So... do the Welsh not share, or the English not like em???

[Flamesparrow]

Welsh DH, living in Bournemouth... Every few months I might come across a supermarket selling Welsh butter - but they pretty much all sell Irish and Somerset. You can't buy Welsh cakes anywhere here, yet you can get all kind of American style cakey things. Its not like you need a little cake shop to get em in Wales - Tescos sell em, so surely they could ship a few through the rest of the UK???

Its sad, we haven't got much money right now, so his valentine's present was butter .

Soooo... why is it?? Are the Welsh just very possesive over their butter and cakes, or do shops think there is no market for it in non-Wales???

It's a local place for local people

Agree about The Mariners although I didn't like the "old" either. I don't think it has worked out to be quite what was intended - think there was a pool table in the big room last time we were there. It seems quite popular with the timeshare place though.

You would definitely know our house Zippi!

overcome with noseyness

I always wanted the ferry house, but not now it's been ruined
also love strand house

Has the work been completed yet or does the row over the footpath rumble on? It seemed to be progressing very slowly. It is a lovely walk especially when you enter the wooded part further along. Any idea what the ruin used to be? We did ask around but didn't get any answers. I quite fancy the farmhouse on the other side of the estuary as it seems so remote. Would love to buy another property around there but the right spot (and size) are hard to come by. Seemed to be a fair bit of building going on at the top end of the town but you don't get a sense of the stillness then. My favourite time was dusk at full tide or very early morning - blissful.

There was a massive property for sale at a ridiculous price down by the car park about 4 years ago - think it was originally owned by a brewing family who had done very little to it. Out of our price range unfortunately.

Has the organic pub/restaurant been sold? It was always very quiet in there so we didn't dare take our brood in. Never got to eat at The Corrs either - had a great review in one of the qualities for its excellent local produce.

Our youngest is always asking "why we not live in Laugharne now?". "Perhaps we will again one day" I reply.

Footpath row continues i think, there were a couple of houses I just know it as the burnt house..impossible to save once fire took hold, always been a ruin in my memory. You can walk all the way round and come out eventually by the church if you take the walk over the cliff ..there is a friendly B&B (Dela Corse) right around before you climb back up to arrive at the top behind the churchyard ...

the big house you mean wasn't Strand House then?

so sorry to have offended so many people. I am absolutely not anti-welsh in any way, I was making what I thought was a totally light hearted tongue in cheek comment. I obviously misjudged the subject and the comments and for that I apologise. Please don't take offence.

Having said that I have had so many experiences the same as redridinghood. I worked as a criminal defence solicitor and went to a police station in Caerphilly to defend a client. The custody sergeant would not accept me as this guys solicitor or even address me (i heard him on the phone to my boss) as I was English. Can you imagine the uproar if a welsh solicitor was not allowed to defend a client in London due to the fact that he had a welsh accent?.

Racism is not acceptable in any way and I certainly never intended to come across like that. I have chosen to make Cardiff my home despite the fact that my dh and I are both from England. My dd was born here and attends school nursery here where she learns Welsh. I am supporting her in that and pleased she is learning another language. I do however, refuse to feel guilty just for being English and living in Wales.

Hockeymum - thanks for the apology. Sorry that the policeman in Caerphilly was offensive, but I think that attitude is highly unusual. I am amazed that you came across it in the Valleys, where so many people, including my mother's family, originally came from England to work in the mines.

Nice to hear from you hockeymum!
Think most of us were crosser with Morrison's attitude towards its customers than with you personally, but it's obviously one of those things that gets people going.

Know what you mean about being an English girl in Wales though!

FWIW I am coming to understand why the Welsh get so cross about certain things to do with the English. Watching the national news on a rugby day for example when they harp on about England's game for hours and then devote about 20 seconds to Wales victory would really irritate me too if I was Welsh. The problem I have is that certain sectors of the Welsh population think the English shouldn't be allowed to move to wales and take welsh jobs which I find an antiquated way of looking at things. I also had an old professor at college here who used to make any English student feel personally responsible for the 800 years of persecution the English had inflicted on the Welsh before any of us were even born. It seems to me that it is appropriate to be racist against the English, but that if anyone tried to be racist to the many Welsh who live and work in England would be persecution.

I fully support the resurgence of Welsh language, particularly in schools as I think to many people its so important to retain their roots. I am not negative to the Welsh country, Welsh Assembly or anything else, but I think unless you live here as an "outsider" (their words not mine) its hard to understand how many problems you have.

