Grand Slam Mothering weekend

As Clare was to be godmother at a Baptism in St Catherines today, we did our weekly market visit to the Saturday farmers' market in Roath yesterday. It took us ages to get home again as incoming traffic was very heavy due to the final rugby international match of the Six Nations championship. We were lucky to re-gain a parking place in the street, and decided not to venture out again, so we stayed in and watched the match on TV, with its Welsh language commentary, much to Clare's delight. That must be the first time I've watched a rugby match from start to finish in decades. 

I was impressed by  the natural ease with which interviewers switched into English when necessary. It reminded me of the multi-lingual confidence exhibited by Swiss news media. The match was well worth staying in for. With Wales winning the Grand Slam, Cardiff was full of very happy people. It's a great boost to national confidence. If only competitive team work, persistence, patience and planning could also be reflected in Wales' economic performance, a way out of recession would be more assured.

My Sunday duties this morning were at Penllyn, and then Ystradowen. The weather was perfect, and this time I remembered to take my camera. Only when I was telling Clare about my morning later that I realised a strange co-incidence had occurred. In each small congregation, just one mother had been present with two small children - 3-4 year olds. Both mothers had borne identical twins.

Ystradowen church and the White Lion Pub

While the Penllyn congregation was somewhat larger than usual, the Ystradowen congregation was smaller than on my last lisit. The churchwarden explained that a number of the regulars were absent as their families were taking them out for a Mothering Sunday treat. Afterwards, I heard that the White Lion pub next door was to close soon, and that the monthly congregational fellowship supper would have to move to a new venue. How sad. Another social loss for a rural community. Another casualty of the recession, no doubt.

Owain came around for tea, with flowers and a card for his mum. He's loaned me his copy of the Stieg Larssen Millennium trilogy of crime books. I'm well into the first, and inevitably, having seen the Swedish film version of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' some months ago, I'm comparing these two ways of telling the same story as I go. Even a well written, easy reading book seems slow compared to film. How much goes into portraying each scene setting of the story.