Well there I was, minding my own business, on my way to my semi-regular German conversation group, listening to SSiW (like you do - Cwrs un newydd gog). I’d taken a slight detour from my usual; route, and found myself passing the end of a rear access road, and planted at the bottom of someone’s garden was a massive flag Cymraeg flying proudly in the wind. I went up closer, but there was no one in sight to ask, and I didn’t really have any business being there, so I made myself scarce. Unfortunately, because of the way the buildings are laid out, I could not positively identify the front of the house - there were no obvious clues (such as another flag in the front garden!).
Had there been, since I’m still gung-ho from Tresaith, I might have plucked up the courage to knock.
So if there is anyone on the forum who lives in Summertown, Oxford, and has a draig goch planted in their back garden, please give me a shout and maybe we can have a siarad wyneb i wyneb some time.
A few years ago I was driving down a street near me and saw a Welsh flag flying outside a house. I didn’t have time to stop, and when I went down the same road a few days later, the flag was gone, and I hadn’t made a mental note of which house had flown it. Hope you have better luck than I did!
On my way home from Paignton station a couple of weeks back I spotted one of the houses I walk past is called Cartref. I have been umming and aahing over whether to pop a note through the door.
My in-laws used to call their house “Dyma ni”, and in their case, a friendly knock at the door, and a “bore da” would definitely have ensured a paned and a siared, in enthusiastic, if possibly not quite perfect Cymraeg.
(And they were as “English” as I am, BTW :-)).
Funny how emboldening the prospect of speaking Welsh is!
Start a conversation with a total stranger? …no, no, I couldn’t, I don’t have the confidence.
Start a conversation with a stranger who might speak Welsh? PUT THE KETTLE ON, I HAVE BISCUITS.
Amy: Funny how emboldening the prospect of speaking Welsh is!
I totally agree with you Amy! I launch myself into conversations with Welsh-speaking strangers that I never would have had the confidence to do in English. I think it’s got something to do with the saying: ‘ignorance is bliss’!
Amy J:
Start a conversation with a total stranger? …no, no, I couldn’t, I don’t have the confidence.
Start a conversation with a stranger who might speak Welsh? PUT THE KETTLE ON, I HAVE BISCUITS.
Hope you have better luck than I did!
