The Mart

Sometimes there's absolutely no point whatsoever in pretending you know what you're doing, and Tregaron livestock market is definitely one of those times and places where you'll never get away with it.

We'd been given a blow by blow account over a beer or two in the pub of how our morning at the mart might unfold; when to arrive, what to say to the auctioneer and when - "I'm disappointed", "on the market" - what sort of price we might expect, who would buy our stock, what to order for breakfast in the portakabin canteen. Despite all this, the day didn't start as planned when Myfanwy hurdled the hurdles (yet again, when will I learn), signing Lulu's death warrant in the process. Two sheep had to go to market and neither Lulu or Rhos had yet to develop Myfanwy's leaping skills or sense of self-preservation, so when three became two in the pen by default Lulu had to accompany her half-brother to market. This unplanned turn of events left me a little tearful. I'd said my goodbyes to Rhos and Myfanwy and mentally prepared myself for their departure. Myfanwy had been nothing but trouble for the past year, but Lulu had never put a hoof wrong in her year on the smallholding. Nevertheless, a change of plan is a change of plan whether I like it or not, especially given that Myfanwy's escape was entirely my fault for not predicting the predictable effect on her of the sound of the approaching truck and trailer.

As advised, we arrived at market soon after the 9 a.m. permitted arrival time to ensure our sheep got into the first auction shed. Luckily this also gave us the chance to confess our ignorance and inexperience to the auctioneer and stockman without an audience (as if they didn't know from the look of us, in our clean clothes, with our incomer accents, and not a flat cap between us). To their credit, both were friendly and not at all dismissive of our "idiot's guide to the mart" questions. What was said once we'd turned our backs we shall never know, though I'm pretty sure somebody said something to someone before the day was out as news of our performance at mart got back to me three days later in the local shop via someone who wasn't even there at the time! Infamy, infamy ....

The time difference between opening time and starting time wasn't included in our pub mart briefing, so having whiled away the two hours to auction by having a coffee, buying a newspaper, browsing the agricultural store (always educational), playing Candy Crush Saga on the phone, sipping mugs of tea and nibbling at pieces of toast in the canteen, we ambled back to the mart. By now the first auction shed was full and the second filling quickly as trailer after trailer unceremoniously unloaded an assortment of sheep who trotted over the concrete to their allotted numbered pen.

In our absence, Rhos and Lulu had been given pen mates, including a big ugly ram with scary bulging eyes. Judging by the nasty bite he gave his owner he wasn't happy about being at the mart. I couldn't bear to look at Rhos and Lulu, both of whom were hanging their heads and trying to hide at the back of the pen (I must not blub at the mart, I must not blub at the mart).

 

There was a fair crowd in the auction shed by now, but I still felt conspicuous in every way - female, under 50, wearing a jacket from Mole Valley Farmers in Somerset, more worried about welfare than price. Then the hubbub died down, everybody shuffled to the end and the auction began. Subtly raised fingers, inexplicable chatter, shouted prices, out with the spray marker, sold. And repeat. Nothing hi-tech about this stock market, with transactions recorded by a man with a clipboard using pen and paper. Rhos and Lulu were up next. All eyes turned to us. Clearly we were supposed to say something to kick the bidding off. Remembering our pub briefing I offered up "yearling wether" in a far from confident very English sounding voice. Correct answer. "Teeth up?" Eh? What? No, yes, don't know, what does that mean? The stockman stuck his fingers into Rhos' mouth. "Baby teeth", he announced to the assembled throng. "Baby teeth", "baby teeth", ripples around the group clustered by the pen. Was that good or bad? No time to ponder, bidding was underway. Sold for £73.50. And off we went again with Lulu. "Baby teeth!". Bidding. A pause. The auctioneer looked at us. We looked at him. Had someone asked a question? Was this where we say "I'm disappointed"? Hands reach between bars to give Lulu a squeeze. Ha! This time I knew what was going on. They were checking her body condition score. A number was shouted out. Bidding resumed. Sold for £63. Phew, it was all over for us. At this point the big Welsh chap who'd bought them both (who, according to what I saw scribbled on the clipboard, was exactly who we'd been told would buy them) said something incomprehensible. It sounded like "pound for helpy". Eh? "Pound for helpy?" Smile and laugh. "Pound for helpy?". Smile, laugh and keep walking. I still have absolutely no idea what was being asked of me. Three years of Welsh lessons had failed me. Come to think of it, I have no idea if he was speaking Welsh or English or Wenglish. Did he want me to give him £1 for buying our sheep? Is that some strange custom deliberately omitted from our pub briefing? Had I inadvertently committed a faux pas that would have me banned from the mart forever? I shall never know, as bidding began at the next pen everyone's attention turned back to business and we wandered out, eyes blinking in the morning sunshine as we emerged from the gloom of the auction shed. The deed was done. I didn't feel good about it. Walking away, leaving Rhos and Lulu in that shed, felt like a betrayal. My fifty pieces of silver would arrive a week later.

