Second Christmas in Wales

We celebrated out second Christmas in Wales but not in Wales – if that makes sense.  Now that we live in Cardiff city centre we were not restricted by bus schedules.

Christmas is very big in the UK.  Places of work go out for Christmas dinner at a cost of $50 to $80 per plate.  At school the staff wore Christmas sweaters (everyone owns at least one) on November 21^st.  The next day St. John’s church (been there for over 900 years) had its first carol service.  The vicar was most apologetic but the Christmas Market opened November 13^th with the Santa parade.  St John’s is in the middle of all the Christmas Market hype and she felt that there needed to be some kind of Christian presence.  When the Christmas market opened there were street entertainers every 20 feet the full length of St. Mary’s Street and Queen Street.  Some very good, some not so good but it was all fun.

The next weekend we enjoyed a harp concert at St John’s, another Carol service, and helped a young friend celebrate his 30^th birthday at the Ty Mawr (pronounced tee mawer – the big house).  We are beginning to become suspicious of the number of 30^th birthdays going around and are thinking of holding our own.  I also went to a local pub to watch Wales make the New Zealand rugby team very happy.  We missed Stir Sunday at St Fagan’s but someone did explain it to us and I made up for it by going to the hockey game.

The next weekend we went to central Wales for a church retreat near Llandovery.  We missed our school Christmas fair; an organ recital at the Tabernacle; the German Carol service at St Johns; Barry Brass at St Johns and the Advent Service at Llandaff Cathedral.  That was OK but I missed the Welsh rugby team breaking a decades long curse by beating South Africa!

Now we are into December.  The first week we missed more concerts than we got to.  The highlight of the week was a concert featuring a world class men’s welsh choir and a plant (childrens) choir at the Tabernacle church.  The children were below and the men were on the right side of the balcony.  They placed women who could sing across from the men as there were elaborate microphones in place for harmony singing and recording while the rest of us were at the end.  One of the pieces the men sang in welsh was to an old tune that has been resurrected as the Eli Jenkin’s prayer. 

There are lots of versions of Eli’s prayer on the web.  This one has the words:  

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0opbLtDJTm0 .  A close look at the words has me convinced that Dylan Thomas had some sense of the spiritual world, although the prayer kind of takes the mickey out of the more religious among us.

The weekend of December 12^th saw the end of term one concert at school.  Some really great singing.  Even though it is a small school there is a lot of talent and Organ Morgan (what we lovingly call the music teacher) has a way of bringing the best out of the students all the way down to age three.  On Saturday we went to the German Carols at St John’s and visited the disappointing Riverside Food market (not our regular Sunday market) out our front door.  We were too tired to go to the twmpath which is a Welsh version of a Ceilidh but I believe there will be another one soon.   I am afraid the caller will call in cymraeg.  On Sunday a friend who celebrated her alleged thirtieth birthday this fall contacted us and we tried out the new Spanish/Mexican restaurant in town.  It was great!  

On Sunday night Carolene was a little ill so I went to a concert alone at the City Temple.  City temple is just around the corner from us in Riverside and the feature group was an acapella trio.  The singing was terrific and a lot of variety as well.  At one point they read the Bible (it was church and it was Christmas).  They said it was psalm 44 but it sounded like “we have yeard it with our own yars”.  I think they were from the ‘Valleys’.

I know it sounds silly but I spent most of the first week of Christmas vacation prepping for term two.  We went for a lot of walks around the Christmas markets and over to the Christmas midway near city hall.  On Saturday we went to St. Fagans museum of welsh life to see the winter solstice demonstration.  The person giving it was a historian who tried all the drying techniques and food preparations that he demonstrated.  We had him to ourselves for about 20 minutes so we pumped him full of questions.  St. Fagan’s has a long range plan to rescue old buildings in Wales, transport them to the site, and re-build them using expert builders and historians.  We can only take in so much at one time so we went for coffee at one of the coffee places.  I placed my order and the lady said “you will have to repeat that as I am having trouble understanding your Canadian accent.”  That was the second time that day someone there recognised us as Canadians.  Cariad Cymru. Cariad y Gymraeg.

For Christmas a young lady from church (I know she is young because we went to her 30^th birthday this autumn) invited us to join her family for a few days.  We gladly went assuming that if they were her family they would be wonderful people.  We were absolutely correct on that one.   We had a wonderful four days in Horsham where we toured the town including the well-stocked museum; had tea with bampy (he was from Aberdare); went to a crib service at an Anglican church; had Christmas eve dinner with a number of interesting people; had Christmas dinner with the family including bampy; went to an Anglican church Christmas day and generally had a good time.  At the time I said that when I am 93 years old I want to be as bright and optimistic as grandpa but I wish I was like that now!

