Recently Rated:
Stats
My first venture into publishing in Welsh language has finally come to fruition. Excuse mixed metaphors.
Hedd Wyn, Ei Farddoniaeth is a hardcover book with a laminated cover [I don't l;ike paper dust wrappers that get torn and lost leaving a nondescript looking volume]. It has all the poems that were in the original Cerddi'r Bugail plus others that have been in later paperbacks and a few that Mr Williams, Hedd Wyn's nephew, gave me and which have never been published.
The book is available on Amazon and locally here. It will be officially launched on St David's Day in the village hall in Trawsfynydd opposite the house where HW was born. The event will be from 1pm to 5.30pm, entry is free and there will be snacks and an open mic session where anyone may read in Welsh or English.
The reason for such a long silence from me here is twofold. Firstly, ever since getting mobile again I have been gradually catching up on all sorts of work around the house and in my study that had been either totally ignored or half done before I gave up. I've made a lot of progress and things are returning to normal. I shall get even more done when 3 weeks have passed as my lovely helper, Emma, will be back from her summer occupation of running workshops on garland making at various festivals. Mind you, I shan't have her for long as she and Phil are getting married in September.
Secondly, I have been very busy editing a collection of poems by Hedd Wyn for publication by Merilang Press. I am not a native speaker so had to be very careful with typing and also checking after scanning. I checked it all myself and then a good friend who is a Cymraes proof-read the whole thing. My neighbour, who is hedd Wyn's nephew gave me a few more poems that had never been published. Altogether it has been stressful and time-consuming but very interesting. Have learnt a lot more Welsh but not of the kind one could yse for chatting in the pub. I have just finished contents and alphabetical index of first lines. Now just need to add titles for photos. and await a foreword from a bardd who is a Hedd Wyn expert.
Maybe then I'll have 
time to do some writing of my own.
Finally the snow thawed and I went in for my new knee. The hospital was wonderful and I was returned home a week later with nothing like the pain I'd been in for a couple of years. I have a new lease of life, am allowed to drive again and see to my own animals and even do gardening. It's wonderful.
Ceri, if you come to read this, it will do double duty by letting you know that if you still want to do an interview, I'd be delighted.
Hello everyone. At last I have got enough done of my dreadful backlog of jobs to have time to attend to blogs etc. So there is some catching up to be done. Easiest way to do that is to post here the general letter I sent with Christmas cards as there was no chance to write proper letters this year.
Events overtook me at the end of November. I was quite happily awaiting an op for a new knee and the surgeon had promised me I would be in his six spots before Christmas.. Then I went for a pre-op appointment and my heart, which had been behaving impeccably since having a change of tablets, decided to go wonky and start missing beats again. So I got sent for an ECG and the anaesthetist decided he wasnt happy and I got given extra pills and removed from the list as unsuitable for operation. The pills put the heart right but while I was waiting for them to relent the knee swelled up enormously and I couldnt put my foot to the ground to get to bed. Fortunately I have an emercency button and was rescued two very kind paramedics who gave me morphine and carted me off to hospital. It turned out that it had been bleeding into the joint and I spent a couple of days packed round with ice and two more evenings on morphine as it did a replay each time. My dear friend Emma, thank heavens, moved in while I was away and has beem coming daily to feed ducks and sheep , walk dogs and post my amazon books [that is what in the absence of any teaching keeps the wolf from the door]. Ive more or less recovered from it all now and am back on the list but I simply dare not set foot on the sheets of ice outside my door and my poor car is sitting under the snow. The big freeze started the first day of my week in hospital so I wouldnt dare try to start it till it thaws as it is diesel and I expect that had frozen to a jelly.
Apart from all that things are OK. I am going to publish a book of Welsh poetry, not mine but the poems written by my neighbours uncle, who was killed in 1917, is famous and out of copyright.. His nephew approves and a friend who is a native Welsh speaker is proof reading for me. Im also publishing a book of short stories for a friend of a friend, this one, unlike the friends books that I publish free as he helps technically, will probably earn me some money.
My own writing is going on all right and I have several childrens animal books out there and plans for further ones. In particular I need to do a whole lot more illustrations. That takes a lot more time than the writing.
Assuming the ice thaws -----------.
But then back came the snow and all froze again. Neither I nor my friend, with whom I was going to spend Christmas Day, could get out at all. Emma returned to her three mile daily round trip and I tried to make use of the time by doing jobs that I'd been avoiding. One of these that I made a lot of progress with was putting my Russian, French and Welsh video films onto DVD to save space. Threw away a lot that I decided were not a lot of good to anyone and gave the Russian and Welsh ones to learners of the respective languages.
I also started catching up on my accounts, but that being my most hated job, is still an ongoing project. That's what I should be doing now.
Between the necessary work I did very litle writing except in my head but I did fins an interesting diversion. One of my very good friends has Alzheimers and now cannot concentrate on anything that requires extended thinking. The other two of the trio who all live together have a hard time keeping her happy and occupied. Her one occupation that she still loves is taking her beloved dog outside for a game. So I made carefully sized photos of him and all their previous dogs and pasted them onto children's large piece jig saws. Fortunately she loves these and Mary, to whose lot it often falls to keep her amused, loves both jig saws and dogs si I am quite pleased with my new skill. It drove me mad at first, partly because concurrently I tried painting over a real size adult jigsaw with acrylics copying a favourite photo of theirs for Mary's birthday, which is Christmas Day. problem! I never realized how tough and stretchy dried acrylic was and so spent hours cutting it apart. I also did a dog one for Emma but, as I am better at dogs than people, that had fewer layers and so was not quite so infuriating. [see picture]
Now I'd better really get back to the accounts.
I originally wrote the story in Welsh for our local eisteddfod. Trawsfynydd actually has two, one in Spring and one in Autum. It won me 12 which was a help to my wobbly budget. Later I wrote it in English with a few alterations and started on the pictures. A friend did some of them at first as I am good at dogs but not at drawing people. In the end I had to incorporate her people into new b+w pictures as I had done the dogs in ink and she did hers in graphite and the difference showed up on the computerised versions. However, in the process of endless resampling and drawing, scanning and redrawing I finally had 25 reasonably suitable pictures and started printing. I've been selling the booklet in the local market but need to add more so that it can finish as a book with a spine. I have in mind a sequel to the story but quail at the thought that any continuation in the same book would need as many illustrations.
Meantime I went back to the original Welsh version and rewrote it a bit to match the final English version and then got it checked by native speakers for mistakes. At the last minute U remembered the speech buttons were in English so had to revise several of those. Now it is ready for printing.and I have a new printer as the old one gave up the ghost. When I get a small stock of copies I'll post it here
http://www.merilang.com/about/books-by-daffni-percival/
