March 1st marks St. David’s Day, which honours the patron saint of Wales. To mark this occasion, I thought that I’d do a round-up of posts that I’ve done on this blog that focus on Wales.
I have talked about what home and belonging mean on this blog a few times. I grew up in Scotland and regularly visited Ireland when I was younger as both my parents are from there. Wales was a country that I did not know much about when I was growing up, but it is now a place that I consider home. Among other things, it is where my wife and I met, got married and became parents. In a blog post entitled Seamus Heaney, Haggis and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, I talked about my feelings towards the various Celtic countries with which I have connections.
Since moving to Wales in 2007, I have learned Welsh and my wife and I are bringing up our son using both Welsh and English. It is likely that a significant amount of his school education will be provided through Welsh. Consequently, he should soon be able to pronounce the name of the village whose railway station is pictured above. One of my most popular posts on this page was one called Being a Bilingual Parent in which I talked about the fun challenges that are part of bringing up our son bilingually. A few months later, I did a follow-up post entitled Being a multilingual and multimedia parent. Only last week, I returned to the topic of bilingualism with a blog post in which I described my attempts to learn more kid jokes in Welsh.
Thankfully, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is not an entirely typical local place name. If it were, a significant chunk of the local councils’ budget would have to be spent on road signs. As it is, there are also some villages with quite short names. Over on Anglesey, there’s a village called Star and in Gwynedd there’s a village called Sling. As my wife and I are both keen on baby wearing, it only seemed right that we should go on a special visit to the village of Sling to mark International Baby Wearing Week. Basically, I insisted that we should go there so as we got some photos our son in a sling next to the Sling sign in the village.
Next week, I will blog about how we end up celebrating our first St. David’s Day as a family and where we decide to do so. The video above shows how residents of the village of Bala plan to mark March 1st by making the largest ever Welsh Cake. There are also various local tourist attractions such as castles that will be free to visit on St. David’s Day, so we’ve got a few options. Indeed,if we had called our son David or Dewi then he could have got free entry to watch one of our local football teams.
What are the important national holidays and events that you enjoy celebrating in your country? Are there any events that are really important to you and your family where you live? Please feel free to share your views in the comments section below or on the ‘Dad’s The Way I Like It’ pages on Facebook or Google+.
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Feb 27, 2014 @ 17:42:49
Dw’im yn meddwl taw Dewi yw fersiwn Cymraeg ‘David’. Dafydd yw pob ‘David’ yn y Beibl. Daw’r enw Saesneg ‘Dewey’ o Dewi, ond dw’im yn siwr os mae Dewi’n dod o Dafydd neu o rywle arall. S’wn i’n deud ddim.
Feb 27, 2014 @ 18:42:22
Diolch am dy sylwadau, Adam. Ella, mae’n well dweud jyst bod Dewi Sant yn fersiwn Cymraeg o ‘Saint David’ – beth ydy dy farn dy?
Feb 27, 2014 @ 21:54:29
I’m from Canada but have spent 2 years in Japan and have been in Northern Ireland the last 10 years. March 3rd is Hina Matsuri in Japan (Girls’s Day). We’ve made some HIna dolls this week to celebrate (I’ll be posting them on my blog tomorrow). So we celebrate many occasions from around the world! Tomorrow we’ll also be making Welsh cakes and taking them to our Welsh librarian, I’ll refrain from doing a Welsh dance I learned as a child though ;-).
Happy St. David’s Day!
Feb 27, 2014 @ 21:57:22
Thanks for your comment, it’s fascinating to learn about the other festivals that take place in early March. Hope your librarian likes the Welsh cakes. I might make some over the weekend as well although I think that I burnt the griddle pan last time I tried it!
Mar 02, 2014 @ 09:03:12
I hope you had a great day! Our Welsh cakes tasted good but were a bit on the black side for sharing this time ;-( But we’l try again another day for a surprise.
Feb 28, 2014 @ 20:58:46
St. David’s Day marks the second day of carnival here in Brazil. I am insisting that we have pancakes on Tuesday as this is obviously far better than the Brazilian tradition.
