WELCOME TO WALES

DR. DODIDDILY AND THE DEE DOT'S

WELCOME YOU TO THE WORLD AROUND US.

WHICH IS BASED FOR PROTECTION INSIDE

Please enjoy these little stories, dances and songs

whilst I get on with adding lots of wonderful things to your page

                     CYMRU AM BYTH - 26 little  songs for the young

WALES FOREVER

WALES - CYMRU AM BYTH

BOTH RECIPES courtesy of ALL RECIPES, IRELAND

Welsh Cakes customerservice@allrecipes.co.uk;

MARCH 1ST. ST.DAVID’S DAY.

The Day of Daffodils and Welsh Cakes and Leek and Potato Soup 

ST DAVID’S DAY 1ST MARCH TRADITIONAL WELSH COSTUME,

ONE OF MANY AS EACH COUNTY OR EVEN TOWN HAD THEIR OWN DESIGN

Real Potato & Leek Soup

Cawl cennin (Welsh leek soup)

Ingredients
Serves: 4 

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 large leeks, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 potatoes, peeled and diced
• 600ml vegetable stock
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 200ml single cream
• parsley sprigs, to garnish

1. In a frying pan, heat the oil and brown the leeks, garlic and potato for a few minutes until beginning to brown. Remove from the heat and transfer to the slow cooker. Add the stock and seasoning. Cook on Low or Auto setting for 4 to 5 hours.
2. After 4 to 5 hours, purée the soup using a food processor or hand held liquidiser to a smooth consistency and add the cream. Serve hot, garnished with fresh parsley.

With Bara Menyn ( Bread and Butter, Welsh, no salt ) to wipe the bowl out when finished

And here we have proof positive that the seasons have moved forward a bit.

When Diddily and her sisters were children, it was part of the Easter Celebrations that we went to the woods and collected the beautiful Welsh Wild Daffodils.

These would decorate our homes, schools, chapels and churches for many a long day.

We would have brilliant Welsh Hymn’s sung in St. Mary's Church in Cefn Meiriadog, with the sermon telling us to be very good for our Mother... and Father of course,  every spring flower would be there in abundance.

Once again the Chapels and Churches all over Wales would be decorated for the Mothering Sunday Service. Primroses, Violets, Cowslips, Oxslips, Campions, red and white, so many flowers the Angels would be able to smell the perfume where they were sitting on the rafters up above.

I wonder how many more people remember these wonderful days.

Now for everyone who knows dodiddily and the dee dot's from her other wec sites you will already know how both myself and husband love going on holiday to South Korea, We leave again in fourty days time and so here I shall place a little something for me to look at and listen too whilst I'm busy doing my pages for you 

YNYS MON

THE BEAUTIFUL ISLAND OF ANGLESEY

Cut off from the Mainland by the Treacherous Menai Straits Anglesey is the largest of the Welsh Islands.

Puffin Island is one of the smallest and is exactly what it is an Island for Puffins. xxx

It is also the home of the Longest named Railway Station in the Great Britain or it was till the station closed a few years ago. It looks very funny when you see the phonetic writing beneath the Cymraeg (Welsh)
Llanfair PG is located on Anglesey Island and the post office clerks are happy to stamp your passport with a stamp with the town name.

Beaumaris Castle and Moat

DR. DODIDDILY AND THE DEE DOT'S

WELCOME YOU TO THE WORLD AROUND US.

And guess what last time I was here I told you that myself and my husband where going to South Korea on Holiday and today it is the 2nd of May and we have been back a whole week. As usual we had a fantastic time and you can read all about it on my face book. But today I am going to add just a few of the photos that I took during the three weeks we were there.

And here is my husband Peter, once again by the stream in Seoul. Not long before we boarded the train to take us to Busan and the fabulous fountain in the forecourt.

Since we were there last year , the wonderful South Korean's had found a way of looking after all the collered doves that lived in the trees.

You will never guess what it is... but this next photo might give you the answer.

Can you tell me what it is?  Yep, a Dovecote. There are six sides and each side has 21 each size has 21 holes for the doves to sleep in. Isn't it fabulous? 

