St David's day

When in Wales, do as the Welsh do. OK, that isn't quite the famous line but it seemed appropriate. What do the Cardiff crowd do on St David's day apart from eat,drink and party? Well, they go and see the parade that trundles through the city and then enters the castle grounds. So, we felt obliged to join in. The walk into the city was busy. The streets along the parade route even more so. For the non UK readers, look at this for some background and cultural education St David Wikipedia. Alternatively, just enjoy the pictures below

We had a strange vantage spot though, in front of us were a family sporting daffodils - but they were Dutch (or at least were native Dutch speakers according to the crew who knows about such things). They had really adopted the local way of life. At least we had a great view across to the castle:

The parade was  a strange mix of groups. Great fun though and the atmosphere was wonderful, with many people dressed in national costume or sporting daffodils or leeks. One lady had taken the daffodil theme a bit far. We had never seen a daffodil that could eat quite like this:

The traditional male voice choir was there and in good voice too even if the years seemed to be catching up with them a little:

Some traditional costume for you too:

There were a few strange groups joining in too. As an example, the local Gurkha community. Never let it be said that Cardiff isn't multi-cultural (after all, they tolerate 2 English folk in Penarth)

There  were some other iconic local people celebrated by a statue too. For the fans of the Gavin and Stacey TV series, here is Nessa, the symbol of Barry Island culture and sophistication:

Not a bad likeness really

On the way back we walked around the old Ocean and Roath dock areas - or at least tried to. When they redeveloped this area, they forgot to add in footpaths. However, they did include some interesting sculptures in the middle of the roundabouts:

At the Motorpoint arena, we were amazed to see some huge queues at about 2pm. Then we saw that "Comic con" was taking place. We scoured the queue, looking for Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj but they must have got in earlier. We guess that Sheldon had it all planned out.


As the weather forecast continues to be horrid (gales and high seas out to the west) we will be around here for a while longer so you might get treated to more Welsh culture anon....