Daffodils grow from bulbs. They are flowers. They can’t be brave except in our anthropomorphising minds. But there be it. To me they’re brave and especially now when it’s been so cold and windy and wintry. In my garden there’s a great big clump of them right next to where Eunice the wind got the better of a small tree by blowing it down, refusing to allow it to continue to live.  But the daffodils survive. I love them. Read the rest of this entry »

If you sometimes get into a muddle, I have every sympathy with you. Muddles have a way of muddling you up even more when you recognise that you’re in a muddle. That’s how I feel when I get into a muddle. And, oh yes, it does happen.

As to why it happens, it could be that you (or in this case I) haven’t got properly prepared. For instance, when you plan to write anything at all, it’s wise to have some kind of clue as to what you are going to write.  What’s so important anyway about what you thought you might write? And why did you think it was necessary to write it?  Why not abandon ship (or in this case your computer keyboard) and go and do something else?

Of course, all this did actually apply to myself when I began writing this piece. I’d sat down at my computer and found myself in a total void.  I had no thought about what to write or why I needed to write it except that I do write my blog each week ready to publish on Saturday. Call it a weekly task I feel I must fulfil as part of what I do. Or, if you prefer, call it a habit.

So now I’ve had to ask myself is this habit worth it? Why write about storytelling when I no longer work as a storyteller and therefore have no fresh information deriving from my own experience? Well, the only answers I have derive from my memories of doing it over lots of years.

For instance, I quite often think about a girl who came up to me after a storytelling session and said that one day she’d be pushing me up. The image she used was of drowning. But I wouldn’t drown, she told me. For she’d be pushing me up. It was an extraordinary idea she was expressing. I’m not sure I’ve ever quite understood it despite thinking it over on many occasions. What I do know is a sense I got that I was in some way part of a chain. I was handing something over to her and this was important.

Perhaps I did hand something to her. Perhaps she has become a storyteller herself. Or perhaps that wasn’t quite it. But from that occasion and all the hundreds of others during storytelling sessions, I cannot help feeling that the power of stories and storytelling does hand itself on. It’s like a chain. It’s not necessarily the storyteller. It’s not necessarily the particular story. It’s more about the power of the communication that occurs. Sitting in a storytelling session, something happens and you feel it. The people who are present on such an occasion will probably forget who was the person telling the stories. They’ll probably forget the stories. But I bet my bottom dollar that something about the quality of the experience remains. I myself believe that it does and I believe it’s important.

PS: Good luck Wales in the Six Nations rugby this afternoon!

So today is the start of the Six Nations rugby championship and, oh dear, it’s a worry. Evidently, none of my favourite Welsh players will be on the field against Ireland. Leigh Halfpenny, Alun Wyn Jones, George North  and so many others will be out because of injury.

But injuries and absences cannot possibly make any difference at all to my loyalties. Watching a Six Nations game, those loyalties are one million per cent with Wales. Bad luck can make no difference. Ah well, whatever will be will be. I only hope that the current injuries in the Welsh team will clear up quickly. And meantime, I can only imagine that the players who won’t be on the field because of injuries will be as sad or even sadder than me.

Now, I must report that as the sun is bright Paul and I may go for a walk on the lookout for some fascinating new characters that have recently come into our lives. These are The Strolling Fogeys. We  first came across them on Whitesands beach on a very sunny recent day. There they were, more or less in front of us as we walked along. I don’t know why we hadn’t been aware of them before. But now that we are, we’ll be disappointed if we don’t see them again. And of course, that’s all too possible. No bright sunshine, no Fogeys. Who are the Fogeys?

So there we are except for one more thing, namely a special wish for tomorrow afternoon. For that’s when our WIPs group will be meeting. WIPs stand for Works in Progress and Lockdown has meant a long, long gap. It will be excellent to be together again and sharing whatever we’ve prepared. For we’re a very diverse group in terms of what we individually offer. One of us writes poems. Another plays the piano. Another sings. Some of us write prose pieces. Yet another plays the violin.

Oh, and there will be tea. I’m planning on contributing Welsh cakes. This is often my particular contribution since they always seem to go down so well. And of course it’s nice to provide what goes down well. So there we are except to say that I hope you not only find something nice to eat this weekend but also something nice to do.

Life is rarely even-paced. At least not in my experience. Even at this stage when it’s hugely less packed than it used to be with storytelling engagements, performances and commitments generally, it often seems more full than I’d like or expected.

But  today the sun is shining with fluffy clouds and it’s the day my brilliant young cousin, Luke Walker, is having an Open Day at his workshop. Luke designs clothes, men’s clothes. Even as a student of fashion, he showed an innovative approach and a confidence in his own ideas that pointed him out as someone who would surely do quite brilliantly.

What a clever thing it was, for instance, that while still a student and doing work-experience at a well-known London fashion house, he casually left one of his own ‘inside-out’ jackets hanging on a peg. When the head of the house walked through, it naturally drew his attention. He stopped and fingered it. Whose is this? Read the rest of this entry »

Whitesands Beach is a favourite place for both Paul and me in the same way that, years before I met Paul, it was a favourite place of mine  while I still lived full-time in St David’s in Pembrokeshire before I went off to do VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) in Kenya and then on to be a student at Girton College, Cambridge.