We stayed in Busan only for a few days in the Hi Korea Hostel, which was really good apart from the fact that they didn't have any Internet for me to use. but they do have a lovely cat If I can I shall try and find a picture of it for you. Hold on.

Well it seems my PC is refusing to upload any more photos for me today so I shall have to wait  till tomorrow and try to find out what it is that is bothering it. Sometimes my cat climbs behind the printer , just maybe she has knocked some wires loose I guess.

Well I found a nice photo of our cat Marnie instead, she is an awful lot fluffier than the Korean cat, However the white fur in the bottom corner belongs to Penny, our Jak Russell/Spaniel.

  We also have another dog , she is called Abbey and she is very old and very blind and we don't think she hears very well, but she definitely can hear alright.

If she is in my bedroom and Peter opens the fridge door and takes out anything with a doggy like smell she is there. At the moment she is moving her basket around my bedroom floor. She is so funny and so wonderful

P.S. If you're wandering why my bedroom is next to the kitchen. I can't walk very well so bedroom etc is downstairs for me xxx.

WALES - CYMRU

THE LAND OF MY FATHERS

SO THE SONG TELLS US

IN THE WELSH LANGUAGE OF "CYMRAEG"

IT IS CALLE D

MAE HEN WLAD FY NHADAU

Dr. Dodiddily's Garden in Pontybodkin

Don't forget to feed the birds and wild life this Winter, 

especially this year for it is very cold out there.

Dr. DoDiddily and the Dee Dots

Gosh it really is cold out there, but what about we take a small trip on the little train that carries all the visitors up and down

SNOWDON, our Highest Mountain in Wales. xxx 

We visited the Victorian Weekend on the Ffestiniog railway and also visited the

Welsh Highland, Llanberis Lake and Talyllyn Railway.

Posted on YouTube by - Sandstonetermite

IVOR THE ENGINE

CYMRU AM BYTH

WELCOME TO WALES

Cymru am Byth

Dr Dodiddily and the Dee Dot's

CYMRU - WALES

A SONG OF THE WELSH

There is a race in an island place that rose in the morning gleam

And made its sword of an olden song, its armour out of a dream;

And its warriors died in a stubborn pride that recked no price of tears,

But followed the call of the singing sword that rang athwart the years.

And the eyes of a nation's hope grew bright, like roses out of the dawn,

But ever the dark of the shadows came and the twilight fell forlorn,

For the feet of the iron legions pressed where Menai sobbed and sighed,

And the Saxons came in a roaring flame; and Arthur swooned and died.

Then rose a host from out the foam, and a tyrant out of the sea,

And  harried the race of the singing sword with the hounds of Normandy,

Till the quarry turned, their arrows burned, their lances thrust and leapt

At Evesham grey in the bitter day when the soul of Montfort slept.

And the men of the sword went far abroad when France was a blaze of spears,

And the longbow's dirge was a crimson surge at Crecy and Poitiers.

But over a sunless road they trod when Glendower brake his shield,

Till the song of the sword rang loud and clear in the crash of Bosworth field.

Then lo! afar from Corsica the ravening eagle sped,

From the Midland sea to Muscovy where the trampled snows were red.

And the song of the sword came calling wild, the Picton's henchmen flew

From Badajos through Quatre Bras to the crown of Waterloo.

And now, through the plains that the nations spoil, the new flung legions came,

Their path was a torrent of broken men, their feet were a scorching flame,

But the men of the sword were linked with Gods and neither spell nor truce

Could stem, the spate from the Marne's locked gate to the red, red wrath of Loos.

They followed the sword that gleamed and sang; they held,, they fought, they stood

Where rivers of gloom poured black with doom through raging Mametz Wood;

The held, they fought, they stood, they won; and the skies were molten fire

As they crossed Death's bridge on Pilkem Ridge lest freedom should expire.

And out of the plains of the burning East in the noon-heat and the night

They made their stand in the desert sand - and they won in hero-fight

The City of God that crowns the world, and they looked on the Dolorous Way

Where the star of Richard the Lion-heart had set and had burned away.

