{"id":222,"date":"2019-12-05T22:36:14","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T22:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=222"},"modified":"2020-03-01T15:15:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-01T15:15:50","slug":"a-christmas-cwtch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/a-christmas-cwtch\/222\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Cwtch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

19th<\/sup>\nOctober<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Gwyneth,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It won\u2019t be\nlong now, my love. Soon I\u2019ll be with you. Eighty years old, twenty-five of them\nspent without you. I\u2019m tired. I\u2019ll be ending my life on Christmas Day, the\nanniversary of your passing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until then,\nCariad\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, Dai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

23rd\nNovember<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Gwyneth,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a month!\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally\nanswered the door to the neighbours\u2019 incessant knocking. One of them thrust a\nleaflet into my hand before I could slam the door. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The council\nare selling the village green to developers. The skate park, playground and\nvillage hall would all go, spelling the end of Llancwtch as we know it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the residents\nplan to join hands around the Green at the Christmas fete and sing a protest\nsong. I\u2019d say, \u201cleave me out of it, my time for socialising is over.\u201d But this is\na call to arms, like the Strikes of \u201884 and \u201885. I\u2019m no Scab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re singing\na wonderful arrangement of \u201cHappy Xmas (War is Over).\u201d I won\u2019t lie, I love being\npart of the Bass section again. After our daily choir practice, we watch the\nyoungsters skateboarding. You wouldn\u2019t believe the tricks they can do, Gwyneth!\nWithout the skate park, they\u2019d be on the streets. There\u2019s a huge knife crime\nproblem now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these\ndistractions make time pass quickly. Counting the days\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, Dai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

28th<\/sup>\nDecember<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Gwyneth,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not done\nwith this world yet. I hope you\u2019ll understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protest went\n\u201cviral,\u201d whatever that means! \u201cA Christmas Cwtch,\u201d the headlines said. But the\ncouncil wouldn\u2019t budge. That is, until something remarkable happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Christmas\nEve night, I stood on the Green. Anticipation hung in the air, sparkling across\nthe frosty grass and through my body. My every breath drifted ghost-like\ntowards the sky. The stars danced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of the\nshadows, a figure crept towards the village hall. Santa? He unpacked his sack and\nbegan spray-painting the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He jumped out\nof his skin when I approached and said, \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After he\u2019d\ncaught his breath, he explained that he was inspired by our community when he\nsaw the News, and that what he was doing would help us. I watched, awe-struck,\nas he worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Llancwtch was\nswarming with reporters on Christmas morning. Turns out this \u201cBanksy\u201d fellow is\nsomething of a celebrity. The painting is fabulous: a ring of people holding\nhands around a heart-shaped Green. They form a shield against the surrounding images\nof people pointing knives at each other, and others alone in boxes. Across the middle\nis the word \u201cCwtch\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word soon got\naround that I\u2019d witnessed everything. I was interviewed on TV, Gwyneth! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll I can\nsay is, he had a white beard and a red suit,\u201d I said, with a wink. \u201cA\nmodern-day Santa.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must go now,\nGwyneth. We have a committee meeting to decide how to manage the crowds already\nflocking here. The council won\u2019t be selling Llancwtch village green now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merry\nChristmas, Cariad. Until we meet again\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, Dai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19th October Dear Gwyneth, It won\u2019t be long now, my love. Soon I\u2019ll be with you. Eighty years old, twenty-five of them spent without you. I\u2019m tired. I\u2019ll be ending my life on Christmas Day, the anniversary of your passing. Until then, Cariad\u2026 Love, Dai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,101],"tags":[102,111,112,113],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-december-2019","tag-christmas","tag-cwtch","tag-dai","tag-gwyneth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-3A","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}