After Christmas we went to Bexhill by the Sea to visit Carolene’s friend from before she and I met.  This woman grew up in the UK, lived in Canada and now lives in the UK.  We caught up on a lot of years and toured Bexhill and Hastings.  On Sunday we joined them at church and it sounded like the preacher was going to quote Eli Jenkin’s prayer:  for us it is touch and go.  Monday Carolene and I spent a day touring a small ancient town called Rye.  It was a day well spent.  Rye was the setting for a new BBC drama that was aired while we were there so we watched.  It was a costume show. (Carolene protests – it had some very good repartee and demonstrations of clever one-up-manship!)

We are glad to be home in Cardiff.  We have spent the last two days wandering around city centre and having coffee at all our favourite places.  Had bora te at the Tabernacle church this morning and will take a long walk in Cefn Onn park (Kevin on) tomorrow.  I need to go back to school for a rest.

Can You Really Kill a Welshman?

It is still legal to shoot a Welshman in the city of Chester.  At night.  With a crossbow.  Similar laws exist in Hereford and other Welsh Marches cities.  There seems to be some kind of historical thing between the English and the Welsh that I have been trying to get to the root of with mixed success.

Early in my stay here I was told, by an Englishman, that if Wales plays, say, France England will cheer for Wales because it is part of the UK but if England plays France the Welsh will cheer for France.  Last year, during the six nation’s rugby, it would have been to Wales’ advantage for England to beat Ireland and there were lengthy discussions in the local papers here speculating on if the Welsh were permitted to cheer for England.  But one must remember that the Westminster government put special lighting in the Welsh countryside during WWII so that Wales would be bombed rather than England.  What about the plans to dam a river in Wales and flood a valley full of good farmland so an English city could have water?  I think the city was Chester so what Welshman would dare go there during crossbow season.

The Marches are an interesting thing.  It divides, sort of, England and Wales and was created not long after the battle of Hastings (you know 1066 and all that).  Wales was separate from England long before that.  When the Saxons moved into Britain the brythnionic tribes either got absorbed or migrated to the edges like Wales and Scotland.  Offa’s dyke was an early boundary between the two nations although Offa didn’t build the whole thing and nobody really can tell us who Offa was.

Back to the Normans:  It took under half a dozen years for the Normans to subdue England, but Wales did not capitulate so quickly and the Marcher lords were appointed with powers almost as strong as the king.  It still took over a hundred years for Wales to be subjugated and even then it never was complete.  It was almost complete in the 1970s, according to one historian, when Wales almost totally lost its identity and voted against devolution (a kind of separation from Westminster).

Last month an English friend asked me how many people actually considered themselves Welsh.  You have to remember that, historically, the Welsh were considered criminals and liars by genetics.  One story has it that “Welsh Rabbit” was so named because the Welsh were believed capable of serving you bread with cheese and lying about it being Rabbit!  The Royal Society (you know - scientists in London) once decreed that Welsh heads were smaller than English ones so they could never have the intelligence of the English.  

Culturally the Welsh have traditional costumes and poetry festivals called Eisteddfods with druidic ceremonies but these were all invented in the late 18^th century so they don’t tell us who the Welsh are and why the animosity.  I visited an English friend last year and he was preparing his acreage for some sheep that were coming and, after noticing the leeks and daffodils in the garden I said “sheep, leeks, daffodils - are you a wanabe Welshman?”  That almost cost our friendship!

I even took a welsh language course to gain some insight.  Didn’t work very well.  dw i ddim n gallu gwybod.

Last summer I found out that there was a week-long Celtic Congress here in Cardiff so I went.  I learned a lot about Wales (and the other Celtic nations) and met many  interesting people.  On the first day I met a woman who kept talking to me in Welsh and I kept answering in English (you can only say bore da, arthro dw I, dwin dod o Ganada so many times).  It turns out she is very Welsh and as we rode the bus together every day, became good friends.  At the end of the Congress we exchanged e-mail address and agreed to get together with our spouses for tea in September.

