Caer-r-r-dydd, Cymru! (Cardiff, Wales)

(English below)  Nid wyf wedi penderfynu ar hyn o bryd beth yw’r swydd hon mewn gwirionedd; ffotograffiaeth neu deithio … felly ychydig o’r ddau …

Nid wyf erioed wedi bod yng Nghaerdydd ac eto trwy gydol fy mywyd, mae’r Gymraeg a Chymru wedi bod yn rhan o lawer o atgofion. Fy brwsh cyntaf gyda’r Gymraeg oedd tra’n i’n gweithio fel darlithydd yn Saesneg mewn prifysgol yng Ngwlad Pwyl. Yng Ngwlad Pwyl?? Roedd gan yr Adran Ieithyddiaeth Saesneg Bennaeth a oedd yn “Celt-ophile” go iawn ac roedd yn ofynnol i fyfyrwyr gymryd tair blynedd o Gaeleg Cymraeg neu Iwerddon i gwblhau eu gradd. Roedd fy ngŵr, ar ôl gorffen gradd o’r fath, wedi cael gorchymyn eithaf cadarn o’r Gymraeg ac yn aml yn darllen straeon megis “Y Lindysyn Llwglyd Iawn” yn Gymraeg i’n bechgyn bach. Yn y dyddiau hynny, y ‘gair gyfrinachol rhyngom ni y gallem adael parti diflas neu sgwrs oedd “tatws” yn Gymraeg! Mae’n debyg bod fy nghyfenw yn enwog yn ogystal ag enw brodyr fy mam-gu (Gethin), felly mae’n debyg y bydd Caerdydd yn le lle’n hwyrach neu’n hwyrach, byddwn yn dod i ben … fe allwch weld ble mae hyn yn mynd….

A few weeks ago, my husband and I, plus in-laws, spent an incredibly beautiful two weeks in a Georgian village, called Freshford; in the middle of the Somerset countryside, just 15 minutes by train from Bath.

I have never been to Cardiff and yet throughout my life, Welsh and Wales has been a part of many memories. My first brush with Weslsh was while working as a lecturer of English at a university in Poland. In Poland?? The Department of English Linguistics had a Head who was a real ‘Celt-ophile’ and students were required to take three years of Welsh or Irish Gaelic in order to complete their degree. My husband, having finished such degree at such university, had a pretty solid command of Welsh and often read stories such as “The Very Hungry Catepillar” in Welsh to our little boys. In those days, the ‘secret word” between us to leave a boring party or conversation was “potato” (“tatws”) in Welsh or the sayings of “dim problem” or “Rwy’n hoffi toffi coffi!”, which I still say now (to myself). Years previous to getting married,  I had been to a wedding in Brest, France, where everyone, including the children, were running around speaking Welsh, Cornish, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Breton or any other variety of Celtic lingua-franca. My dorm room at the local school even included a full-sized harp in the corner! My surname is apparently Welsh as well as my grandmother’s maiden name (Gethin), so I guess Cardiff is a place where sooner or later, I would end up visiting…. you can see where this is going….

So, setting out for a day trip on my own on this Bank Holiday, while the rest of the crew were out cycling around Somerset, I only knew four things about where I was going:

-they speak Welsh

-it is on the water

-there is a castle

-and on a Bank Holiday Sunday, it is extremely unlikely to arrive at your destination and then depart from the same place using the same mode of transportation (the English seem to delight in shutting down major sections of track and road on the only days were families can have fun together).

I wasn’t diappointed – by any of the above…the train only went as far as Newport, next a coach to Cardiff, then arrival at a rather dismal train station with a rather dismal walk under a railway bridge, up a hill, across deserted streets and along to a pedestrian mall filled mostly by pubs, which were being cleaned up after a busy and messy Saturday night. Not the most encouraging of beginnings. Followed by the comment of the counter girl in the only open cafe (Starbuck’s) of “Have you been here before? I’m English, what do you think of Cardiff? Not so nice, is it?”, all was not looking too good…. well, not yet anyway.

In the sunshine, and after a coffee, Cardiff  (Caerdydd) turned out to be a rather lovely place to be but you had to look for the gems hidden away around corners and through alleys. Hidden between the facades of old buildings are narrow entrances into magical Victorian laneways (arcades) topped with glass roofs and lined with plaster cornicing, tall, wooden-framed windows and pretty lanterns (also found a fantastic vegetarian cafe where you can sit “out” under the glass roof, surrounded by Welsh conversation: Crumbs Cafe, Morgan Arcade).

And, yes there is a real castle in the middle of the city…

Beside the castle is a very pretty park where you can take a boat to the waterfront “Mermaid Quay” area on Cardiff Bay – the “locals” told me it was faster than taking the city bus to the waterfront.

It was a real suprise to hear how many familes and children are now speaking Welsh as their first tongue in the park and how much “Welsh pride” is to be seen on the streets (and an idea just in case you don’t know how to dress your Welsh child for their first day of school…). I was having difficulty with the post-processing of the red hair of the little girl I saw walking down the street until I looked again at the original shot and realized that this was the actual colour of her hair! Beautiful red.

Sailboats, the Norwegian Church (where Roald Dahl attended), music, singing, sunshine it was hard to start the journey back to Somerset… so “Yn agos at Loegr” (“time to go back to England”), for as a lovely English friend used to say with her crisp, perfect vowels, “its teatime“….

**PS….why has this post wandered into the ‘travelogue’ genre and less about photography? Welll… I am still having a technical love-hate relationship with my new lens (actually more hate than love) as it is a manual focus, and the ol’ eyesight is fading with old-age, and I don’t like the results I have been getting, and, and, and….. I know it is a case of practice and more practice but for this trip, I relied on my iPhone with varying results (resolution ?? definitely for one)….I think I still need more practice…. Hwyl am nawr! (Bye for now…)