Wrexham 102 - Y Wal Goch/the bucket hat has arrived in town /Yma o hyd / We are still here - in spite of everyone and everything /58 years of waiting

---

Y Wal Goch - Yma o Hyd ? OK as I walk on this warmer than usual Autumn morning I hear your brain whirring as you try to work out what Y Wal Goch is . Or Yma o Hyd. I don't blame you not knowing . It is that Welsh language that is becoming an issue in Wales . In a good way of course . Y Wal Goch has become the rallying call of the national football team . A name given to the supporters of Wales or Cymru as it is hoping to be renamed after the World Cup campaign ends . The Red Wall of supporters who are following Wales to the World Cup in 2022. We have not been there for is it 58 years . It has been a long wait but it has finally come round with the first game of the campaign to be fought against the USA. Will we win that game ? Who knows but Y Wal Goch will be shouting for the team and singing the adopted anthem Yma o Hyd.

Of course walking on your own means you do think a lot . You and your thoughts range from what you watched on the TV last night - a cookery programme presented by the Italian American Stanley Tucci. He was a director /actor and many other things whose programme we had somehow missed . Series 1 had passed us by . Series 2 was just being reshown. I wondered why we had missed it as I walked on my own . Perhaps the name meant nothing . Never heard of Stanley Tucci before . A cookery programme - not always our choice of TV watching material . Italy - we had missed the Italian bit and thought that there was little else on the TV so why not try the first programme and make a decision whether to ditch it or watch it . What a revelation it was too. He chose a region of Italy and concentrated on the cuisine and the scenery . Did I know you could deep fry Pizza in Napoli ? Did it make me squirm when I saw the amounts of offal being cooked in some Italian regions ? Did we drool over Venice , Rome and Sicily ? Each area with a distinct cooking tradition from the wild rabbits caught in the mountains of the north and shared within an heirachy still in the families to the rice, risotto , Palma Ham and tomatoes . Did we say there was still so much of Italy we had not seen ? All of these things and more . As I walked I thought we could have made another few holidays in Italy in Gabby . This programme had in an odd way made our taste buds drool and our thoughts turn to Lake Como as one destination we had missed .

The flowers have all gone now in the main although a few hardy ones have survived. The first frosts yet to arrive will see the last of those off . I small ray of sunshine from the buttercups clinging on or the yellow of the Ragwort . I pick up a few hazlenuts to take home and eat with my coffee . Free hazlenuts are one of the things I do like when I walk here in Wales . That is a difference to Derbyshire . There were no hazlenuts to pick . I miss the extra walks I could take up there I thought as I walked the same lanes many times over . I missed talking to walkers . Not so many out at this time of the morning when the light is just breaking . The sky is blue in parts so it looks like a good day ahead . Streaky white clouds drift by .

My thoughts from cooking go back to Y Wal Goch and now the Bucket Hat . A red, green and yellow bucket hat with a welsh dragon motif has become the chosen headgear of welsh men, woman and children since it was introduced . The large plastic lit up bucket hat is on its way to venues around Wales . We spotted one outside the museum at Wrexham . On its plinth it celebrates a different side to welshness and promotes the World Cup .

And finally as I reach the last part of my walk I find the song Yma o Hyd going round and round my head . The song written by Dafydd Iwan the welsh language activist many many years ago celebrates the welsh language , its survival and the survival of the welsh people . Yma o Hyd - Still here . That is what it means . Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth - yma o hyd . In spite of everything and everyone we are still here . It is the rousing song you hear when Welsh football and rugby are played . Wrexham AFC play it and the crowd sings along before the football match starts . Have a listen to it . Pull up the English translation . Once that song gets into your head you cannot stop humming it or singing it .

---

Comments

[Home and Away]

Wales vs USA...
I will be sure to watch!

[JenGog]

wales v USA -
I think Wales will struggle but you never know . We shall be cheering our sides on I am sure . I dont know if you have watched the Welcome to Wrexham documentary . It has just won the Critics award for documentaries last night in the US. I think it is on FX and Hula over there and put out by Disney + . Very gritty and tells some of the story about our local football club and the difference having Canadian and American actors as owners . The story is one of heartbreak , unscrupulous owners , some of the story of the fans mortgaging their properties to save the oldest international football ground in the world and one of the founder members of the Football Association . The tax man wanting his pennarth which put us into administration as the owner tried to sell the land for a supermarket . So much untold in the story and to be fair a bit of bad language but it is a heartbreaking yet warm story of a small town with a massive history . Well holidays on the cards . Been planning this morning . We have a plan but it is not like any we have had to do for years . Are you going to get away? I know you have the dog to think about and of course Lindas health which is a major concern .

[Home and Away]

Wales vs USA...
I will try to watch the "Welcome to Wrexham" documentary. I'm not going to get away this holiday season...have to pet sit. Linda will go to her nephew's wedding in Florida. Her other nephews and niece from Northern Ireland will be there along with her sister. Upon her return she will undergo 16 radiation sessions; finishing by the end of the year. Our daughter Rosanna, husband Evan, and our two young grandsons, Connor and Logan, will be here from 22 to 31 December, so will be here for our 50th anniversary on the 23rd, which will be wonderful.

[JenGog]

holidays
My thoughts are with you both . The sessions are hard going and I she has a lot of support . Good that the family are getting together . Not sure what we will do over Christmas .