The Longest Day

As a true Celt, (seven eighths Welsh and one eighth Cornish), I feel I ought to be celebrating the Summer Solstice.

Just how, is a problem, since I am now a baptised and confirmed Christian, (an uneasy combination).

So, rather than go out into my soggy bedraggled garden at dawn to face the sun, I slept through it and woke to yet another wet day.

The nearest 'standing stones' are some considerable distance from here and local Druids hard to find, so all-in-all probably best to keep quiet about my dodgy heritage.

My paternal grandmother was allegedly (one of the many) an illegitimate daughter of Dr Price of Llantrisant,
doctor, chartist and self-styled druid.  She was adopted by the man her mother later married and received h is name, and as was the style in those days, kept silence about her origins.  If indeed, she ever really knew them.

This is a family myth and may have no real substance, but there were signs of anti-establishment and indeed somewhat revolutionary traits in three of my father's brothers and his own communist beliefs must have sprung from somewhere, so who knows, maybe the rumours had some substance.

During the early part of  my life I was  very close to my father's parents and stayed with them for about 7 or 8 months when the war started.  My two eldest brothers stayed with my mother's parents and so grew up closer to them.

Father's parents were very much more obviously Welsh than my mother's parents and I had quite a strong attachment to my Welsh roots for many years.

Nowadays, the fact that I still sing and occasionally have a word or two with my household dragons (Ivan Llewellyn Pendragon and little Rhodri) is just about as Welsh as I feel.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, I support the Welsh rugby side in the six-nations games.

Time to leave the mystic side of life and return to cleaning the loo.  Ah well.