Pump am y Penwythnos / Friday Five 01/02/19 5️⃣

Welsh General / Questions
#1

Bore da! Are you snowed in? Are you lost in the polar vortex? Are you baking in an Australian summer? I hope that whatever weather conditions you’re facing over the weekend that you’re able to make the most of it.

  1. What’s the most symbolic item in your living room.

  2. it’s the weekend! Anything special on the menu? :spaghetti:

  3. Name five random things you can see from where you’re sitting.

  4. Share a song for the weekend. With a video link if there is one, and lyrics if you havevthem, giving reason for your choice.

  5. The sight of a buzzard circling above fills me with joy, even though they’re common and I see them several times a week. What simple/common things fill you with joy?

  6. Make up your own travel related Friday Five question and answer it.

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#2

What’s the most symbolic item in your living room

I’ll define living room as the room I’m living in right now :slight_smile:
In the kitchen-diner window sill, there are several items of interest.

  • A retro hand coffee grinder that I saw online and dropped heavy hints to get for Christmas. I use it for real, but it also works as a window sill ornament.
  • Salt and pepper pots in the form of Welsh Ladies, who help me remember the words “halen” and “pupur”.
  • a porcelain bowl from Mont St Michel with the name of our grandson on (translated into French with a simple e-acute accent :slight_smile: ). We used to give him porridge in it when we looked after him, but continual bashing with a spoon (!) broke one of the handle-thingies. I superglued it back on (quite well, I thought), but he was no longer allowed to use it on safety grounds. We keep it in the window as a little reminder of him and his spoon-bashing, and this is nice because (just this week actually) he moved to France (not to Mont St Michel though). Wisely, he took his mummy and daddy with him. Wisely because (a) he’s only 20 months old, and (b) his daddy has got a new job out there, and I think you actually have to turn up in order to get paid.

it’s the weekend! Anything special on the menu? :spaghetti:

Efallai ddim.

Name five random things you can see from where you’re sitting.
Head torch
bone-conducting earphones
scissors
a pile of papers awaiting (ahem) sorting
bookshelf (with Welsh books in, among other books).

Share a song for the weekend. With a video link if there is one, and lyrics if you have them, giving reason for your choice.

“Right Said Fred” by Bernard Cribbins (mainly because it used to make me laugh, way back, and perhaps partly because I noticed in the newspaper the other day that, incredibly, BC is still working at the age of 90. Sorry about the audio quality, and for the lack of lyrics.

The sight of a buzzard circling above fills me with joy, even though they’re common and I see them several times a week. What simple/common things fill you with joy?

The scents of spring (still some way off!). Blue skies, green hills, water flowing somewhere. Shade available if I want it; sun if I don’t.

Make up your own travel related Friday Five question and answer it.
Oh, that’s easy:
Where are you going next week?
Manosque, in the south of France, in Provence, north of Aix, and even further north of Marseilles. I’m not sure what the weather is going to be like. I’ve been reading my Peter Mayle, and it seems they can have mild winters, but not always! They had snow the other day, but rain today. hmm…

(and we have snow today, which might be melting…or it might not be).

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#3

A retro hand coffee grinder

Is it a Spong? I use mine several times a week - much better result than electric spinning cutter job - it actually “grinds” :smile:

I’m jealous of your trip to “Le Midi” - Bon sejour :sunny:

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#4

I’m not sure. The leaflet I got with it doesn’t seem to have a brand name (unless it’s in Chinese - there is a lot of Chinese in this leaflet!), if I look in Amazon, it looks very much like this one:

(other coffee grinders, and other vendors are available :slight_smile: )

but I’m not 100% sure if that’s the one that was ordered on my behalf.

I just fell in love with the look of the thing. It does take a while to get enough coffee out of it to make a full cafetiere, but I can kid myself I’m getting exercise and not simply indulging my coffee habit. It’s a lot quieter than the grinder attachment we used to have for our ancient blender, and I like to think the coffee tastes a bit better than when I use ready-ground coffee.

Merci mon ami! :slight_smile:

We do not know this part of France at all, so it’s quite an adventure. I’m never quite sure where Le Midi starts and ends. As well as re-reading Peter Mayle, I’m also re-reading John P Harris, who wrote “An Englishman in the Midi” and “More from an Englishman in the Midi”, which were based on talks he gave on Radio 4 which I used to listen to. He was writing at a similar time to Peter Mayle, and was, I suppose a sort of rival, but in a more minor key - he didn’t achieve the celebrity status that Peter Mayle did. But both are very entertaining writers though, in their slightly different ways.

I loved the story John Harris told in which he allowed himself to be talked into taking on the (purely voluntary and unpaid) job of winding the clock in one of the public buildings in the small town or village where he was living. He was a writer, and the local people, who liked to label or categorise people, couldn’t really properly categorise him as a writer - well, it’s not a “proper job” is it? But once he had taken on the job of winding (and taking care of) the clock - well, from then on he was “The Englishman who wound the clock”, and all was well. He slotted neatly into their community.

