95. 14.04.2012 Tales from the Jetty. The trilogy.
Episode 1.
Catch of the Day?
A drive down to The Llŷn on a sunny but chilly spring Saturday with no destination in mind. First a stop off at Brynkir, for a coffee between the palms, a hot cross bun and the lightest cherry cake that John has ever eaten in his entire life (FACT) followed by an examination of a turtle’s head that was poking above the waterline. Not the Jim Royle type of turtle’s head you understand, heaven forbid if I was to be so crass, but one that was attached to a real one swimming about in a tank. It’s amazing what can be found in Brynkir and given the fact that there’s a letter in Brynkir that doesn’t exist in Welsh it’s amazing the place exists at all.
Contrary to popular what monoglot Anglo-Saxon’s believe, the Welsh don’t actually favour consonants over vowels and actually ignore some of them. The letter K is one, the letters V, Q, X and Z are others. J used to be ignored but presumably all the Mr and Mrs Jones up and down the country signed some sort of petition or chained themselves to railings and it’s now included in some alphabets, but not when I was at college. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about all the people called Vaughn. It must be awful having part of your name missing. Truly awful
Contrary to popular what monoglot Anglo-Saxon’s believe, the Welsh don’t actually favour consonants over vowels and actually ignore some of them. The letter K is one, the letters V, Q, X and Z are others. J used to be ignored but presumably all the Mr and Mrs Jones up and down the country signed some sort of petition or chained themselves to railings and it’s now included in some alphabets, but not when I was at college. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about all the people called Vaughn. It must be awful having part of your name missing. Truly awful
Anyway, sleeplessness aside we ended up at Criccieth, aka The pearl of Wales on the shores of Snowdonia. Or so the guide books of old say. But to be brutally frank, it is.
Criccieth could be straight out of an Oliver Postgate stop-frame cardboard and cotton wool animated film featuring a steam engine in the top left hand corner of Wales. There’s a hill at the edge of the sea with a castle on it, and there’s a railway goes around it with little green trains on it. The sea is blue and the beaches are clean.
Criccieth could be straight out of an Oliver Postgate stop-frame cardboard and cotton wool animated film featuring a steam engine in the top left hand corner of Wales. There’s a hill at the edge of the sea with a castle on it, and there’s a railway goes around it with little green trains on it. The sea is blue and the beaches are clean.
The jetty at Criccieth brings back childhood memories of horror and hell. Actually if I’m brutally frank, most jetties do. Whenever my dad spotted a person with a rod in hand stood on one, it usually signalled a couple of hours standing watching the aforementioned person, and sometimes, much to our embarrassment, conversing with them. Not that they were ever real conversations, more a one-way commentary actually. Fishing, in itself, is, to put it mildly, not one of the most exciting things in the world, but to stand and watch someone fishing.... words fail me. I can fear tears welling at the thought of it.
Anyway, for the first time in 30 odd years, I actually sat and watched someone fishing. I wasn’t even bribed by the promise of an ice lolly either. And it has to be said that the two lads really were interested in watching their dad reel in, cast off, knit one, pearl one, drop one [repeat ad lib and ad nauseum to fade] or whatever fishermen do.
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