Significant places

Friday 20 September 2024

28 of us enjoyed another Croeso in the Mortonhall Golf Club, where we were pleased to welcome new members Llinos Jones and John Brown, and their young daughter Gwenno won all our hearts, displaying boundless energy as she pushed her dolly’s pram round and round the club house!

The welcome meeting’s main purpose is conversation, though there is usually a quiz. This year, with the recent holiday period in mind, Jennifer Welsher challenged us to put stickers on the world map at places we’d visited that were significant for us, and to say why, leading the way by talking briefly about Newcastle, NSW, and inviting her daughter Gillian to talk about her time in Vietnam.

Some of those who spoke talked about recent months: Alan and Helen Campbell had been to Kuala Lumpur for a very different Malaysian wedding; Walter and Megan Whitelaw had celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on a trip to the Yukon; Hywel Williams had returned to Iceland, fascinated by its geology.

Others remembered the past, but looked forward to new experiences: Janet Thomas’ physio conferences had taken her to Port Elizabeth (an elephant family experience) and Dubai (too hot!), and she and Huw will be off to Japan next year; Llinos is returning once more to China in November, having first been there to teach English after university.

Yet others spoke of memorable experiences some years ago: Lin McMillan remembered being on a charity fundraising trip to Peru that included a ride on the Inca trail, hanging on to the pony’s mane with a 1,000ft drop alongside; John Bowles put his sticker on Siberia, having fond memories of a visit with a British Council group of librarians, where the contacts made had lasted for years; Ros Newton had been to India, where a crazy bus drive was rewarded by a rare close-up sighting of a tiger looking at the tourists with disdain, and she’d been so emotional that she’d hugged the driver!

Not all the experiences were positive: Jennifer had spent 3½ “awful years in the Bahamas” and had been glad to be back; Alison recalled a boat trip back to New Zealand’s South Island from Stewart Island – “it’s going to be rough!”; David Hughes remembered a “rescue mission” to a daughter stranded by conflict in a dark corner of Egypt.

Huw Thomas introduced his music slot by asking who had heard the news about ten Welsh words being added to the Oxford English Dictionary in its most recent quarterly list of additions. [The full list is at this link] Most were familiar to us, though not perhaps calennig (the tradition of New Year gifts).

We then sang Sospan fach – what else from a Llanelli man?! – Ar lan y môr, recently featured on the Last Night of the Proms, and the inevitable Calon lân, before finishing with Mae hen wlad fy nhadau.

Grateful thanks to the staff at Mortonhall, to all those who took part, and especially to Jennifer Welsher for her organisation.