RIP Owen Y Garn
For those of you reading this in the year 2066, January 22nd 2016 was a wet and miserable day. I’ve been out for my usual swim and have now lit the fire back at the house. This is somewhat in response to Anne’s complaint that the house is far too warm with the heating on. Anne would never have the heating on during the day if she had her way. She is so busy that she naturally keeps warm. I on the other hand sit at the pc a lot of the time and need alternative sources of heat to that given off during exercise.
Turning off the heating and having the fire lit in the front room is a good compromise. I also have the Dyson fan heater on when I’m in the conservatory.
Today is in theory a day of admin. However I do intend to go for a 2 hour walk and I also have to assist Mrs D in getting stuff down from the attic. Furthermore we have our new bookcase being delivered at 2pm so i will have a reasonable amount of bookshifting to do thereafter. we are constantly running out of bookshelf capacity in this house and the new bookcase will have 7.5m of space to fill.
Last night we went to the 6th form open evening at William Farr School. As John is the fourth in the series we have been to these evenings before. Never ceases to amaze me how great the staff are at the school. All the kids have thrived there and it comes as a certain shock to the system to realise that our last is now getting ready to enter the 6th form. Shirley not!
Also yesterday I received a cheque from the solicitors managing the legacy of dad’s cousin Owen Y Garn (John Owen Davies). It was more money than I had been expecting although I had no real expectations.
It’s a poignant moment. Owen died last year. I knew him but not well. He is one of the last of my links with West Wales. He makes me think of my grandmother Nana and of how different life was before I came along. I remember when I was quite small going to visit Owen and his parents in their farm, Y Garn. I think it was properly called Garnedd Fawr. There was a big muck heap in the yard and I somehow contrived to step into it over the depth of my wellies. That’s all I remember really, and the sheepdogs running around.
Many years later, when I was researching my family tree I went to visit him in his retirement home. After getting over the shock of seeing a big stranger at the door he was most welcoming. My biggest problem was understanding him. His Welsh was a deep deep West Wales dialect and he had a slight speech defect which made it harder for me.
A lot of the pure Welsh I heard from those days has disappeared from my consciousness. The Welsh you hear on TV these days is a slightly modernised version, if I can put it like that.
The last 18 months have been a time of sadness and reflection. As well as Owen we lost both of Anne’s parents and my own Mam. Mam was a huge loss. Life moves on…