Peter Mayle told a nice story in which, after he’d been living in Provence for a good many decades, he took the risky step of asking one of his long-time neighbours (and, we assume, friends), what he thought of him.

“Ah bon”, came the reply, “well, you’re English of course, and that is unfortunate…but we like you a lot better than we like the Parisians!”.

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#5

1. What’s the most symbolic item in your living room.
There’s a patch of broken sandy concrete under the rug that symbolises part of a floor.
2. it’s the weekend! Anything special on the menu?
Cloncedigion! :partying_face:
Then packing things and moving them to the shed in preparation for having the floors dug out. :cold_sweat:
3. Name five random things you can see from where you’re sitting.
Backstrap loom with disastrous attempt attached
A bird skull in alcohol
Drawing pins
Kindling
Plaster models of my children’s hands
4. Share a song for the weekend. With a video link if there is one, and lyrics if you havevthem, giving reason for your choice.
JJ Cale, The Breeze. Because I ain’t hiding from nobody, ain’t nobody hiding from me. Or because I’m travelling tomorrow. One of those.


5. The sight of a buzzard circling above fills me with joy, even though they’re common and I see them several times a week. What simple/common things fill you with joy?
Rice pudding just did. But I’m at a delicate age. It’s either joy, rage or tears. Anything could trigger any one of those at any time.
6. Make up your own travel related Friday Five question and answer it.
Should I try to drive the car down the hill tomorrow morning?
The answer is either:
a) Of course. It’s a landrover, it’ll be fine; or
b) Are you mad? It’s a sheet of ice, you darn fool!
I haven’t decided which is the right answer yet.
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#6

What’s the most symbolic item in your living room.
Not really an item but more of a concept … family. It’s a lived-in living room.

It’s the weekend! Anything special on the menu? :spaghetti:
I’ll assume with the spaghetti emoji you mean food … Saturday night is always a take-away so I guess it’s Indian food this week. Sunday we’re off to the cinema so that usually includes some fast food or other. Nothing exciting.

Name five random things you can see from where you’re sitting.
I’m in bed so let’s see …
A tube of hand cream.
A guitar.
A pile of books.
My wife.
My feet.

Share a song for the weekend. With a video link if there is one, and lyrics if you have them, giving reason for your choice.
Hurt by Johnny Cash


"I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real

The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liars chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair

Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I will keep myself
I would find a way"

This is my go-to video if I need to reset my emotions. I watch it a lot these days.

The sight of a buzzard circling above fills me with joy, even though they’re common and I see them several times a week. What simple/common things fill you with joy?
The moon. No matter what phase she is in she’s always beautiful. I lose myself in her gaze whenever I see her.

Make up your own travel related Friday Five question and answer it.
Q. Why has the moral burden of air travel made my dream destinations seem so far away?
A. Stop over thinking everything, ya dork!

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#7

1. What’s the most symbolic item in your living room.
Me. :smiley:
2. it’s the weekend! Anything special on the menu?
Vegetable & bean pie, apparently (a wartime recipe for Woolton Pie)
& Christmas pudding!!
3. Name five random things you can see from where you’re sitting.
Snow.
Books & files.
A letter reply from our MP.
A piece of knapped flint used as a paperweight.
A tube of Ibuprofen gel three years out-of-date, which ought never to have been on the desk in the first place.
4. Share a song for the weekend. With a video link if there is one, and lyrics if you have them, giving reason for your choice.
‘Afterglow’ by the Small Faces, the most underrated band of the 60s.

5. The sight of a buzzard circling above fills me with joy, even though they’re common and I see them several times a week. What simple/common things fill you with joy?
Walking the downs here on Ynys Wyth on a fine day (which can include spotting buzzards).
A good response from an audience when I’ve been working on a talk for the previous six months. (It’s always clear when it’s the opposite!)
‘Stan and Oliie’ film, currently showing - heartwarming. Steve Coogan was inspiring as Stan Laurel - never would have guessed he had it in him!
6. Make up your own travel related Friday Five question and answer it.
Q. Some people are making heroic long-distance journeys in the snow this weekend. What’s yours?
A. 400 yards in wellies to the village shop. :smile:

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#8

Oh! That went completely over my head.

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#9

Great answers :smile:

What’s the most symbolic item in your living room.
Me. :smiley:

Dare we ask what you symbolise? :laughing:

#10

Well I really did ask for that, didn’t I? :wink:
I reckon it would have to be: the triumph of hope over experience, especially the hope of one day being able to speak and write Welsh reasonably fluently! :roll_eyes:
(On a slightly more serious note, there’s the tradition both east and west of each man or woman being a microcosm of the universe - but I certainly wasn’t thinking of anything so profound - or indeed anything much at all - when I stuck that original answer down! :grinning:)

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