St Davids Day & St Fagins Museum of Welsh Life.

Hello everyone :)

This blog bit isn't really about our training but we wanted to write it anyway because we thought you might like to know a little bit about Wales (we did do lots of walking too at the museum and we wore our new walking shoes!)

Dewi Sant

On March 1st it is St David's Day or Dydd Gŵyl Dewi. He is the patron saint of Wales and there is a place named after him in West Wales. Dewi Sant was a monk who lived in the 6th century who became famous throughout the country as a caring man who spent his life  helping others.His last words were "Gwnewch y pethau bychain" which means "Do the little things". We think that is a good thing to think, which is why we are walking up Snwdon for the Uganda Child Education Trust. St David's Day started in 1120, when Dewi was made a saint by Pope Callactus the Second.He always has a white dove of peace on his shoulder.

This is Dewi Sant's flag

On Dydd Gŵyl Dewi all the children in Wales dress up in their Welsh costumes (gwisg Cymraeg). This year Carys wore the traditonal costume and Sioned wore her Shane Williams top because you're allowed to wear a red Welsh top and Shane Williams was our favourite Welsh rugby player before he retired last year :(     

Shane Williams

 

This year for St David's Day our school went to St Fagans - Amgueddfa Werin Cymru which is the National museum of Welsh life for St David's Day.We LOVE St. Fagans because it has loads of things to see and we LOVE history especially Welsh history. We went to the museum many times with Mami when we were home-schooled because its her favourite place too! 

At the museum there are many buildings that have been  taken apart brick-by-brick and rebuilt at the museum like the Iron-Age round houses in The Celtic Village and the six  Rhyd-y-Car Ironworkers' Houses from Merthyr Tydfil. Each house is set in a different time from 1805 to 1985 and has different rooms, furniture and objects. Merthyr Tydfil was a really important town during the industrial revolution as it was one of the most important iron-manufacturing towns in the world in the 19th century. These are the workers houses. They are really small and have very low ceilings. We wonder if people were shorter then?


St. Fagans has been open since 1st November 1948, and is in the grounds of  St Fagans Castle and gardens, a late 16th-century manor house which was donated to the people of Wales by the Earl of Plymouth!

                      Last time we went we also had a chance to dress up!

Carys is pretending to be the baby!

This is the way the Welsh women used to carry their
babies.

  











.





We walked around all the houses for ages until we had to come home! We had fun!

When we got home Mum had made Wenglish cawl (soup). She says its Wenglish because she's half English and half Welsh so she's Wenglish hahaha! Dydd Gwyl hapus iawn i pawb!

Thank you for reading our blog! 
lots of love 
Carys & Sioned
xxxxxx

If you would like to find out more about the charity that we are raising money for please join their Facebook page
 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uganda-Child-Education-Trust-Kitende/216146361792463?ref=hl

and if you would like to sponsor our climb up Mount Snowdon we have a Just Giving page too

 http://www.justgiving.com/CarionedsChallenge

Thank you everyone :)

Day 2

Hello everyone
It rains a lot in Swansea but yesterday it rained even more than usual so we couldn't go out on our bikes. It looked like this :( Mum said she'd take us swimming but the pool we wanted to go to was shut.

So we ran up and down the stairs for a bit and then we cleaned our guinea pigs out which is really hard work because there's loads of them :)

This is Sid, Billy and Shay

We are definitely going swimming later but if it rains anymore we could probably go swimming in the garden :

 If you would like to find out more about the Uganda Child Education trust they have a Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uganda-Child-Education-Trust-Kitende/216146361792463?ref=hl 

And if you would like to sponsor us you can do this on Just Giving, we have our own page http://www.justgiving.com/CarionedsChallenge

Thank you for reading our blog
lots and lots of love 
from Carys and Sioned
xxxxxx

)

Day 4 & 5: Playing and walking.

Hi everyone!
It was our last day of half-term yesterday :( so we wanted to have movie morning with Mum before we did any training. It was nice to have a lie in and a cwtch. We love cwtches (that's Welsh for hug). After all that swimming we really ached as well :( so it was nice to snuggle up and watch a really nice film.