I have mentioned the Celtic Congress to a number of English friends in Cardiff and the common reaction is to look at me with a combination of bewilderment and disdain.  I think the confusion comes from wondering how you could have a week long congress regarding a people that don’t actually exist.  As one English friend put it “sort of like father Christmas, one doesn’t really believe there is such a thing as the Welsh.”

Over the last year I have read a lot of history books about Cardiff and Wales and I am not any brighter for it.  The best author is John Davies from Aberystwyth University.  He doesn’t seem to appreciate all the good things the English have done for Wales.  As the English statesman said “the Celtic people are too stupid to govern themselves.  The very fact that they wish to govern themselves rather than be ruled by London is evidence of the fact.”

One could go back to the Celtic roots to find a clue.  Since the Celts didn’t leave a lot of written records it is open season on defining what the Celts were like.  Generally, people make up Celtic history to suite their beliefs.  “In Celtic Christianity they did bla, bla, bla…”

Back to the Marcher lords.  They ceased to exist long ago but they still lord it over Wales.  The only way to travel between north Wales and south Wales by train is to travel to one of the English Marcher cities:  Hereford, Shrewsbury or Chester and then travel back in.  To get to Aberystwyth (130 miles west of here) we had to take the train to Shrewsbury and change trains there.  We missed the train and the rail company put us on a taxi for the last two and a half hours of the trip.

This devolution thing went to a second vote and won.  This has been good for Wales although the English still cannot believe why they want to when they have Westminster.  In past centuries Welsh MPs in the house were asked to form committees to frame Welsh policies and, in fact, the most important prime minister of Britain was the Welshman David Lloyd George (so say the Welsh).  Referring to the English parliament as British was first done by a Welshman (why I am not sure).  The current “welsh office” is held by a staunch Englishman and not a Welshman.  The Welsh Parliament (Assembly) has way less decision making abilities that any of the Canadian provinces so they do have a long way to go.

Welsh National Health Service (NHS) is separate from England’s.  An English newspaper reported that huge numbers of Welsh are traveling across the border to use the English NHS.  The truth is that 5,000 more English come this way than Welsh go that way.  Does this make it legal to shoot English news publishers in Cardiff?  Only at night and with a cross-bow within sight of the castle.

Here is an interesting titbit.  A Welsh brewery in north Wales wanted to label their glasses for a special cwrw fest using the Welsh “peint” rather than the English pint.  They had to apply to London for permission and it took two years.

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/07/welsh-brewery-wins-peint-pint-battle/

 

My questions are:  does the fact they want to spell it peint say something about the Welsh?  Does the fact that it took two years say something about the English attitude toward the Welsh?

“Hen wlad fy nhadau” is the Welsh national anthem; a beautiful song with a rich Rhondda valley history.  Google it and listen.  They are singing it across the street as I type (Cymru vs New Zealand rugby).  I learned about the great history of the song at the Celtic Congress.

Last year when England played Wales our church had a pub lunch to watch the game.  Almost everyone showed up in England jerseys.  It is a very English church.  (some of them still think I am an American).  When the TV played the Welsh anthem before the game only one person sang – the church worship leader.  He has agreed to teach it to me before this years’ Six Nations.  February 6.

I will be cheering for Wales and I still don’t know why.

 

 

 

 

A Week in Wales

Although this wasn’t a typical week it does give some insight into life in Cardiff.

On Tuesday we went to a friend’s 30^th birthday party in Dinas Powys and, no, we weren’t the oldest there.  We met a fascinating variety of people there.  One woman we met, with a strong welsh accent, asked where we were from, and when we told her she told us she was born in Vancouver and shortly thereafter her family moved to Kidwelly near Llanelli.  Dinas Powys has an interesting history.  It was closely linked to one of the oldest Christian communities in Wales at Llandough and was the location of a Roman Villa and is now a sleepy little town with some pubs with fireplaces.  

On Thursday Cardiff’s “Winter Wonderland” opened with a Santa parade and all sorts of street shows in the city centre.  The advertisements said that there were 90 things happening.  Until after Christmas a market will run on St. Mary’s street, a whole plethora of kiosks on The Hayes including crafts, mead, sausages, beer and anything you can think of.  Queens street has its usual “midway’ atmosphere and over at City Hall, in Gorsedd park, there are rides, more food, and an outdoor skating rink.

On Fridays I finish at 11:20 so I met Carolene at St. John’s church (built in 1180) for an organ concert, right in the middle of all that Christmas Winter Wonderland activity (we were almost the youngest).  St Johns has an organ recital once a month along with other special activities.