Their sword is made of an olden song, their armour out of a dream,

They have seen the rills of a thousand hills the word of the lightening gleam.

Their dream is the soul of a man unbound from birth to eternity,

And the song of the sword is a sounding chant of the psalm of liberty.

And the land they love and the land they made and the place men know them by

Is a land where a tree is a singing thing and the wind is a lullaby,

Where the mists are white in the morning light as a maiden's bridal veil,

In a home that is ever the harp of song and legend and fairy-tale.

Arthur Glyn PRYS-JONES. A Welshman of Denbighshire

DENBIGH CASTLE - DENBIGHSHIRE - NORTH WALES.

THIS IS A PERSONAL ADORATION. THIS IS A LITTLE ABOUT DENBIGH AND ITS CASTLE, MUCH REDUCED FROM ITS FORMER GLORY WITH THE HELP OF CROMWELL AND HIS BAND OF BROTHERS. AND OF COURSE WITH THE RETURN OF CHARLES II THE CASTLES FOR DEFENCE FELL INTO DIS-REPAIR AS THEY WERE NO LONGER ANY NEED FOR THEIR DEFENCE ANY MORE.

Oh gosh, I am looking at her in all her glory as she is now and yet in my mind I can see every room, as it stood in years long ago. I must to bed now so I will do my writing bit tomorrow.

The current Denbigh Castle was built on the site of a former Welsh stronghold held by Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the brother of Llywelyn the Last. The Welsh castle originally belonged to Llywelyn the Great. In 1230, an Abbot from England visited Llywelyn the Great at his new castle in Denbigh.

The current stone castle was begun by Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln on territory given to him by Edward I after the defeat of the last Welsh prince, Dafydd ap Gruffudd in 1282. The Welsh castle was then torn down and work began on a new English fortress. At the same time, De Lacy was also granted a Royal Charter to create a new English borough and town.

But in 1294, the incomplete castle was besieged and captured by Welsh forces during the revolt of Madog ap Llywelyn. During the subsequent siege, an English force under de Lacy was defeated trying to retake the castle. However the revolt collapsed and Denbigh was returned to de Lacy a year later. Building work then resumed. Following some defensive improvements, the castle and walls were substantially complete by 1305.

In the 1290s, Edward I had issued a second Royal Charter as the market town of Denbigh had rapidly expanded beyond the town walls and its borough boundaries. By 1305 there were titled 183 settlers living outside the town walls and only 52 inside the town's defences. The castle and its precincts were being superseded by the area outside the walls which had developed into the town's market centre. A Carmelite Friary was also established in the town just outside the town walls.

In 1400, the forces of Owain Glyndwr attacked Denbigh. The town was badly damaged but the castle resisted a siege and was not captured.

During the Wars of the Roses, Jasper Tudor, the Lancastrian Earl of Pembroke, tried twice and failed to take the castle in the 1460s.

In the 16th century Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, held Denbigh Castle and its Lordship between 1563 until his death in 1588.

During the English Civil War, the castle was repaired by Colonel William Salisbury and garrisoned for King Charles I of England, who stayed there briefly in September 1645. The following year, the castle endured a six-month siege before finally being forced to surrender to Parliamentarian forces. The castle was then slighted to prevent its further use. But for the remainder of the war, part of the castle was used as a prison for captured royalists.

But with the restoration of Charles II in 1660, the castle was abandoned and allowed to fall into decay.

If ever you feel like reading four fabulous novels about the early Welsh History, up to the defeat of Richard III and the coming of HenryVII Otherwise Henry Tudor, in Welsh Henri Tyddur.

The four books are by a lady called Sharon (Kay) Penman, they are called in order to read.

Here Be Dragons....... The Reckoning..........Sunne in Spleandour..... Falls the Shadow

now I am wondering if thats the right order, just look at the dates of kings lol

Tourist Information Centres

Make the most of your stay by using the Tourist Information Centre network. The staff will be delighted to assist with:

• booking your accommodation
• provide you with information on places to visit, things to do, places to eat, routes to take, national and local events

They also sell crafts, maps, guides and books.

Dr. DoDiddily and the Dee Dots