Resolutions Revisited: Part 1 of 4

The end of the year is nigh. Browsing this year’s meagre blog offerings I see the “Resolutions of a (Nearly) 40 Something” I rashly posted for all and sundry to see. With just 10 weeks of 2012 remaining it’s time to assess progress.

First up, my resolution to learn Welsh.

Sut mae! Dw i’n dysgu Cymraeg ers mis Ionawr. Dw i’n gwybod llawer o eiriau, ond mae e’n iaith anodd i siarad ac yn anodd iawn i ddeall! Which, roughly paraphrased and translated, means I may be learning Welsh but that doesn’t mean I understand a single word of it! If only everyone spoke the language with the same careful enunciation as my tutor, or in the slow, occasionally painful manner of my classmates and I where long pauses between words whilst one brain rummages through a swirling mass of vocabulary, grammar and conjugations give the other brain sufficient time to dissect the sequence of strangled vowels and consonants and perform an on the hoof (of a lame pony) translation. The reality is that Welsh spoken by a native speaker goes in one ear as a stream of noises, shoots straight across the void of incomprehension and out the other ear, leaving behind nothing but a blank, slightly panicked expression. To be fair, without exception not one of the Welsh men and women on whom I’ve inflicted my fledgling linguistic skills has rebuffed my attempts to speak their language. The response is invariably pleasure that I want to learn, patience in abundance and a twinkle in the eye when they catch me out with a tricky word.

I’m learning to love the quirks of Welsh: the seamless merging of Welsh and English within a sentence, my personal favourites being the expression “dim probs” (no problem); the use of “bach” (small) as a term of endearment for anyone of any age and any sex and regardless of whether you’ve known that person for 30 seconds or 30 years; popping to the “ty bach” (little house) instead of the loo; adopting phonetic versions of an English word in place of the traditional Welsh, like “brecwast” (breakfast) and “plisman” (policeman). But I have no love for the Welsh mutations – these are the X-Men of the language, letters morphing into other letters, letters that clone themselves, letters that can simply disappear. When does a “cath” (cat) become a “gath”? Why does the number five switch from “pump” to “bum”? Who can find the way to Caerdydd (Cardiff) when suddenly it’s Nghaerdydd? Do I live at bucolic “Banceithin” or vampiric “Fanceithin”? These are the questions that trouble the learner of the dark art of Welsh, and the answers to which must be accepted without further question or else forever be confused.

What did the Welsh ever do for us?

There’s more to a Welsh class than learning Welsh. The Welsh are as idiosyncractic as any people – why say it’s raining cats and dogs when you could say it’s raining like old women and sticks (hen wragedd a ffyn) - and like any proud nation, they have bold claims about their place in history. In evidence, I proffer these two gems of historical “fact”:

1. How your cornflakes got their box

Nansi Richard Jones, a famous Welsh harpist known as “Queen of the Harp”, once visited Mr Kellogg of cornflakes fame. Mr Kellogg was launching new packaging for his cornflakes, previously only sold in bags. Nansi (a marketing executive in the making years before anyone knew what a marketing executive was or realised that the world could come to a crashing halt without such a person) suggested to Mr Kellogg that perhaps he could feature a cockerel on the box – not just because cockerels crow in the morning whilst you are tucking into your bowl of cornflakes (curse those pesky cockerels), but also because the similar sounding “ceiliog” is Welsh for cockerel. And it’s no coincidence that the colours of the Kellogg cockerel are the red and green colours of the Ddraig Goch (Red Dragon) of the Welsh flag. The rest, as they say, is (marketing) history!

2. How the U.S. of A. got its A

So you thought that Amerigo Vespucci gave his name to the Americas? Well, think again! Enter stage left, Welshman Richard ap Meurig, also known as “ap Meryke” (see where I’m going here….?). This is the chap who helped fund John Cabot’s voyage of discovery to Newfoundland in 1497. As thanks for the cash in hand, Mr Cabot named this new country after the Paymaster General and, as if by magic, the country of America came into being.

