 Situations are stacking up on Cymru III now. Dilwyn accidentally fired off all the propellant intended for the return trip when he left Callisto, so now we have to ensure we can get him off Europa again once he lands on the surface. If only for insurance purposes. We ground based boffins have been working hard on that score, and here are photographs from our latest experiments. It's a very old technology, but we believe that Chinese Lanterns may just have the answer. But not fuelled with the rubbishy little square things they come with, but proper, Welsh built "Tiger Tim" firelighters instead. Add that to the extreme parkiness* on Europa and it might, in a thousand years, work.
Here you can see the launch vehicle soaring to great height above the Cerrigydudionesque countryside. We may have to work on increasing the payload though - this one managed only to lift a woodlouse. Uncle Rhodri's pet woodlouse, Edwin, parachuted to safety once an altitude of 500ft was reached. Anyway, the test firing was a complete success. We managed to find an Edwin lookalike woodlouse to give back to Rhodri, we set a neighbour's haystack on fire, and Dilwyn thinks we're doing something constructive. All in a day's work here at Britain's premier space agency - the Welsh Space Agency.
Note to Denbigshire Free Press reporters, and that nutter from Betws - yeah, it's us, right. So will you, for goodness sake, stop going on about UFOs or we'll end up with all the Area 21 and conspiracy theorists sniffing around.* parky [adj] cold, brass monkeys; coll. N of Watford Gap.
Edwin, or someone who looks like
him, safely on the ground
We've relied heavily on self-medication thus far to keep all our space crews in tip top tipsy condition. The slightest ailment, and they reach for the medicine cupboard to give themselves a shot of one of the space elixirs we put in the on board optics for them. And but for the occasional headache when they're a bit slow administering the Buckfast, everything has always been fine. Until now that is...
At 7.10 last Wednesday evening, we received an urgent message on the distress channel - that's the same as the normal channel, only you shout "help" before each message. Anyway, it seems, that due to the excessive self-medication, Dilywn now has a terrible attack of gout in his left foot.
It's not easy to administer "there-theres" all the way to a spacecraft floating around near Jupiter, so we asked him to fax a photo of his poorly foot for our ground-based space doctor, Uncle Rhodri, to ponder. With no formal medical training other than that gained working in a butcher's shop - until dismissed for inappropriate behaviour with a side of bacon - Uncle Rhodri recommended, as indeed he always does - for everything - immediate amputation.
Excising a hugely throbbing arthritic big toe is a difficult procedure at the best of times. But in micro-gravity and millions of miles from home and given the fact that the only cutlery on board is plastic spoons - we had to rely once more on Welsh Space Agency ingenuity to save the day...
We instructed Dilwyn to not feed Megan for 3 days, then, after a bottle of the medicinal Buckfast, he was to smother his errant big toe in bovril from the space pantry and whistle Meg through for supper. Lo and behold, two birds with one stone - Dilwyn's gout has now gone and Meg got her first bone to chew since leaving earth. Result.
 This picture was sent to us recently by our favourite space cadet correspondent and prime minister of the Blackley Fishing Club, - Dincs Dafydd Afedd-Dwr.
It was by complete chance that Mr Dwr pushed the button on his Kodak Instamatic taking a snap of this tranquil pastoral scene near the bus stop in Cerrigydrudion. For he had captured the exact instant one of our communication links opened to the crew of Cymru III - at that time orbiting Callisto. Our space engineers have adapted existing fax technology so that we are able to replenish the crew with certain extrememly lightweight foodstuffs - beef & onion crisps, for example and Netto cornflakes, and fag papers. And very thin biscuits for the dog. We do try to vary which telegraph pole we use for our transmissions so as not to annoy the daytime tv viewers of our lovely little one-horse townette. Mr Dincs was so eagle-eyed on this same day that he also spotted the deliberate mis-spelling of Cerrigydrudion on the bus stop sign. This is not, though, because Conwy borough council had run out of Letraset "G"s as suggested, but is deliberate to confuse enemy troops in times of warfare. You can't be too careful, what with the EU common market and everything.
 What ultra observant listeners you all are. Rachel from Hotmail wrote to us. We don't know where Hotmail is, Gwent we think, but it must be pretty big judging by the number of people who write to us from there. Anyway, she was concerned that Morris Spoon had become deficient in the chin department since this photograph was taken. And it is true, Morris is now down to a number of chins that you can count on one hand.  We've kept Mamgu busy out looking for it. She's been down the backs of sofas and that, radiators, under the car seats. "Where were you when you last had it?" she asks. Keep looking Mam. The truth is, Morris's mum, Mrs Spoon, with whom our parking space measurement executive lives, thought her boy was getting a bit podgy and so put him on a diet. Rather too fond of Coco-pops was our Morris. We could hear him howl from our underground secret bunker the morning he first had to have Lidl's own brand of bran-flakes for breakfast. So, no need to worry, but it fair warms the cockles of your heart to know there are people out there who care.
If you remember correctly, when we last got around to updating this site, Dilwyn had accidentally just blasted off from Callisto - as you do - and was just remorphing from his life as a liquid sloshing around on the floor of the spaceship. Anyway, he came too with a right thirst on and quickly discovered the key to the emergency Buckfast cabinet. This emergency booze-kit was for facilitating a suspended animation condition on the return trip. To cut a short story short, supplies quickly ran dry.
But the integrity of the entire mission revolves around keeping Dilwyn (and Megan) in a reasonably inebriated state. Sober, he might just realise where he is and make a fuss. So, as so often happens, W.A.S.A. ingenuity wins the day. To make alcohol with serious leanings towards moonshine we require the following simple ingredients : yeast, sugar, organic stuff like elderberries, carbon dioxide and a fire. Then apply them all to this formula :
Dilwyn's limited personal hygiene and his various physical ailments could provide all the ingredients. For what is athlete's foot and Dhobi itch if it's not yeast. And his episodic diabetes ensures he excretes sugar in various quantities, and carbon dioxide - well that's only ionised carbon dibaxide after all. So our boffins came up with following apparatus for Dilwyn to fashion out of the spares cupboard.
 Basically, the space toilet was hooked up to a still and out pops enough severe crazy water to keep Dilwyn in space for decades. Result.
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Dilwyn, please drive carefully
We are indebted to the population of a Herefordshire village who are obviously watching events in deep space with great interest. For on the approaches to their community they have thoughtfully erected a sign imploring our favourite Welsh space explorer to "drive carefully".
