Happy St. David's Day

I was on welcoming duty at church today so I carefully practised and used the phrase, "Hapus Dydd Dewi Sant".

I was very pleased with myself. Until I discovered that the correct way to say it is, "Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!"

Ah, well, I tried.

Everyone was invited to stay on afterwards for cawl (Welsh for soup, traditionally made with lamb, leeks, and other vegetables) and bara brith (literally speckled bread, the name comes from the fruit that goes into it).

Sandra, one of our florally gifted ladies, made little arrangements for the tables.

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Yesterday was gorgeous so I began tidying the fruit patch.

I have a cunning plan for the bit at the far end but I haven't it to Husband yet and I need his help. Well, I could do it myself but I'm sure there's a saying about that.

Then in the afternoon we walked with Elder Son, GrandSon3, and Theo to Crawley woods.

My first violets of the year

Elder Son enjoyed himself.

Pretend hockey?

My last post drew a couple of what I think are erroneous comments. I'm looking at you, Debra and AnvilCloud!

I did some research. Until recently hockey, in its various forms, was the third most popular sport in the world. It was recently overtaken by basketball.

The origins of hocky go back thousands of years with a sort of hockey being played in Ancient Egypt. Lots of nations put their own spin on it and it wasn't until the mid 19th century that field hockey as we would recognise became popular, largely in British public schools.

Ice hockey also came from the stick games like hurling and shinty and was played, probably a bit earlier than field hockey.

However there are between 1.5 to 2 million ice hockey players in the world today compared to 30 million field hockey players. Just saying.

I played hockey in school. Proper hockey that is! On a field on top of the hill (mountain) exposed to the elements. In my navy knickers and vest! All weathers. 

I say I played hockey; I took as long as it was possible to take changing beforehand to delay going out onto that field with some girls who were seriously tough. And because I was scared of the ball I stayed out of the action if I could. Which was easy as no-one ever passed to me.

* * * * *

I've been for a little outing today. A group, ten, of us ladies from church went to an art exhibition in Rhosilli followed by lunch together.

The last exhibition I went to there was very good but this one wasn't to most of our tastes. I did like the writing that accompanied it though.

This last one was my favourite mainly because of the words: From the stillness before time, chaos let go, and creation awakened. What beauty might emerge if you, too, allowed yourself to let go?

From the church it was a short walk down the road to the café for lunch. I'd ordered the Welsh rarebit and it was delicious.

The weather outside was frightful . . .

Good old hockey sticks

It was fine. I don't know what I was bothered about! Ha ha, no, it was okay. Puffy frozen mouth now but on the whole fine.

Another different dentist and she was nice. Kept reassuring me and telling me I was doing great: I think she noticed my shoulders tensing up to my ears at regular intervals. That was involuntary, a natural response, I think, to stress, and the potential for pain or discomfort.

I had to stop at a shop on the way back to buy extra milk and I popped into the charity shop as well. Of course. 

I used to love my Judy comics as a child and I wondered if GrandDaughter2 might enjoy reading the annual. I suspect that, even though this one is only from 1992 and not my childhood, it will still have outdated ideas that GrandDaighter2 won't understand or care about. But I'll read it first anyway. Dream of the fab life I'd have had if I'd been able to go to a spiffing boarding-school and have late night tuck parties, after we'd won the hockey championship beating our old rivals, even though their captain had employed various devious cheats to ensure their victory.

To be born Welsh

I have a dentist's appointment at 12.15 so, obviously, I can't settle to anything. 

I am having two fillings: one top right, one bottom left, if I recall correctly. I will probably be speechless afterwards. I hate going to the dentist. I might not have been badly hurt by one since my childhood but it's just the discomfort, the wanting to swallow, the how-many-things-can-I-get-in-your-mouth-at-once uckiness of it all.

The last dentist I saw, the one who diagnosed the decay, lacked a bedside manner. I hope my original dentist is back from maternity leave. Also 12.15 is not a good time. She will be hungry. 

I am occupying myself by preparing the church newsletter. I am filling it full of Welsh stuff as it's Dydd Dewi Sant (Day David's Saint) on Sunday. There's a famous Welsh saying slightly adapted from the first verse of a poem: 

To be born Welsh is to be born privileged.
Not with a silver spoon in your mouth,
But music in your heart and poetry in your soul.

You'll find it only tea-towels, coasters, mugs, any sort of souvenir. The original poem, In Passing by Brian Harris, is lot more depressing than it begins. Like this verse:

This Land of our Fathers was built on coal.

Its rivers of mingled blood and sweat

Have forever darkened it,

Relieved only by death.

But we've got music and poetry so that's fine.

