We’ve had a couple of lovely days visiting (well, mostly English) friends in Machynlleth. Driving down the coast today, looking for dolphins in New Quay this pm, now sitting on the rocks in the sun - lovely! But not heard any Cymraeg in the towns at all yet…
We’re driving past Tresaith later this afternoon, so could anyone recommend a nice Welsh speaking child friendly eatery for tonight or tomorrow lunch time? (Them we’re staying in Aberporth, before the Llangranog family weekend tomorrow afternoon - where I will definitely catch some Welsh in the wild!)
Those people on bootcamp make regular trips to The Ship (to support local businesses, of course…) We must have spoken Welsh in there, I suppose, but I seem to remember that not all the staff understood us that well (but perhaps that was down to our Welsh?!) The food did look good though, and it’s in a marvellous spot…
The Ship is hit and miss - but they are at least pretty used to having people ask if there are Welsh speakers on duty…
Otherwise, I’d say your best bet is Caffi Emlyn on the A487, a couple of hundred yards south from the road that comes up to the A487 from Tresaith (southern fork!) - definitely child-friendly, definitely Welsh speaking…
Thanks both! The tip about Caffi Emlyn was just a bit too late for tonight but we had a lovely meal at at the Ship. Maybe we’ll try it tomorrow - although the other half liked the Ship so much there were comments to the tune of “food over iaith” so we’ll see!
In fact, we were actually engaged in conversation by a friendly local, who had such a strong accent I tried the Cymraeg thing straight away! When he found out I was learning, he launched into a long story about “these weirdos that come to the canolfan from all over the world… and they’re not allowed to speak a word of Saesneg… whoever heard of anything so silly? There was this one guy who used to come down here and ask us words for things - how else was he meant to learn? And they threw him out… Mad!”
I wonder if anyone actually has been thrown out of bootcamp for talking Saesneg to the guys in the pub - maybe an exaggeration - or a misunderstanding!?
Perfectly good, hearty food in Caffi Emlyn, though…
Ah, yes, that sounds like what we technically call a ‘big fat hairy lie’ - I’m sure it’s grown in the telling…
I don’t think (although it’s been a fair few years since I did the Tresaith gig) that we’ve ever thrown anyone out - we’ve had a small number of people leave over the years, which has always been the right decision for them, I think - but no, never actually requested anyone to leave, although we have had to have the odd very firm conversation about the No English rule (particularly when it impacts on other Bootcampers).
