A belated Happy St David’s Day for 1st March. With it falling on a weekend I know a lot of schools were doing Eisteddfodau on Friday, Monday or, like my son’s (and a fair few others I’ve spoken to through work), they’re doing a whole Welsh week, Welsh fortnight or an entire enquiry topic on Wales or what it is to be Welsh.
In a time when it feels very hard to be proud to be British with the far right hijacking the union flag and with a dangerous buffoon in charge, it’s comforting to be able to celebrate my national identity and Welshness through food, crafts, song, poetry and flowers.
The local response to the recent floods in Wales has shown that sense of community, of looking out for each other and getting on with it while Westminster fights and fannies around ignoring the issue.
Wales often feels like the underdog and we’re not very good at shouting about what we’re doing well or doing first. We were the first country in the UK to introduce the charge of single-use carrier bags (2011), an opt-out organ donation system (2015) and an Older People’s Commissioner (2006).
I was at a conference a couple of years ago and a speaker ran a session about well-being without any reference to the Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015) then it clicked – I was in Liverpool and the act is a Wales thing. The seven well-being goals are inspiring a bill that’s going to the UK government. Well-being is at the heart of the new Curriculum for Wales. Again, at conferences in England I’ve listened to other delegates moan about the Gove style archaic approach to education, the narrowing of curriculum, I was confused as it didn’t match up with the changes I know are happening in my child’s primary. Then I’d remember, ah of course, we have a different approach.
I’m proud to Welsh, I’m using the language more, I love living here. I’m not proud to be British. In addition to usual traditions of gorging myself on welsh cakes, decorating the house with daffodils and making yet another papier mache dragon, I’m going to quietly go about being community minded and doing good things, but maybe, just maybe for once, shouting from the hills about it.
Vale of Glam Mam 