Bus that’s stuck in traffic coming down Heol-y-Deri on a hot summer’s day.
Wanderweg
It’s German word for walking path. It’s only featuring in this list because it’s such a lovely word. Wanderweg, wanderweg, wanderweg. Lovely.
Xeriscape
A landscaping method that employs drought-resistant plants and special techniques to conserve water. Bet you didn’t know that did you? Impress your friends this summer by saying things like ‘My Rhiwbina garden has been totally xeriscaped this year, darling’.
Yobs
Summer brings with it plenty of less-than-welcome visitors – flying ants, wasps, and of course, the teenage yobs (according to Mrs Jones down the road, at least). At home, these are probably well-meaning and polite young people. But once they’re in Caedelyn with their mates and a slab of Skol, they turn into noisy drunkards who leave behind a trail of litter and destruction.
Zillionaires
These are the posh people of Rhiwbina – the ones who live up the top end. See Jacuzzis and Pimms.
