Last week I visited the lovely Pembrokeshire town of Narberth, not only to browse around the delightful shops and to lunch with friends, but to see the progress being made on the restoration of Narberth Museum. For the last 8 years, the Curator of the Museum and volunteers have worked tirelessly to find a suitable…
Exotic Plants, Haunting Harp…
We’d love to hear what you did on St David’s Day on 1 March! We spent the day at The National Botanic Garden and celebrated by listening to the most beautiful harp playing by Shelley Fairplay before walking up to the Great Glasshouse, Hellebores in abundance and banks of crocuses and narcissus… Spring on the…
3 Ways to Celebrate St David’s Day 2012
Looking for a way to celebrate St David’s Day tomorrow in West Wales? Here are just three of the many events planned to mark St David’s Day on 1 March 2012. The St David’s Day celebrations will start in St Davids itself, the smallest city in Britain, at St David’s Stone, Oriel y Parc. This stone…
Welsh Cakes
St David’s Day (1st March) is nearly upon us and it’s time to make some celebratory Welsh Cakes (pice bach, cacen gri, pice ar y maen). Traditionally Welsh Cakes were cooked on a bakestone or cast iron griddle (a planc or maen in Welsh) and they are sometimes referred to as ‘bakestones’. The bakestone or…
Leap into Wales: 5 Welsh Wedding Customs
Traditionally a Welsh bride carries a bouquet containing myrtle leaves, signifying love in life. She gives her bridesmaids a cutting to plant and if it blossoms, the girl will soon marry. Welsh brides believed that it was lucky to be woken by birdsong on the morning of their wedding. The wedding party walks to the…
A Quick Build
Tŷ Unnos (plural Tai Unnos) means ‘one night house’ in Welsh and is an old Welsh tradition dating back to the period between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was believed that if a person could build a house on common land in one night, the land then belonged to them. The test was…
Sheepish Tales
Driving along a lane near our smallholding in West Wales, we stopped on occasions to admire a small group of black and brown sheep grazing in the valley. The sheep were very striking, with white socks, white faces and very distinctive white tails. Asking around (a risky thing to do if you are a smallholder)…
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?
A sentiment we hold dearly here in West Wales as the Welsh poet, William Henry Davies, expresses in the above couplet from the poem ‘Leisure’. We found the time on this day to stand and stare and appreciate what is on our doorstep… On our way to Melin Tregwynt we came across the delightful church…
How to say ‘I love you’ on St Valentine’s Day
To say ‘I love you’ in Welsh on St Valentine’s Day is ‘dwi’n dy garu di’ and if that seems a bit tricky, why not give a unique and romantic Welsh Love Spoon instead? The hand-carved Celtic Love Spoon has a heart to symbolise love and Celtic knot work representing two lives intertwined. This 17th…
A Wonderful Day Out in January
What a wonderful day out we had on a crisp and sunny morning in January when we went to the Food Fair at the National Botanic Gardens of Wales. There is always something exciting to see and do here, whatever the time of year, in beautiful West Wales! Walking up to the great glass house…