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25 April 2011

Posted by DMC on 26 April 2011 in Diary |

A quiet day after the busy weekend. Not much happening at this end so I thought I might share with my readers two interesting e-mails I have received. The first time comes from a cousin of Alice’s, Bruce Kirkby, whose father emigrated to Canada some years ago but the family retained a cottage, on or adjacent to the old family estate in North Wales. In fact, I believe the cottage,.Trefaes Uchaf (even Bruce, not surprisingly, stumbled over the Welsh spelling) may well have been part of the land belonging to Hafdy, the house that Alice’s paternal grandfather purchased when he returned disabled from the Boer War and was confined to a wheelchair.

As a result, Hafdy still has a veranda running around the entire perimeter which enabled her grandfather to get out in the fresh air and manoeuvre around in his wheelchair. Both Hafdy and Trafaes Uchaf are within half a mile or so from Blwch Uchaf, Alice’s house, although Hafdy is no longer in family ownership.

This account of his childhood memories of this Welsh cottage, written by Bruce, appeared recently in a local Montréal newspaper. It is nicely written and evocative of the Wales we know and love. Click on the link below to read this interesting article.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/travel-europe/united-kingdom/cherishing-sweet-familiarity-in-an-old-welsh-cottage/article1995636

The second e-mail was sent to me by my dear daughter-in-law Kimberly and is a 30 min. radio programme which was broadcast on the BBC entitled The Swedish Invasion. It is a fascinating insight into the lifestyle and thinking of this highly taxed socialist nation with some of the most liberal attitudes towards sex and drugs in the world, from which, apparently a third of the world’s music emanates and is the source of many fine films and interesting literature. I have been to Sweden , on a number of occasions – as my regular readers will be aware – to stay with my good friend Dr Michael Long (in fact he arrives here tomorrow to spend a couple of days with us) I have sent him a copy as a Swedish resident, and shortly become a Swedish citizen with two Swedish born grandchildren, I will be interested to hear his reaction. I certainly recognise some of the traits attributed to these people but not all of them. Simply click on the link below to hear this broadcast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010k2f6 

 

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