We all got ready to go for a long walk but then our friends came round and Mum said we should go out and play instead because its been raining most of the week. We did quite a bit of running around and riding our bikes

We had another movie morning this morning and didn't get up until REALLY  late  so mum said "Right, lets go for that walk now!" So off we went! We live in a place that has LOTS of hills and a lot of history. When we were being home-schooled we learned a lot about the history of Swansea by going on walks and Mum would tell us about all the old places that we saw. Swansea used to have a really big copper works, the biggest in the world in Victorian times and there are still lots of the old buildings in the Hafod which is where we go to school. 

First of all we went up to Waun Wen park and climbed the climbing frames.




















 












Then we walked passed the Catholic school and found a little garden that was really overgrown but we found these little signs everywhere. It was quite spooky!







We then walked to Hafod which is at the  top of a really steep hill. A Hafod was a place where farmers used to take their sheep to graze in the summer. 'Haf' means 'summer' in Welsh. We learned that in homeschool.

On the way down to the old copper works we went to see the old buildings down by the river Tawe. They're all falling down now and covered in graffiti. We went further than we've been before and found Vivian & Sons Shed number 1. Mr Vivian was the owner of the copper works and his family built all the houses in the Hafod but we don't know what the shed was for. It was more spooky than the the church garden :O

We'd been walking for ages by now so Mum said we could walk to the shop by the Liberty Stadium and get some chocolate to eat when we finished our walk.

The walk home was really hard, I don't think we've ever walked that far before and it was all up hill and then down hill and up and down :( it was really good practice for climbing Snowdon.

It was dark when got home. We were really tired because we had been walking for 2 and a half hours!!! Mum made us pasta for tea :)

Thank you for reading our blog, we are having lots of fun writing it :)

Lots of love from Carys & Sioned xxx

You can sponsor our climb up Snowdon at  
http://www.justgiving.com/CarionedsChallenge

and you can find out more about The Uganda Child Education Trust on its Facebook page 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uganda-Child-Education-Trust-Kitende/216146361792463?ref=hl

Day 6: Back to school.

We went back to school today after having a week off for half term. Yesterday was a rest day because our LEGS STILL ACHED!! We got up really early because we wanted to walk to school, it's not far BUT it's up loads of hills and Mum normally drives because she says it's quicker. We think it's because she doesn't really like walking! We walked really fast to school and poor Mum then had to walk all the way back but that will get her fit :)

In morning assembly we had the chance to tell the school about our sponsored climb. When we said that we were going to climb up Snowdon some people said "wow!" and lots of people clapped. That felt really nice. Our head teacher said that she would support us through it. She has climbed Snowdon before and she said that she believed we would be able to do it! That made us feel happy.

We had fun at school, we like learning so we enjoy being there :)

Mum picked us up from after-school club and we walked home the long way so we would get more exercise and we saw the first snowdrops of the year.

Some really good news is that we're not climbing up the mountain on our own anymore. Our friend Kira and her Mum Emma is coming too AND our Mum's friend Lisa AND our friend Tim is also coming!! So there's going to be loads of us training and climbing the mountain and raising loads and loads of money for the Uganda Child Education Trust :) That makes us REALLY happy because now the children in Kitende will be able to have even more books and toys! YAY!!

Mum made a Facebook page for all of us. If you would like to see what everyone else is doing you can see the page here: http://m.facebook.com/ClimbingSnowdonforUCETK

Tomorrow we are going to go swimming again when our legs have stopped aching :)

Thank you for reading our blog
Lots of love
Carys & Sioned
Xxx

Week 2: New boots!

                                           

Hello everyone :) We had a really busy week last week so we didn't have much time to write our blog.  We went back to school this week so we did lots of walking up and down the hills to school and then on Saturday we went to Camarthan to buy new walking boots so that we have plenty of time to wear them in before we climb up Snowdon. They are proper walking boots and we got walking sticks too so now we feel like proper walkers :) 

We were really excited about our new walking boots and we wanted to try them out straight away so on Sunday we went for a long walk along Three Cliffs Bay which on the Gower. It's one of our favourite beaches and it has three cliffs that stick up out of the sea which look like a dragon's back when its lying down.

