PHEW! I can breath the sigh of proverbial relief (or is that....? Oh never mind) My pa and step mum and niece have gorn after a tense two week stay. To say that my old man is a difficult person would be quite an understatement, he doesn't continually WHINGE in a whingey whiney way, he continually COMPLAINS and everyone has to know about it. Here's an example: night at Simon's, after being served: "I don't like the way they pile up the plates (...) a lot goes to waste."; the following day, we went to another bar for lunch: "They don't serve much on the plates here do they." And so on ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Also a great number of his conversational phrases start with, "When I was in the Gulf..." (in the 50's).
On the other hand my niece was a wonder, 13 years of energy and naughtyness. I learned some new English vocab which I shall be passing onto my students, such as:
"Wowoza?" normally (but not necesserally) followed by another word such as "noise".
e.g. "Wowoza noise?"
to which a possible reply could be "Dunno, probably a car back-firing"
On the day WALES BEAT ENGLAND, please to be assured I'm talking about RUGBY, can't get TV coverage here so we followed the progress through the BBC internet site, I had to click the update button every two minutes.
We had already arranged to go to a gaucho touristy barbie restaurant, not having any alternative celebratory venue. Ate lots of big drippin' chunks of dead bulls and watched a guy doing an impressive show swinging his bolas around at a very high rate of knots.
Took 'em to the airport this morning (my folks, not the guy's bolas!), must confess, despite being a might fucking difficult fella, he's me ol' da, and I love him, I felt sad to see them go, don't know when I'll see him again, 2 years, 3, 4, 5, maybe never.
Time for bed now.
Nighty night.
There She Blows!
I've started a discussion group at Book Tribes - spotting porn in classic literature. Apart from that fella, D.H. , Charles wasn't so bad himself, I posted up these ones a last year sometime, well worth bringing up again now. Then of course there's Moby Dick that I'm reading right now which has "Freud explains" overtones which I commented a coupla weeks ago. In fact, if one looks at literature from a Freudian point of view, porn is everywhere - if it's longer than it is wide, it's phallic. Hills and dark damp caves, wossat 'en?
Jiggin's! My folks are coming a-visiting tomorrow. It's not often they come and see me, this is the third time in 15 years in fact, and the first time since my divorce. The last time they came I lived in a large house with a swimming pool, lots of space and bedrooms, they had they're own suite downstairs, with a patio and barbie-area, and we had a maid who cooked and cleaned every day.
This time I'm in a two-bedroom flat, one bedroom is full of boxes and junk, I can touch the walls of the kitchen with outstretched arms, no maid. I've already warned them about this, but still it may come as a bit of a shock. Got the terrace though, they can sit out there under the blazing sun if the flat gets too cramped.
Coming with them is my niece. My step mum, who is in fact English from Brat'fud, many a year ago, had the sense to send her daughter, my halfsis, to a Welsh speaking school, and at the same time went to night classes to learn Welsh, luckily my halfsis continued the tradition and my niece is a native Welsh speaker. Blast me if I can only say "Shwmae, su't y'chi?" and "Bore Da!" every morning!
Tonight as I quaff a few pints of FBA and eat a raw leek or three I shall remember How Green my Valley was, and as I close my eyes I will be able to hear the Aberbachgenbach Male Voice singing "My Fanny", the FBA will become a full creamy pint of Feelin' Fowl Double Dragon, I'll be transposed to the backroom of the Mochyn Digywilydd Arms where Eli Jenkins, sitting at HIS table is smoking tea bags in his pipe and Dai is stood at the bar extrapolating in a loud voice, Llancunty's chances of winning the match on Sunday what with his brother-in-law being their new loose-head. In walks the man with the basket of cockles and muscles alive-alive-o, after him, the next sober person is Sally Army selling All Along the Watchtower (or was that Jimmy?). The boys from the Bryn are getting pissed again, there'll be trouble soon enough. Is there going to be a lock-in? There's always a lock-in at the Mochyn.
DYDD GWYL DEWI HAPUS!
What's the smell of parsley?