Feb 28, 2014 @ 21:05:13
It’s great to hear about other events that more or less coincide with St. David’s Day. We’re now thinking of giving the ‘world’s biggest Welsh cake’ record attempt in Bala a miss and instead going to Llandudno for a St. David’s Day pancake race. I’m about to look out our frying pan as we’ll need it we’re going to take part.
Feb 28, 2014 @ 21:31:49
Wow, am so impressed you’ve learnt Welsh! My 90 year old Grandma is Welsh and even she doesn’t speak it (she lives in the Valleys still :)) Over from #PoCoLo
Feb 28, 2014 @ 21:33:33
Thanks for commenting and dropping by. It’s been a fun challenge learning Welsh since moving here.
Mar 02, 2014 @ 14:18:50
Man, I wanna live in Wales just to try that cake – is that bad? Congrats on the nom, Fingers crossed. Big thanks for linking up with us again for #SundayTraveler!
Mar 02, 2014 @ 21:17:24
Thanks. I’ve just made some smaller versions of the big cake and will mention them in another blog post about Wales in the next few days. They’re really easy to make. I look forward to checking out the other #SundayTraveler posts.
Mar 02, 2014 @ 17:08:54
I love wales and have been a couple of times for rock climbing and one of my first consulting jobs was in Wales. I find the language just fascinating. I wouldn’t even know where to begin in pronouncing this word; Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch :O
KÖLNER DOM | COLOGNE CATHERDRAL
Mar 02, 2014 @ 21:15:36
Thanks for commenting, I’ll try to check out your post about Cologne. I’ve been to Germany about five or six times but never to Cologne.
As Welsh pronunciation is a lot more regular than English, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is pronounced just the way it is spelled 🙂
Mar 02, 2014 @ 19:48:38
I think it is fantastic that you have learnt Welsh and are keeping the heritage alive 🙂 thank you for linking to PoCoLo 🙂
Mar 02, 2014 @ 21:13:47
Thanks, it’s been a fun challenge learning Welsh and I hope it’ll help our son feel comfortable with the language too.
Mar 05, 2014 @ 19:06:39
Oh man gracious, and I thought German had some super long words!
Mar 09, 2014 @ 17:39:23
I’ve heard about the compound nouns in German! That long place name is unique and somewhat contrived as it was invented for the sake of creating a really long name.
Mar 05, 2014 @ 20:33:51
Ha ha! On seeing the title I thought this was going to be either a Welsh separatist or British Unionist blog post!! Glad to see it was neither!
Mar 06, 2014 @ 09:23:26
That’s the post I’m doing next week 🙂 Don’t worry, only joking! I just decided that with St. David’s Day coming up, it’d be a good idea to do a compilation of posts I’d done about Wales.
Mar 06, 2014 @ 05:25:37
I still haven’t made it to Wales…I hope to one day though! Thanks for linking up to the #SundayTraveler 🙂
Mar 09, 2014 @ 17:32:14
Thanks for commenting, I always enjoy seeing the posts from so many different places that are part of Sunday Traveler.
Mar 10, 2014 @ 20:23:21
Helo!
Rydw i’n byw yn Ne Ffrainc efo fy mhlant bach ac yn siarad Cymraeg efo nhw. Ma nhw am (gobeithio!) siarad Cymraeg, Ffrangeg a Saesneg! Ma’n bwysig i mi cadw’r iaith Gymraeg fynd efo nhw gan bod fy nheulu i adre nol yng Nghymru yn siarad Cymraeg efo’n gilydd, ac ma’n teimlo’n naturiol i mi, er nad yw’n hawdd mewn ardal/gwlad lle does neb yn siarad Cymraeg!
Mar 16, 2014 @ 14:54:53
Helo a diolch am eich sylwadau. Mae’n helpu llawer byw mewn ardal lle mae yna gymaint o ddigwyddiadau i deuluoedd yn y Gymraeg. Lle yn Ffrainc ydych chi? Roeddwn i fyw yn Lille am sbel.
Mar 16, 2014 @ 13:13:27
Every week I check out your posts and every week I find myself day dreaming about a trip to Wales. Your country sounds lovely!
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
Mar 16, 2014 @ 14:45:42
Thank you for commenting, we’re really lucky to live in such a great place to raise kids.