There are doubters amongst us who question the authenticity of such claims, but there’s no arguing with these other “interesting” (in the widest sense of the word) facts about Ceredigion:

- there are no motorways or dual carriageways (but there are lots of tractors, horse boxes and trailers, and innumerable ways of saying “goodness me, isn’t this traffic moving very slowly, do you think this nice chap could pull into one of the passing places and let us very patient folk go past”)

- there is only one major traffic light controlled intersection (but no one is quite sure where it is or what it would look like if they accidentally drove through it)

- there is only one escalator (and that didn’t arrive until autumn 2011 when the new Next store opened in Aberystwyth and although sales of the “fantastic collection of cushions in a variety of colours and styles” have been slow, the novelty moving staircase has seen a lot of action).

But who wants to see countryside in a motorway blur or a whizz down a dual carriageway? Why while away life queuing in traffic at junctions? Slow down and watch the celandines flower. And while you’re waiting, why not come to Ceredigion and take a ride on the escalator?

Dosbarth Cymraeg

Satchel. Packed lunch. Notepad. Pen, pencil, eraser. Butterflies in the tummy. Missed the bus. Driven into town by Dave, still in his slippers. The only thing I needed to complete the “back to school” flashback was a gym kit and a battered violin case. This was it, a new year resolution in action, I really was heading back to the classroom. But first I had to find it. Feeling confident I headed down corridors and through doors following signs to the Welsh Department. The Welsh Department, or rather a stern woman tapping furiously on her keyboard who appeared to be the sole member of the Welsh Department in residence, told me in no uncertain terms, but thankfully in English, that the Welsh class for adults I was looking for was in fact nothing to do with the Welsh Department, and no, she doesn’t know where my Welsh class is taking place, and yes, it does seem strange that a Department with “Welsh” in its name doesn’t have anything to do with my Welsh class. Feeling less confident I found myself alone in a stairwell with only 5 minutes to go before my first lesson was due to start.

Some time later, after a comedy Benny Hill style montage of high speed jogging up & down stairs and knocking on doors (though I hasten to add that I remained fully clothed throughout and as far as I know there was no dirty old man in hot pursuit), I was ensconced in an overheated classroom with my shiny new classmates, all of us gazing uncomprehendingly at smiley, round Mrs Pepperpot the tutor as she emits a series of noises that we assume is the Welsh language but could equally be her choking on her own tongue. It seems that teaching methods have changed somewhat in the fourteen years since I was last in a classroom mangling vowels and attempting to learn a new language. It’s all “ecoutez, repetez, ecoutez, repetez, ecoutez, ECOUTEZ, REPETEZ, REPETEZ,… aaarrggghhh ….. ad nauseum”. The class “rules” include trying not to ask questions about grammar and trying not to write during oral practice. They may as well ask me to try not to breathe! After four hours of chanting mispronounced vowel-less words it certainly felt as though my brain had been starved of oxygen.Ok, so strictly speaking that’s not true, yes the words were more than likely consistently mispronounced, and yes, my brain cells were gasping for breath, but no, the words weren’t really vowel-less, it just looked that way – you see the Welsh alphabet has seven vowels; the five usual suspects, plus the Frankie Howerd letters “w” (oo) and “y” (er). Words like “llyfr” and “eglwys” just look like they’ve been thrown together by a monkey with a Scrabble bag of consonants. Mind you, knowing that doesn’t necessarily help you figure out how to pronounce the words! “Book” and “church”, if you’re interested.

We’re encouraged to practice our newly discovered but tenuous grasp of the Welsh language outside of the classroom. Aside from throwing the odd “diolch” (thanks”) over my shoulder as I leave a shop, all but running out the door as I say it to avoid the risk of getting a full blown Welsh response that leaves me red-faced, I haven’t been brave enough to start any kind of conversation with the locals yet. I’m waiting for the class where we learn the Welsh for “lambing”, “beer”, “rugby” and “what the ****”. In the mean time I’m practicing on Teri, Stevie and Nessa, all of whom are born and bred in Wales. Teri puts her head on one side and responds with an enthusiastic tail wag, but that’s also how she responds to discipline, sticks and biscuits so I’m not getting my hopes up that it’s my perfect pronunciation that’s the cause of such encouragement. I suspect that the feline response of sceptical rolling of eyes, lick of the bum, a wailing cry and exit through cat flap is more representative of the quality of my performance. Dave already has a tendency to look at me blankly or glaze over when I speak, so I can’t risk slipping too much Welsh into my day to day speech for fear of him slipping into his own world never to return. The best way of judging how native Welsh speakers pronounce those crazy looking words is to watch subtitled episodes of the Welsh soap “Pobol Y Cwm” (People of the Valley) – rural folk (like Emmerdale), with townie pretensions to controversial storylines (like Eastenders), not altogether convincing sets (like Crossroads), hint of the amateur dramatics (like Doctors), feel of a daytime soap despite being pitched at a peak viewing time evening audience (like Hollyoaks). Last week it was revealed that the guy who’d framed the woman who’d just been released from prison was sleeping with the Detective who was investigating the case leading to the woman being released from prison because the girlfriend of the woman in prison saw the guy and the Detective having coffee together and grassed them up to the Detective’s senior officer. High drama indeed. Love, betrayal, anger, adultery – it happens in the valleys too!

