Welshing on you...

It was Saint David's Day yesterday, so I thought I'd write a little bit about Welshness. I'm not Welsh but I do have a few of the attributes that are a necessity to the Land of our (their) fathers. Firstly, I can be a right miserable git, but there's more, much, much more. 

I'm sat here in my freezing cottage being pelted by rain and surrounded by daffs and leeks as an old lady plays her harp in the corner wearing the full national dress with one of those funny - not quite witchy - Welsh hats perched on her bonneted head. A male voice choir dressed in Welsh rugby shirts are singing along to that plucking harp whilst Max Boyce is holding forth, telling jokes about Eisteddfods and conducting a group of miners with picks, Davey lamps, and canaries in cages who keep wandering in and out (is that pit pony poo over there?). As yet neither Aled Jones nor Bryn Terfel has arrived, but I'm hoping that foxy yum-yum songbird Catherine Jenkins (aka Octopus - I'd like to get my hands on that calamari to munch with some laverbread) will arrive to join in the joyous Saint David's (Dewi to his mates) Day celebrations.

Of course, the talk is of sheep, who has died, who is about to die, who will die if they don't stop doing this, that, or the other, how the chapel organ has mice (English mice no less), funerals, the rain, the wind, the wind and rain, rugby, poetry (mainly Dylan Thomas - Do not go gentle into that good night, blah, blah, blah) the best way to make Bara Brith, and how to carve a love spoon from the trunk of a Quercus Petraea, one of two Oaks that are native to the UK and has been designated as the Welsh national tree, hence Welsh Oak. Fortunately, thus far, there has been no mention of either Gavin or Stacey popping in because if that bloody James Corden turns up I may well beat him to death with one of the three legs from my spinning wheel.

So no, yes, I'm not Welsh, although I am a descendent of the Robertseseses, which is probably close enough, and I can order a pint of beer in Welsh (peint o gwrw os gwelwch yn dda) and say 'Rhechan fel ci defaid ar jaen gwta' (farting like a sheepdog on a short chain), 'Mewn cachiad' (in the shit), 'Fel ci a dau goc' (like a dog with two dicks) and various other phrases that are useful in daily life (you can look these up). My favourite is Coc y gath - the cats cock (hello Idris, why are you strutting around like the cat's cock? Mine's a peint o gwrw os gwelwch yn dda). Ah, Men of Harlech, Dai bach.

So there we have it, I'm not Welsh by birth but a (coal) mine of information about  Welshness and all things Welsh because I love Wales. Right, I'm off to catch a Welsh Rarebit for my tea (if I can stop it leaping all over the place in the field). 'Hapus Dydd Gŵyl Dewi' to you all.