Today's drive

Food in the fridge, petrol in the tank; this morning I went taking photos near the Aon (Aulne) south of Pleiben, noticed on a sign-post 'Ar Stêr Aön' and I've been writing 'An Stêr', easier in 'Cymraeg' with just the 'y' and the 'yr'. As I've been flitting from village to village and chapel to chapel I've been thinking of the book I'm reading, with Ffrancis Payne going around Radnorshire but I lack the intimate knowledge he possessedI have to thank Dai Hawkins once again because I can't think of another book with which i could find such empathy. especially as it touches on my maternal grandmother's early life. The chapels take me back to the early Welsh saints, some who settled, some who returned home, and their Irish colleagues, leaving behind the many 'llans & 'plous', consecrating pagan land with their springs converted to holy wells with supposedly wondrous healing powers. the megalithic 'menhir' standing stonesand Gaulish steles having christian crosses stuck on top by the local priests, and phallic stones for barren wives to rub up against in the chapel grounds. Not being as fit & strong as I was only a few years ago due to accidents & illnesses, I've scolded myself for having visited so many holy wells and not tasted a drop, so today I drank from two. Invariably each chapel has its holy well, while each manor has its private chapel; today I visited a spot where the manor being in a state of dereliction had been cleared and the chapel converted into a gite. I drove past quite a few birds of prey out looking for food, some watching from poles, others hovering, I saw a rabbit still lucky to be alive, and a fox & hedgehog dead in the middle of the road having only recently been run over.

Germanics

After centuries of being estranged from the parent country there's a certain irony that after all historic conflicts including WW1 & 2, plus the 100 years & Franco-Prussian wars, that peaceful co-existence sees London  and Paris amongst others looking to their mother/fatherland Germany for stability, both the English & French states were founded by Germans, England taking its name from the Angles, France from the Franks. On a par perhaps was the ruling German aristocracy in London from the 18th century on having to  persuade the Briish working class in the 20th that Germans were now the enemy after centuies of fighting the French; then there was Philip of Spain, King of England with Mary sending an armada to recover his kingdom, but that's another story.

Saturday Night Pangs

I've had to put going out on a saturday night out of my mind since I ran out of money in August 2010, not easy for someone who hasn't stayed in on a saturday since he was 12 years old watching match of the day in gran's while my mother took her down to the local for an hour or two. I started going around town when I was 13 with a group of us beginning the evening at one of our three cinemas before generally adventuring until the last bus took me home at 11pm. A few years later I joined the drinking hordes in the packed pubs of Merthyr, eventually moving to in Brittany where it became my job and my pleasure to go the other side of the bar for a 30 years term until the fire put the kybosh on that 28 months ago, but as anyone can tell you, putting things out of one's mind is a necessary discipline when the means aren't there, and anyway I should be beginning a new term in the near future. For some reason my mental discipline lapsed while sitting here today, I got saturday night pangs, although with the consolation that the Australia - Cymru/Wales match was televised, disconsolately the score had to remain the same as this morning.

Hughesovka

Written by me to Susan Edwards:

Listening to Roy Noble just now got me thinking of your old friend, hockey playing Michelle, who came into my pub in Brittany 20 years ago; John Hughes & Hughesovka cropped up in the conversation, she was surprised that I knew anything about him & it; today I would be surprised if anybody didn't know anything about them; she told me about your research and the resulting booklet, promising me before leaving that I would be hearing more on the subject, which I did when you sent me this autographed booklet together with an added photo of the oxen driven boiler mentioned by Roy. As you can its a bit charred having got caught up in the fire that destroyed my pub.

Wales & The World

There's something that's been on my mind for many years, a little bugbear, and that is our lack of an international transmitter. It would help Cymru/Wales to play an ever greater part on the world stage, every country sees its necessity and has one except us apparently, there's no 'Wales & the world' without one. We have the aerial on Wenvoe hill that serves domestic purposes only facing north from a position in the south, I have difficulty receiving Radio Wales when out for a drive and I am only just down the road so to speak, in the house there's no longer a problem these days as technology has advanced, we are still however an unequal participent in the world of broadcasting.