DYDD GWYL DEWI - St David's Day

When I lived in Wales I used to wear a daffodil on 1st March and the children, when they were in primary school, used to dress up in Welsh costumes to go to school, but perhaps it's when you live away from Wales that you make more of a celebration of the national day.

Looking through some old family papers the other day I found this St David's Day programme designed by my father, with a woodcut rather jaunty-looking dragon by him, for a dinner in Cairo in 1933 when he was living there. The poem, an old anonymous englyn, roughly translates as:

After going everywhere,
And drinking beer and loving women,
After tiring of wondering around every town,
It's good to look towards home.

(My father made a much better English translation of this, but I can't find it.)

The photo was taken in about 1963, of me and my sister dressed in Welsh costume when we were living in Istanbul.

I had to add a fabric daffodil because spring is so late this year that the real ones in the garden aren't out yet.

They're all on an old Welsh flannel quilt.

We're delaying our soirée galloise, when each year we invite our Occitan friends in the village to a Welsh meal, until Friday because it tends to go on well after midnight!