Harmony Devoured

So there it goes, yuletide's furry backside disappearing over the horizon taking the sickly baubels and sugar highs with it. Skin the reindeer, papa wants roast! In plain speak? Im happy Christmas has buggered off, its like coming up for air after a week lurking in the depths of Swiss Valley reservoir. Don't get me wrong, its great if you have children, creating special memories you had as a child (some children are not that lucky of course) but for me? Im happy its gone. And it used to arrive with such a potent buzz that no drug could ever hope to match. When out delivering cards with my late mother, I swore I could hear bells ringing from the star freckled night sky, there was a mystic energy that only children posses but alas it has left this rust bucket I call a soul, magic at zero and doubt it will ever return.
Arrives with age some would say but I'd wager that even the hardest Ebenezer Scroodge had at least heard a Christmas carol or watched a television "classic" during the festivities.
Want to know something? I didn't. Dim byd. Nothing. Not even a sniff of a mince pie. To my mind (and this is important because it was only in my company, with loved ones it was different) Christmas day might well have been a rainy weekend down the /Mumbles. Ah dear Mumbles! Escaping the silly season might seem impossible to most but I swear its doable. I just did it and to be fair, I wish a pill existed to get the spirit and excitement back but take enough happy tablets and you'll know that even chemical rainbows have limits.
So again it goes with a nary a farewell and no alchemy can ever dress bones. Its been a blast throughout those milky years, almost was the perfect drug, a never ending agent of harmony but one day all magic dies and for me (just me I hope), I can be happy with that. And I am perfectly happy.


*Please forgive the often heavy spirit this post was written in. I assure you gentle reader that everything is fine in the funhouse. Dark lines always make for better scenes and in family company the scene was different.

No Heavy Petting

Vintage: Jubilee Pool, Llanelli

Was thinking about the Marina in Swansea earlier and I got to thinking how much swimming pools have changed since I was a young boyo growing up in the 1970's/80's. I was what my grandmother called a "water baby" because I loved swimming and spent a fair amount of time at the Jubilee pool in Llanelli, jumping from top board, 'bombing' friends. (In fact I will go as far as to claim I was one of the first ten year olds in Strade school to actually dive from the highest board.)

But the changes from the 'baths' then to now are are as different as a graceful dive is to a bellyflop.

First off, the water seems warmer in todays sports centers.

Pools of yesteryear always had a foot bath linking changing room to swimming pool. Don't see them these days.

Swimming pools used to have a gutter running around the edges, as well as the occasional handrail.

The "No Heavy Petting" signs have disappeared.

Ditto the frightening grates in the middle of the deep end. I used to imagine all kinds of underwater leviathans inhabited those, convinced a slimy claw would reach out from the darkness if you dared get too near and pull you to your doom.

Leisure centers used stink of chlorine which would linger on you all day. Coming home on the bus you could always tell if someone had visied Jubilee pool. The potent stink has gone, along with hamburgers. Ah yes in Llanelli baths they didnt sell regular beefburgers, you got hamburgers (which were rather tasty if my tastebuds remember rightly.)

Welsh New Year Tradition

A Mari Lwyd

A lot of countries have their own wierd and wonderful traditions on New Years Eve and we in Wales are no different. (Hope everyone has had a great Christmas by the way!) One of the most famous was the Mari Lwyd (Grey Mare) and im grateful for having attended Welsh schools (Ysgol Parc Y Tywyn, Burry Port and Strade nr Llanelli) that I remember enacting this fabulous tradition. It also appealed to my more morbid side because it involved skulls. "Skulls?" I hear you ask astounded. Yes skulls, a horse skull to be precise. What you did was somehow get hold of a horse skull, fit it with fake eyes (and maybe ears) and cover it with a white sheet/blanket and ribbons. Attach a wooden pole and voila! The Mari Lwyd was ready.
The Mari would be taken door to door in a noisy procession (while drinking.) Those who opened their doors were greeted by Welsh poems and insults and were expected to reply in the same manner in a kind of 'verbal battle'. And win or lose the result was the same when Mari Lwyd and her crowd were called in for drinks with the householders.
Alas due to the public drunkeness and insults, the chapels of the 19th century urged people to swap insults to Christmas carols and many believe that this taming of the tradition led to the demise of the Mari Lwyd as its seldom seen these days sadly.