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There are pili-pala in our garden. When we bake cacen Elder Son usually ends up covered in blawd. He sings about Dau gi bach. And his school jumper is coch.

Mostly I love living in this land and hearing its language. But just occasionally the whole Iaith Pawb thing gets a bit silly.

I went to a client’s office the other day. (And I should add that the client was a government body.) Almost every sign was bilingual. Except one. The exception read, “If you wish to communicate in the medium of Welsh please inform a member of the Facilities Department”. It was in English.

Today, like Rosamundi, I’ve found myself wondering at the insanity that rears its crazy head as soon as there’s a few inches of snow on the ground.

From my window this morning I have observed the following:

1) The park across the road filled with boys and girls and mostly students demostrating their “mine is bigger than yours” attitude to snowmen.

2) A student siding down our street repeatedly on his snowboard.

3) His mate attempting, unsucessfully, to copy him on a skateboard with the wheels removed.

4) A large inflatable crocodile being carried past – presumably destined to be used as a sledge.

5) A ‘bloke’ wearing NOTHING on his top half.

What can I say. The city has gone mad.

Today I received an official looking A4 envelope in the post. It contained a letter informing me that “a tree will be planted on behalf of [my] child at Coed Ysgubor Wen, near Tywyn, Gwynedd. Grid Ref: SH 625 063″.

It’s part of the Plant! initiative.

And it struck me that the initiative is slightly flawed.

The letter was printed, in colour, on paper that did not appear to be recycled. It was single sided. And, since all official stuff has to be bilingual in Wales, the letter was accompanied by a separate letter saying the same thing in Welsh. Double sided printing was obviously beyond their abilities. Oh, and there was a colour certificate too – printed on A4 card.

So, the Welsh Assembly Government’s initiative is basically this: For every child born in Wales from 1st January 2008 (like Baby Son was), a bit of a tree will be cut down to provide 1 A4 envelope, 2 sheets of paper and 1 sheet of card in order to announce the fact that they’ll plant another tree to make up for the ones they’re cutting down!