Hi all. If anybody has a Youtube account I would really appreciate you voting for me to write a song with Grammy winner Richard Marx (writer of "Right Here Waiting", "Dance With My Father", "Hazard" etc.). Just go to http://www.youtube.com/user/officialrichardmarx and copy and paste my Youtube URL into the voting space (i.e. my Youtube URL:

http://www.youtube.com/darrenparryvideo).

Many thanks indeed DP

Had my car back today, plus a new starter motor. Living in Pembrokeshire, a car is a must. (My mother, eighty eight soon, has just given up driving).

I was reading amagazinewith yet another 'homemaker', multi tasker or whatever nomenclature shewished to assign to herself, talking about how sheliked a kitchen-dining area, soshe could chatto dinner party guests whilst cooking.

Fifty years ago, as newly marrieds in Fishguard, we had people around for supper occasonally and I made sure the food was ready before they arrived, becauseI prefer not to have interruptions whencooking.

We use our smalldining room all the time(used saucepans are not an appealing sight when eating). My husband (known as Mr Morgan to the neighbours and Peter to the teenager who delivers the newspapers), likes his mealsat thetable,all he needswithin reach. He lays the table for each meal with an embroidered cloth. Chipped, cracked or faded china goes straight in the bin. (Mugs, too, get a 'Niet').

Anyone who callsis given a cup of tea and a piece of cake. It is a simple form of hospitalityand Ilike doing it.

My two grandaughters, Ffion and Maudie,love baking, too. I called with Maudie on Sunday and she gave me a handful of cherriesas soon as I was through the door.Cherry Cobbler thoughtsimmediately entered my mind.(Stewed cherries, sweetened with sugar or syrup, which I prefer, and baked with a scone topping.)

Here is Nita Sybil Evans's recipe for 'Tea Time Scones'.

Ingredients:

8oz Self-Raising Flour, Pinch of Salt, 3 oz Sugar, 2 oz lard - (butter, I think), quarter pint of milk.

The scone mixture takes little time to make. Just rub fat into flour, add sugar, salt, bind withmilk and roll out. Stamp into rounds with a pastry cutter and overlap on top of the cherries. Bake in a hot oven for fifteen to twenty minutes.Ice cream, cream or custard, (if you can be bothered with making it and I can't, buy otherwise) would be a perfect accompaniment.

Off to 'Literature Wales' awards in Cardiff tomorrow. Will tell all when I get back.

I'm so excited! An author friend just notified me that Fictionwise, one of the largest ebook listings on the interwebs, has my novel Dragon & Hawk listed as Number One in Historical Fiction sales today! Of course, that can change by the minute, but it's pretty darn exciting from this end. Here is the link: Historical Fiction on Fictionwise .

For those of you in the UK, this novel is now available on Kindle through Amazon.co.uk - and it would be lovely if you could hit the "like" button and tag it to help other folks find it more easily. The beauty of ebooks is there are no shipping charges, no boxes to deal with, and you have instant delivery. No need to even have a Kindle reader - Amazon has a free download program for you to read Kindle books on your PC, laptop, iPhone or iPad.

How cool, eh?

A good time to take stock and reveal our future plans:)

The Past

• Since being founded on May 17th 2008 AC has grown from an initial membership of around 60 to well over 2500 members today.
• We have consistently added new features and content throughout this period and would like to take this opportunity to thank our many contributors and supporters for their contributions and input over the last three years.
• We have organized the Left/West Coast Eisteddfod since 2009 and this year, in association with our partners, A Raven Above Press we will be holding the biggest and best event yet in L.A. in September.
• We have consistently supported Welsh American causes and events and have done everything in our power to publicize them and to propagate knowledge of Welsh and American Welsh culture in the U.S. and abroad.

The Present

• Today, to mark the occasion of our third birthday we are adding a new 'Magazine' section to the top navbar. This section will link to the AmeriCymru blog and to its various sub-sections:- Interviews, Books, Poetry etc
• The blog has recently been re-designed and we hope you all like the new look. We encourage members and readers to visit this new section often and please feel free to leave comments.
  

The Future

• We will continue to make AmeriCymru available to the American Welsh community as an informational and entertainment resource and will continue to support Welsh American events...most notably the West Coast Eisteddfod and NAFOW.
• In the next three to four weeks we will be introducing major new features to the platform. New home page features include:- inline commenting and 'liking' of status updates ( similar to Facebook ), inline viewing of photos and videos ( which means you wont have to leave the home page to view these media ) and a built in status update feature on the front page that actually works ( unlike the rather primitive hack we added about a year ago )
• We will also be adding a new Design Studio that will make it easy to customize your page for any purpose or look that you desire. We will hold a Homepage Design competition when this new feature rolls out.

All in all it's been a busy and exciting three years on AmeriCymru. And the future promises to be even more so. Once again we would like to thank you all for your support and contributions over the last three years and finally to rededicate ourselves to serving the Welsh American community in the years to come.

Diolch yn Fawr

Penblwydd Hapus AmeriCymru