Add electrician to my CV

I was opening up Zac's last night and I arrived there (ten minutes early) to find three people already waiting. 

Inside I discovered that the urn, though it had come on, was still cold, and the lights in the corridor and, crucially, toilets weren't working.

Did I panic? No. Well not a lot. 

After an initial dodgy moment when no matter how much arm waving I did the lights didn't come on (they're movement sensored) I had a brainwave! Perhaps a fuse had blown.

Amazingly I knew where the fusebox was and, sure, enough, one of the little switches that should have been up was down. I flicked it up and, hey presto, the lights came on. When Sean arrived he wondered what the problem had been to make the fuse go but that was of little importance to me: the lights were on and that was what mattered. Someone else could sort out the underlying problem tomorrow.

I still had the urn to resolve. I turned it up high and began boiling the kettle. One kettle doesn't go far when you're making sixteen hot drinks but by the time the urn came to temperature we were going home. And people kept asking me questions and half-doing things but not finishing them. Fortunately there was a big bowl of chocolates on the counter. (Yes, I did put them there.) I make have eaten more than my share but I felt I deserved it.

It's Sean's birthday on Thursday so we had cake to celebrate.

Hedgehogs, owls, and lupins

On her blog Janice talks about a hedgehog her son made in school. I commented that my son had made one in school too. I was wrong.

It was an owl. And now I think about it, it might have been Daughter who made it. I have this little collection on display.

Owl, house, and skateboarder. One ear and one arm missing but not bad for pieces more than thirty years old.

Janice also mentioned that they used to see hedgehogs in their garden but not any more. It's the same here. When we bought the house from the previous owners they said to leave a piece of wood leading from the light cover on the swimming pool to the edge so hedgehogs, who'd been attracted by the water, could get out. If we forgot we would occasionally find a hedgehog in the bottom of the pool. But we don't get that any more. No hedgehogs. We also used to see more bats.

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It's turned out to be a lovely, mild, sunny day. After hanging out the washing I took a turn around the garden and spotted this raindrop on the lupin leaf.

Pinocchio Day

As it's Pinocchio Day I thought I'd revisit some old photos.

On this date in 1940 Walt Disney released its film of the same name - which incidentally won two Academy Awards. The film is a disneyfied version of a much blacker tale by Carlo Collodi that was first serialised in magazines for children in 1881, before the book was published in 1883.

Back in 2022 we visited the family in Italy and took a trip out to Vernante, the home in later life of the illustrator, Attilio Mussini, who gave new life to the character of Pinocchio in the edition of the book published in 1911.

After his death in 1954 local artists painted murals of his work on the walls in the town. Since then more and more murals have appeared, some of them quite grim.

Eccentricity for good

Some people, including members of my immediate family, say I'm eccentric already, but when I read that eccentricity is good for you, I have to say, "Hooray to that."

In an article on the BBC website experts explain the benefits of eccentricity. In exercise that is. Let me explain it as I understand the principle. When you lift a weight, say in a bicep curl (muscles contracting), that's concentric exercise; when you lower the weight (muscles lengthening) that's eccentric.

I mention this in particular in relation to my previous post and the walking uphill versus walking downhill discussion. 

From the article:

In one study, participants were asked to either walk up or down the stairs of a 10-storey building, and use a lift in the other direction. They did this twice a week. Amazingly, after 12 weeks, it was the group walking down the stairs that were fitter. 

The group walking downstairs improved their muscle strength by 34%, over twice as much as the group walking upstairs! That’s much more than you would expect from normal exercise. Studies have also shown that eccentric exercise can improve mobility surprisingly quickly – more so than exercises that only focus on stretching.

And with less strain on the heart. The article went into lots more detail but ended with this advice:

One simple thing you can try is the sit-stand challenge: lower yourself down into your chair slowly, then stand up at normal speed. It seems easy but try this enough times and you’ll feel surprisingly sore afterwards.

So walking down the mountain would have been better for us!

* * * * *

An excellent day for collecting driftwood on the beach as the tide is high and there have been storms out at sea, so the beach is littered. So much so that some kind souls built a sheltered bench on the beach out of driftwood.

I was on the lookout for the perfect pieces of driftwood for a cross. I'd already made one but wasn't happy with it, so I was pleased to find some better pieces today.

On the way home with Husband kindly carrying the bigger piece I asked his advice about a base for it. I was coming up with some complicated ideas when it struck me: a Christmas tree stand!

The spare one we have isn't ideal but you get the picture. I will surround the base with stones when it's properly set up. The idea is that it is a prayer cross. We will leave pieces of paper and pens next to it so that anyone who comes in the church hall can leave a prayer request tucked in the string around it, and any requests will be picked up and prayed over by people from the church.