Three Cliffs Bay is the only place in Wales where the really pretty yellow flower the Draba aizoides grows. It makes the cliffs look yellow.

We parked in Parkmill and walked through the path in the woods.

The woods were really pretty. It was freezing cold but we wrapped up really warm.






We found frozen puddles - we smashed the ice with
our new walking sticks. 

When we came out of the woods we had to climb up a really steep sandy bank. We were really glad that we had walking sticks because it was really difficult climbing up sand.

At the top of the hill is a castle in ruins. It's called Pennard castle and it's nearly fallen down because it been blasted by the wind and sand for nearly 1000 years.  It wasn't a very good place to build a castle! 

When we were home-schooled we learned a lot about history and castles so we like to go and see them. 

Pennard castle was built by Henry de Beaumont, the Earl of Warwick, who was a Norman knight who invaded England with William the Conqueror in 1066.

 He was quite an important man because he was a friend of William the Conqueror & his sons William 11 and Henry 1 and he was given lots of land in England and Wales as presents. Henry 1 'gave' Henry de Beaumont the whole of Gower & Swansea in 1107 as a present for supporting him when the Norman Barons wanted Henry I's brother Robert to be king. He became a Marcher lord and he built loads of small castles in Swansea to show how powerful he was and to  defend 'his' land against the Welsh. We don't think the Welsh people were very happy that their land was just given away because they constantly fought to get it back!

We played at the castle for a bit and then we climbed down to the beach and saw rock climbers. We LOVE rock climbing but this was a bit high for us!

 In the middle of the beach  is Pennard Pill which is a really big stream which  flows into the sea and looks like a smiley mouth.

We crossed the beach and the climbed up ANOTHER hill and this one was full of thorny bushes OUCH!!! We were looking for a geocache but we couldn't find it so climbed down again. Geocaching is brilliant, it's like looking for treasure which makes walking more fun. Because we couldn't find it we headed back to the castle and to the shop in Parkmill. We had Joe's ice cream as a treat for all that walking. We walked so far our feet ached but we felt great that we did it! We walked 6 miles in 4 hours!

If you would like to sponsor our climb up Mount Snowdon we have a JustGiving page and all the money we raise will be spent on books and lessons for the children in Kitende, Uganda.
http://www.justgiving.com/CarionedsChallenge

To find out more about the the Uganda Child Education Trust charity we are raising money for you can join their FaceBook page here

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Uganda-Child-Education-Trust-Kitende/216146361792463?ref=hl

Thank you for reading our blog <3

Day 3: Swimming & Yoga

It was still raining in the morning so we pulled out the mat that Mum was given as a leaving present the last time she went to Uganda and tried to do some yoga. The mat was from the women who looked after her  when she stayed in Kitende so its very special to us and we often sit outside on it when its sunny to play lego or read a book. We don't really know how to do yoga but Mum says it will help us practice our breathing and our lungs will get stronger. We weren't very good at the moves and kept falling over, it was really funny :)

After lunch we wanted to go swimming. We really love going to the swimming pool but we've never really been 'proper' swimming where you swim loads of lengths. We've only ever had 6 swimming lessons apart from when Mum has helped us learn on our holidays! We like going to the pool to play but because we're trying to get fit, to walk up Snowdon, Mum said we should be swimming up and down the pool. We went to Pontydawe pool which is really quiet and because it was late we had the pool all to ourselves, which was great! Mum helped us practice our swimming strokes and then we just kept going for ages...and ages....and ages..... We were swimming widths because we can't really do lengths yet, but we swam 100 of them!! We were really tired and it was really hard work but we didn't give up :) Next time we are going to try and swim more!

Swimming!

We're ready for swimming :)

........and we're done!!!