The Lampeter Blog - Part 6

Only a couple more days to go now. We have done three tenses in five days, and although I just about understand what we have done and why words mutate in the way they do (well at least I think that I do) I am very, very slow. I have to think hard before uttering a sound which is no way to conduct a conversation. Every time I am expected to speak something happens to my brain - a bit like a gate going down - and I am left standing or sitting there, my mouth open and nothing coming out but variations on er um ah...

Over the week end I had to learn the poem about colours, and then another one about the months of the year, do some exercises and of course work through a heap of flashcards in an attempt to learn vocabulary.

Also we prepared ourselves for the inevitable question - what did you do over the weekend? Well, for me it was an excursion around town and then a trip out to Strata Florida and then on Sunday I went down a bronze age gold mine. I'll go back to these later when I can load in my pictures. I have to report that my fellow students, though, had a more adventurous time - the two druids (who really are druids, more on that later too) managed to take in three castles, an abbey, a chapel, a museum, a trek to a fountain (whereupon one of them stripped off and submerged himself) on a single day; while another quite casually - or so it seemed to me - set off for the north in a quest to find various fatures mentioned in the Mabinogi (more on this later too)and seems to have circumnavigated the whole of Snowdonia.

I also have to report that at the same time they managed to learn and do all their homework. This just goes to prove my Welsh-expert-with-an-implanted-microphone-theory (see blog one) because all this was clearly impossible without some sort of help.

Ah well, time's up. I have to go and do more homework. We have to do a composition this time, so I am quite excited. Even though I am not the greatest Welsh-learner I have to admit to signing up for the on-line course. I am determined not to forget what I have learned, and I think without more practice I shall do very quickly - and anyway I have warned a Welsh poet that I know to beware - next time I see him I intend to attempt to practise what I've learnt.