Geraint Roberts - Ramblings of a would-be published novelist

Catch up

Can't believe it's been so long since I last logged anything. It's been so busy, so much happening , ironically so much to write about. Let's bring myself up to date for posterity.

I'm out of work. Hooray! Hardly. It's quite depressing, when you need the income to assist your move back West. The last six weeks of my job were a living hell. I was training three people to do everything I used to do. one got on with his other work. one couldn't keep still and was flitting off every 5 seconds. One knuckled down, all the while telling me how they couldn't cope, they'd be signed off sick etc, etc. Many hours were spent bemoaning their lot rather than getting on with it while I was on hand to advise.
In the end, I left. Not knowing if they would take the mantle or just whinge about the lot they'd been dealt in life. Meanwhile the unhealthy obsession with global sourcing means they'll probably be first line checking a team in India who'll have 6 people on the job..

I spent my first week of freedom on a Welsh language course in Nant Gwrtheyrn. I spent 5 days of learning tenses, practicing verbs, propositions, directions and by the end, my mind was mush and I had completed the Foundation! So much to do. Ymarfer, Ymarfer, Ymarfer!

There was so much to think about but many fond memories. The place itself is a gem. Hidden over a hill from a tiny village on the Lleyn is a ghost village now restored as a language centre. As you go over the hill and through the forest, the first hairpin shows nothing behind the wall but sky. When you turn, you are hit with a sheer cliff of hundreds of feet, on which cascades a ribbon waterfall, making it truly magical.
Paying little attention to the ruins on the hills above, lest you run off the road, you weave your way down to a plateau in the rocks, where a tiny settlement from the late 1800s greets you. Two rows of about 10 terraces, perpendicular to each other. The shop on one end. The manager's house on the other. Facing a pleasant green where you looked out to the cafe/ old stores and of course, the chapel.
If you walked to the edge of the plateau, the beach can be seen below, accessible via steep narrow paths in a green and bracken carpet. Other paths lead to old workings, still full of rotting ironwork and trucks. the beach now bereft of its two jetties that was the link with civilisation of the past. It is now a truly wonderful strand with views of the lleyn's majestic seascapes and the ghostly images of Anglesey's coast in the North.
The place was truly magical and the course great fun. I met some really good people, from the tutor - Ifan, to the delegates. On the Wednesday afternoon, we were sent into Pwllheli to ask for directions. In Welsh. Having succeeded with that, I then did some shopping in pigeon Welsh too.
The evening before and 40 minutes to kill, I took my house-mate up to see Tre'r Ceiri. In iron-age times, somebody built a fortified settlement on a mountain. If you get to the top, it's so worth it. If you then walk to the end and look down the coast, where the foot of the mountains meet the flood plains of Arfon. Well, it is really special.

All in all good fun. Now I have to practice and it is so hard. I have a novel to read - a child's diary set at the time of the Penrhyn strike. I am trying to read a page a day - with a big dictionary. I hope some of these words will stick, but at present, I feel I have a head like a sieve.

Great time. Next installment. April rings the changes.

posted by Geraint @ 8:52 pm