Friday night Cardiff Blues rugby team played Llanelli.  The teams were even so it was a nail biter with Cardiff winning in the end.  There are four professional teams in Wales representing four zones.  From these the national team is selected.  Cardiff has an amateur team called the Blue and Blacks who play the other city and town teams throughout the UK.  I enjoy watching them but the professional game was more intense.

Saturday morning a friend from England joined us for breakfast.  Two of her children were in a swimming meet at the aquatic centre.   Afterwards we did some Christmas shopping in the Christmas market and watched the huge rugby crowd.  In the evening we went to a free concert in Tiger Bay.  The Milford Haven brass band gave a fantastic concert.  We sat next to a band mother so we found out all about the band.  At the end she advised us strongly to visit Milford Haven.  The bus dropped us off outside of city centre as the rugby crowd was still clearing out.

On Sunday after breakfast with our friend from Bewdley, shopping at the Riverside Market, and declining a post church invitation for lunch we went back to Tiger Bay for another free concert at the Millennium Centre.  It was the launch concert for “Cwlwm Celtaidd” which will run in Porthcawl at the end of February.  There was Welsh Dance as well as some great Welsh music.  The band was called ‘dros dro’.  I looked it up and it means temporary.  Cwlwm Celtaidd is a Celtic festival involving music and dance from all six Celtic nations.  Last year there were dance workshops put on by a number of the nations - I might try one.

Sunday night curry supper for charity.  We each paid fifteen pounds for a fantastic curry meal to help support a cause that our sixth form is championing.  A lot of students, parents and teaching staff were there and a couple of students supplied excellent music followed by a pub-quiz.  I didn’t know the answers to any of the questions except what ocean sockeye salmon would be found.  Kind of close to home, eh?

Tuesday night I tried out Brotherhood MMA down the road. And you can see by their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BROTHERHOODMMA they specialise in training MMA fighters.  I was made welcome and we had a good training session.  A lot of the moves I am used to are grappling moves or BJJ moves so the instructor corrected me.  He was Welsh so when he said to pin the persons yur I wasn’t sure if I was to pin him here (yur) or bight off his ear (yur) or go away and come back next year (yur).

This weekend?:  striking for MMA; harp concert at St. Johns; birthday party at Ty Mawr; carol service at St Johns; choir at Tiger Bay; Wales vs All Blacks across the street; stir-up at the Welsh museum in St Fagans; and Sunday night hockey at the Bay.  Monday I have an eight and a half restful day at work.

Summer 2014

Summer holidays in Wales are a lot shorter than in Canada and the summer weather ends at the end of July.  I have been told that the Welsh word for July means “end of the summer”.

Canal Boating

Our children with spouses joined us for two weeks.  The first week I was in school so they visited a lot of places near Cardiff. The night the first group of kids arrived was a Saturday at about 10:15 se we went to the Cottage to wait for them.  St Mary’s street was barricaded to traffic and there were screaming young people running all over the place.  Apparently it was a quiet night because the university students are out of town.  The next day they joined us in church and later that week the pastor organised a pub night in Cardiff bay where some of the younger people socialised with our children.

The day after school ended (the year end assembly followed by the staff lunch and the staff meeting at the Buffalo for drinks was great) we left for Ellesmere, north of Shrewsbury.  The train took us to Gobown and we were to take a bus from there.  While we were at the bus stop a person across the street asked where we were going and pointed out that what we would pay for bus was more than a taxi so taxi it was.

The B&B in Ellesmere was also a pub-restaurant and the publican was a chatty sort and, upon finding out we were Canadian asked Matt if he played hockey.  When Matt said “no but I wrestled” the publican said “so did I”.  It seems that he knew Matt’s coach and they knew a lot of the same people.  They reserved an excellent table for us for dinner and the first round of drinks were paid for by the owner.  The next night was “quiz night” and they talked us into being part of that.  It was so much fun – when we did get an answer right it was because another table (or the quiz master) told us the right answer!

The canal boat trip was a wonderful time and we will do it again.  Our destination was Llangollen (very difficult to pronounce).  Although a little nerve wracking at first boating is leisurely.  We went through a few locks and over some high aqueducts on the trip.  Most of us were renters but one couple we met sold their house ten years ago to live on their canal boat and don’t regret it.  We spent two nights in Llangollen and saw the sights.  Some went on a steam train and a couple of us walked a few miles to an old monastery.  The monastery was well laid out and a lot of it intact.  Early in the morning I climbed the hill to view the castle (Castell Bran – raven castle?).  It was very peaceful and gave a fantastic view of a number of valleys.  I wonder why it lasted only a few years.  We also visited a castle on the way back.  