But who needs “Pobol Y Cwm” when in class I can follow the soap opera that is the lives of Ffred and Sandra. Long gone are Peter and Jane and the fun they had with balls and Pat the dog. Ffred and Sandra are the Gold Blend couple of Welsh class, their “will they”, “won’t they” shenanigans providing weekly titillation through the medium of the dialogue box.

Ffred and Sandra met in week 1, by week 2 he was already asking her on a date, and by week 3, after said first date at the Black Lion on Saturday night, followed by a meal, he replies to Tom’s enquiry as to “what happened afterwards” with a cheeky “Oh, I couldn’t say”. Back in the day, it took months and months of French lessons just to find out whether Jean-Paul went fishing or swimming of a weekend, and now we have Ffred intimating to Tom that more than just a pie and a pint might have been on offer after a mere three weeks of getting to know Sandra. That’s progress for you!

Time please, gentlemen!

The last time I pulled a pint it was 1995, the pub was called “Harkers”, and I was a 22 year old law student earning minimum wage serving up flavoured vodkas and pints of strong continental lager to the townsfolk of Chester. Fast forward to 2011, it’s the “Rhos Yr Hafod”, and I’m a 38 year old ex-lawyer earning nothing at all serving up fags, crisps and pints of real ale to the farmers of Ceredigion. Had the Ghost of Careers Yet to Come whisked my 22 year old self into the future, such an unexpected twist in the anticipated career path would have come as quite a shock. Just as well my 22 year old self didn’t have a vision of her 39 year year old self in an agricultural store buying Myti-Lite Foot Rot Shears and a can of Foot Master violet livestock spray or someone might have been calling for the crash cart, warming up the paddles and shouting “clear”!

Way back when, in a fit of foolish enthusiasm and under the influence of alcohol, Dave and I offered to mind the local pub if ever the need arose. Six months later and there we were, behind the bar, serving up pints with a head you could stick a flake in and pass off as a Mr Whippy in a glass.

Working in a pub licensed to serve until 2:30 a.m. came as a shock to someone whose finely tuned body clock thinks bedtime starts with a mug of Ovaltine at 10 p.m. On our first night we were both so knackered by 1 a.m. that Dave grabbed a horn from the wall display, wiped the dust off the mouthpiece and called last orders with a squeaky parp – I’m not sure who was more surprised that he’d done it, him or the last remaining hardcore locals who were promptly turfed out into the night. Once we’d dusted off our mental arithmetic, spilled a few beers, messed up the till a few times and generally tested the patience of the customers, we got into the swing of things and actually started to enjoy our evenings behind the bar.  The silver lining on the cloud of late nights and sleepy, grumpy mornings was getting to know the locals. And what a fine bunch of people they are….

… the evening starts with Iwan drinking his 5 o’clock pint of Youngs, telling stories peppered with “flipping ‘ecks” and singing the occasional dirty song, then there’s Mark who played rugby, his daughter Jess who goes out with Rhodri, whose brother is Alisdair, who works for Charles who runs the local shoots and is married to Liz, who always drinks coffee and tomato juice, both of whom are friends with Gareth who collects military knives and calls me Sue Perkins and drinks with the other Charles, who wrote a song that was stolen by Phil Collins, together with George who owns the caravan park and Dafydd who’s a local councillor and Bill who wasn’t well, all of whom are driven home by Kevin who drinks coke. Then there’s Paul with the crazy eyes who goes out with Sian who hated her haircut so much that she cried, Dai who was in the Welsh champions tug of war team but now rows across oceans even though he only learned to swim in his fifties, Roger the tax man who Dave over charged by £60, the other Dai who’s married to Mary who plays darts with Paul and Sian, the other Dafydd who plays darts with Mary, Paul and Sian, and a David who speaks with a Welsh-Essex accent and plays darts with Mary, Paul, Sian and Dafydd…. are you still with me? So there’s Will Chips whose surname isn’t Chips but is known as Will Chips ‘cos he ran the first fish ‘n’ chip shop in Aberaeron, Tiny Tim who fell off his tractor and fractured his heel bone but isn’t to be confused with Skinny Dave who is someone else entirely, and last but not least there’s Gwilym whose dog saved his life, wants to sell us Welsh cattle and loaned us The Veterinary Book for Sheep Farmers even though he’s never owned a sheep.

D’you want ice and lemon with that?