See Wales and Dai

On St David’s Day an invitation to the Valley side… see Wales and Dai.

Although on my first day in Cardiff I did fear for my personage from a pub local we’ll call Dai (Welsh for David).

Who greeted me as I stood next to him at the pub gents’ urinal with a welcoming ‘English bastard are you’?

To which I replied ‘Scottish bastard actually’, hoping our Celtic links would save my skin.

Only for Dai to shoot back:

‘Just as effing bad, you cheated us out of two World Cups you bastard’.

But hey, it was just an initiation into the Welsh way… size you out before bringing you close.

Living with the Welsh

And over the next nine months I learned to live with and love the Welsh.

And, of course that short, sharp introduction is something you’ll find as a matter of course in port cities.

Where people from far and wide jostle and joss with locals.

And their ability to take it marks out whether they will be taken into the heart and hearth.

And so I’ve been headlocked in my own home city of Glasgow.

When I first took Herself out and been pitted nose to nose with a Scouser.

And he was my neighbour just asking me into his house late at night where they were having a house party…

Best thing to do is just say yes on first invitation.

Cymru, come all

Today, though, is all about Wales, or Cymru, as they call themselves in their native tongue.

The Welsh have been busy trying to persuade the rest of us to call them Cymru, and why not.

Cymru means ‘the people’ in Cymraeg (the Welsh language) and we here say power to the people.

An oft-made accusation of Cardiff, as can be levelled at our own capital here in Scotland, Edinburgh, is that it is populated by the English.

Partly, of course, but not wholly.

Mind you, if you want to get in among the Cymry then you want to get out west and north.

Where you’ll get that magical fusion of Irish, coming over on the ferry from Dun Laoghaire, and natives.

Go native in Caernarfon 

And we added a sprinkle of Scots to that when we stopped off in picturesque Caernarfon.

With its castle, and also ideally placed for Snowdonia National Park and the Llanberis Lake Railway.

And where you’ll find the young people chattering away in Cymraeg in the bars and shops.

And it’s always the young in whose hands the native language resides.

If you’re coming from elsewhere in the UK then you’ll likely be coming through Manchester or Birmingham.

And you’re well served with good roadworks. 

We’d advise then to do like us and see Wales and Dai… and Dai will be happier if you greet him with a Bore da (hello).

And a big Bore da to my new Welsh mate from our Celtic Festival party in Barbados last year. Corrie on, you legend.