I have re-read my first post and can fully understand now why people were so offended by it. I apologise again for the way my comments sounded and am mortified with the way I must have come accross. Virtually all my closest friends are Welsh and if they had read that I would have been rightly slaughtered in the high street, I'll put it down to experience and learn to think before I put the my foot in my mouth again - sorry.

Mrs Badger, totally agree with you about that customer service attitude. I would be appalled too if I didn't work in that environment (don't anymore by the way). To clarify, it was a large number of identical letters sent by a pro-active welsh language lobby of which the first letter had been sent off to be transcribed into English. They were quite offensive letters to the English and particularly to the company (based in Yorkshire) and it was under the store managers advice that they were thrown away. I wasn't actually involved in it, but worked there at the time and saw what was going on. Also, in a company of 200 people, not one single person is fluent in Welsh, hence my comments about it being a predominantly English speaking area.

hockeymum- nice to see you back. I do think that your commetn about 'living in a predominantly English speaking country so get over it' was offensive. Regarding the policeman issue- perhaps it had nothing to do with you being English, mayne it was more to do with not speaking Welsh- without knowing the facts I can't commetn. I do agree that it's rude to be like that but don't think that a Welsh lawyer in London would experience the same thing as the Welsh lawyer would be speaking English.

Regarding the jobs issue, it's a requirement by lots of employers that employees learn or speak Welsh. There is funnily enough a reason for this- and that is that a lot of Welsh people speak Welsh and to be able to go about their business by speaking Welsh (as you yourself commented you put Welsh letters in the bin as you can't understand them- a lesson here for Morrisons perhaps that they need to employ at least one Welsh speaking person or send someone on a course).

You also see this in parts of England where local communitties are being ripped apart, house prices are going through the roof and local youngsters are having to move out of areas. In North Wales its particularly bad with people retiring here and pushing house prices up out of the reach of local people. These people are then leaving to find housing and work in other areas and leaving an ageing population.

Anyway this is a discussion that could rage on and on- so I'm going to leave it for now

Sidestepping the politics...

...oooo Welsh cakes... I miss Welsh cakes. They're practically hard currency (no pun intended!) in my family. But they never taste the same when not made by my mother.

Where do you get a bakestone these days anyway??

Zippiti - where is Strand House? That isn't the one on the point of collapse by the bakery is it? I am hopeless with names (people and houses). The big one I fancied was a three storey one on the left going out towards Broadway. The back looked out over the estuary.

I didn't realise the walk would bring you back to the church. I thought it would go on much further than that although we only went down as far as the field. We used to get to the church on the bridle way that runs along the back of the holiday homes. My children were fairly obsessed about visiting the grave and peering into the shed!

What do you think of the banana boat rides they were doing on the estuary last year? Ruined the silence for me.

Have to say, we're in South Wales (Caerleon) and it's probably partly because it's a small town with a University, but we've never heard an anti-English word. Yes OK, everyone here has known each other since the year dot and can be a bit cliquey, but that's normal, and not particularly Welsh- Somerset was a killer for it!

Welsh Cakes, 90p a pack in Asda- if anyone CATS me I will post some on next week. Not as nice as your Mum's own I suspect, but they were in the posh local section.

probably get a bakestone in St Fagans (welsh folk museum) or maybe one of those welsh shops.

Thanks hockey for the apology.

St Fagins! My dd went there in the autumn with the school and has not stopped referring to it since! Where is it please?

hockeymum, what a nice apology. Pixiefish, do you really think that there was an issue about not being able to speak Welsh in Caerphilly? I admit I haven't been there for years, but none of my (Welsh) family members who lived there could speak Welsh. Mind you, as Oldiemum says, it's unusual to have really anti-English feeling in the valleys, I would have though.

Between Cardiff and Barry

As usual I'm agreeing with tamum - graceful apology, hockeymum. Just envious you live in Cardiff - I loved my 4 years there (mind you, no kids, no job, no responsibilities...who wouldn't have loved it, it's a great place to party!)

tamum, dh's grandmother was from Caerphilly - I bet we're distantly related (well, very distantly..seeing as I'm not at all Welsh...)

tamum- I don't know if there was an issue or not- hockeymum was the one that mentioned it

Sorry, Pixiefish, I didn't think she'd mentioned that it was to do with not speaking Welsh, I thought you'd said that.

SL, maybe that's why we're so spookily alike, what with being sooooo closely related?

Very distantly...I've never even been to Scotland.