Back in the game for our island
THE Assembly reconvenes this week, with some of my focus in ministerial questions on giving more public contracts to Welsh firms, and on support for business.
Looking back, it’s been a sporting couple of weeks. It was a pleasure to see the Tour of Britain start in Beaumaris. I later picked up the family and took up a spot in Llangefni to see the cyclists whizz by. It took the leaders 50 minutes to reach Llangefni from Beaumaris, via Pentraeth, Benllech, Brynteg and Llanerchymedd. To put that in context, I took part in the ‘Ride the Route’ event the day before. It took me an hour and threequarters!
The event showed me that we should market the island as a great destination for cyclists.
As the cyclists cycled, run- ners ran all the way around the island in the annual Ring of Fire race. I saw them off at Holyhead – over a 100 runners taking on the 3-day 135 mile challenge. Hats off to them - it’s quite a feat. When I eventually do the whole Coastal Path, I think I’ll walk!
Finally, last weekend saw the start of the Parliamentary Rugby World Cup. As a member of the National Assembly’s team, I travelled to Rugby – the home of the game – on Sunday, to face New Zealand, the reigning champions, in the tournament’s opening fixture.
We faced the Hakka before kick-off – an experience I’ll never forget. Their play was magnificent. The 31-0 result was disappointing but quite fair. In fact, we were pleased to have held them to that - apparently their team contained a couple of ex-internationals! I’ll be back in London on Thursday for my next game against Argentina.
It’s all for charity of course. Our team raise money for Bowel Cancer UK. Many of us have lost people dear to us to Cancer – it’s important to keep up the profile of cancer charities.
Finally, it was an honour last week to present Coleg Menai’s bi-annual student award in memory of my mother to a local young man, Dafydd Owen Jones from Rhosmeirch. I wish him well as he heads off to Lancaster University to study business management.