Carolene spent a lot of her time over the last year planning this trip and we all appreciate her for this.

Short Trips

The rest of the summer was short trips around here.  We almost went to the Eisteddfod in Llanelli but it was rainy and we have  no boots.

We did a day trip to what the English call Llantwit Major (Llanilltud Fawr) and toured around the town.  We popped into the church again.  Since we were there last time they opened up the west end with some ancient crosses that had been discovered.  The volunteer was just about to leave to make cawl for her husband but gave us a brief tour.  Two hours later we insisted she feed her poor man.  She was a fantastic source of church history and welsh history.  Since we are not High Church she had to explain a lot.  We then went to the Old Swan Inn for lunch.  A pub has been here since the 11^th century and the current building is very old.  The food was terrific.

I have a book from the library on Cardiff suburbs and we have been making day trips in the city.  One trip was to an iron-age hill fort in the west part of town.  I actually didn’t find the fort but I found the old church that has been re-built and re-vandalised many times.

During the summer Cardiff bus runs a special on Sundays to Brecon that we took a couple of weeks ago.  We didn’t plan for hiking but a girl on the bus told us about several good hikes that we hope to make next year.  We enjoyed Brecon and had lunch at a ‘good old boys’ pub.  Sunday lunch there was terrific.  Sunday lunches are always great.  In the afternoon we ventured up to the church as it is a major attraction.  We had just enough time to view it before the afternoon sung service.  A large choir from Much Wenlock was there (I didn’t know there were that many people in Much Wenlock).

I stumbled on a news article about a week long Celtic Congress that was meeting in Cardiff.  I contacted the organiser and got permission to attend and pay by the day.  It was interesting and fun.  I even got to make use of my Welsh lessons – sort of.  There was an all Celtic church service at the Welsh Tabernacle that Carolene joined me for.  We even tried to sing the hymns.

In the City

There is always something going on here in Cardiff.  The whole summer is the Cardiff Festival.  Sand is trucked into the plaza in Cardiff Bay with all sorts of rides for the kids.  We often like to walk down the Taff river to the Bay to enjoy the place.  Last week we heard the three counties youth orchestra.  I have never heard such a good youth orchestra.  Eli Jenkins pub is there (google Rev Eli Jenkins prayer) although most people go to the larger gastro pubs.  In the Tiger Bay days most pubs had sawdust on the floor and boxing rings.  Only one of the original pubs is left.  It has a nice interior now with a friendly, rowdy group at the bar.

We are finding the district of Pontcanna a nice place.  It is quite Welsh.  In Coffee #1 I heard cymraeg being spoken.  On Mondays there is a welsh string group that practices in the Cayo pub.  They often sing in Welsh.  Y Mochen Du (black pig) is a pub where welsh speakers congregate.  You don’t get beer you get cwrw. 

The other night we and a couple of younger friends (Carolene helped them move the other week) went on a Ghost Tour of Cardiff Castle.  It started at 10:00 pm and ended at 1:00 am.  It was excellent.  We got into places that are normally closed to the public and heard all the stories.  It was well worth it.  I didn’t hear or see anything but a few people on the tour felt stuff.  When we entered a room the guide told us to turn our torches off and he told us all about the things reputed to have happened in that room.

Cardiff hosted a “super cup” football match between Madrid and Saville.  The city centre was full of Spanish football fans partying all day.

Carolene’s New Thing

I was actually happy to leave our garden in Canada behind.  Here in an apartment there is not a garden.  What people do is rent an allotment (there is a waiting list) and drive down to the allotment and do their gardening.  Our vicar has an allotment and it is all weeds.  Carolene volunteered to clean it up which means I do too!  May God reward my actions and not punish my thoughts.

Rugby Sevens

Sunday I went to a “Rugby 7s” tournament at Cardiff Arms Park.  The preliminary games were 7 minutes per half and the game was very fast.  I remember playing this in  junior high school in North Vancouver.  The first round of eight games were very uneven probably because of seeding.  The subsequent rounds of the single knockout tournament were a little more even.

Summer is Over

Today we will travel to Malvern to visit a number of friends from seventeen years ago then it is back to school.  I am looking forward to school and finding out what this year will produce.  I have already had a teacher dream but this one was optimistic!