There’s something quite ravishing about Whitesands Beach. When the tide is out and the sands are exposed, the beach feels vast. When the tide is in, its nearness makes you look out at the sea and the islands. Sometimes I think about St David,  Dewi Sant, coming here, no doubt with a group of friends and followers, in order to set sail for Ireland to continue his missionary work. The beach opens onto the Irish Sea. It seems to invite exploration. Perhaps it’s one of the things that helped Dewi Sant feel inspired  to continue his work of preaching and talking with those who came to listen.

Thinking about Dewi Sant in this context makes me think about the power of storytelling. On his deathbed, Dewi Sant reportedly reminded those followers of his who were gathered around him of something he must have said to them before, perhaps often.  ‘Do the little things that I have shown you’ were the words that he used. I believe that the act of telling stories invites a similar response. Storytelling can give its listeners an inner awareness of  ways of behaving that are worthwhile in life. They are not necessarily the huge things that are done by heroes and heroines. They are the little things that can help us all and stir us to an understanding of what is important in our own lives. Read the rest of this entry »

Late with my blog today. But for a very good reason. A lovely wedding.

The wedding was between David Pepper and Allison Daniel. David is the son of Myles Pepper at whose arts venue and café in Fishguard Paul and I have performed on quite a few occasions either separately or together. I’ve done storytelling there and Paul has sung there with David as  accompanist.

Paul and I have known both young people over several years and it was a very great pleasure to be invited to their wedding and to be able to attend. The wedding itself was at St. Mary’s in Fishguard and the reception at Gelli Fawr in the Gwaun Valley. Paul and I drove down yesterday, arriving quite late yesterday evening.

Over the course of the day today, both at noon  when the wedding took place and the afternoon  and early evening when the wedding guests were treated to lovely eats and drinks, I’ve thought how lucky and lovely it has been to have this relationship with the Pepper family. In one respect, the relationship began a long time ago. Read the rest of this entry »

When I came downstairs this morning (and we’re still in Wales), I found that Paul was already seated in front of our current jigsaw puzzle. Of course this represented a dilemma for me. Breakfast or jigsaw? I love doing jigsaw puzzles (as does Paul!) and whatever the jigsaw that’s being done at the moment proves a real draw when we’re on holiday. It can even distract attention from a bright sunny day (today is actually damp and drizzly) or, on this occasion, from the prospect of breakfast.

This morning, I womanfully resisted the call of the jigsaw (it happens to be a picture of small children at the seaside) long enough to eat my porridge. By this time, Paul had moved on to other things. So I managed to have a nice long uninterrupted time alone at the jigsaw table while, meantime, suppressing the thought that actually I needed to be coming upstairs to my computer to write this blog.

Well, here I am at my computer and quite happy too. For now I can report on the pleasure of beaches. This week in particular it was Whitesands – Traethmawr – which triumphed. The tide was a long way out, the beach was emptier of people than I’d thought it would be and walking across it felt enormously liberating. At some point on the walk I thought about how much I’ve been a lover of Whitesands since childhood. My family started coming here when I was quite small. My father would get me to help dig out a boat in the sand which, of course, would have to be defended from the incoming tide. My mother would sit beside a rock quietly drawing and painting. Read the rest of this entry »

So there I was, sitting in the kitchen of our Welsh house eating my delicious bread and cheese lunch (Welsh cheeses) when it suddenly popped into my mind. ‘Oh my goodness, it’s a Saturday. My blog!!!’ Had I forgotten all about it and getting it written? Completely.

So, lunch quickly swallowed, here I am now, wondering where on earth my mind had gone. Some of the answers I know. It had been a very full and lovely morning with a visit from my old friends Colin and Beryl who live not far down the road from Mathri plus their delightful daughter Lowri, who long ago asked me if I would be her aunty, together with her equally lovely husband James and their three-year-old and most adorable son Miles. No wonder I forgot about my blog. Plenty to talk about, for a start. Delightful company of little boy in addition. Plus I’m on holiday and it’s Saturday.

At least I’m here at my computer now, several hours late but full of the joys of holiday with no more worries about going to bed several hours later than normal last night watching the New Year in. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear readers and friends,

May I wish you the best possible Christmas at the end of this so troubling year.

Let’s hope that 2022 proves altogether better.

With Love,

Mary

The husbands of close friends are often good friends, sometimes slightly at one remove. John Cameron felt like a friend on his own behalf. Perhaps it was that he recognised my Welshness. It formed a real link between us because of his own early Welsh connections and with regular family holidays in a remote Welsh cottage. Yes, he’d tease me about it but always with a recognition of how much it meant to me and what roots meant to him too. He was personal in that way. So it felt like friendship between us meant something to him on its own behalf and not simply because he was the husband of a very good friend.

I will miss him. I’ll miss his kindly temper, always greeting me, and no doubt others too, with a real sense of recognition and warmth.  This may have been connected with the fact that he also developed a close friendship with Paul, my husband. If felt like he knew us both in a real way.

There are many aspects of John that I appreciated about him. How he was in his own home, his evident love for his wife and children and evident appreciation of his friendships made me feel  as if he was comfortable with his life. This is often so far from the case with people you know and love. But John’s sense of ease and comfort were notable.  Like most of us, he had his problems. But he also had a way of sharing an acceptance of life and what it brings that itself brought a sense of ease even through the recent years of declining health. Read the rest of this entry »