Speaking of A Child in Wales

I have a copy of Dylan Thomas' poem "A Child's Christmas in Wales".  This is the cover on my small copy

It begins:  
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. 

Here's 6-year old Peg in the mountain village of Llanafan.

Autumn has arrived

I'm still marking time by events that began a little more than 5 years ago.  October was always my favorite month; now I dread it.  October the 11th is the 4th anniversary of the death of my husband.  Yes, I still mourn.  Some think I should be getting on with life.  I find that life has gotten on with me.  I have become the travelling middle of a sandwich.  I live with the kids during the week and with my mother most weekends.  I have a room at each place and never lack for something to fill the hours.  Yet . . .

At Mom's house, I've begun scanning her photos.  I'll send them to the brothers each week and let them do their own sorting and organizing of whatever they want to keep.

Last week I worked on some photos from Mom's childhood in Wales.  

Census records that will first show Mom are going to be a long time coming; it will be the 1931 census - that's due out in the year 2031.  This photo was probably taken about the time of her first birthday in 1927.  Mom was born in Cardiff and the photo may have been taken there.  The chair seems to swallow her up and the fancy backdrop is lost behind the chair back.  I wouldn't mind having that piece of furniture.

Then there's this one about age 8.

And this one taken at Llanafan, Cardiganshire, Wales.  My mother and Mamgu (my grandmother), at the "ancestral home".  Our family lived in the house called Bont Fach for 146 years.  That's a long time to live in one place.