Going Back To Watching The Pobol In The Cwm

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

During my roughly two nearly three months of Essex exile whilst looking after my mother many things that I used to do had to be put to one side. Watching the Welsh language soap opera Pobol Y Cwm  (People of the Valley) about the goings on in a village in West Wales on S4C was one of them. Now of course even in Essex I could have just downloaded it and watched the programme as and when I could. But I won't lie. For most of the time I'd other things on my mind and I neither really had the time or the inclination.

But that was then and this is now. Mum is better and I sit before you on a Saturday morning watching a recording of the omnibus edition I did last Sunday......as you do.

When you miss a soap opera for a considerable length of time you are conscious of the changes. The omnibus opens with a mother and her daughter (Sioned) arguing over the theft of a wallet. Something obviously happened during my absence. Also teenage Chester seems to have a girlfriend. A fellow student with multi-coloured dreadlocks. Presumably common in the Welsh Valleys. Last time I saw the soap he was in jail.

Sioned's partner. A man who she beat up and was practically bald seems to have grown a full head of hair and become a window cleaner. Did not recognise him at first

Both their relatives disapprove of the relationship. So they want to leave the village of Cwmderi? Where do they want to go to? Australia! I've written before about people leaving Wales since Brexit. Now here it is in soap opera form. Eventually they don't go. Instead there's an (accepted) proposal of marriage at the airport as the young couple are about to leave.

To get the money for the fare Jason borrows it from Gwyneth (with interest!). A woman who has turned into the local moneylender since I last saw the show. The man (Sion) who she was with seems to have turned his attentions to another  (Anita) whose niece is arguing with another character over the ownership of a cat.

When the couple do leave the village his mother and her grandmother panic. These are two characters I remember from when I started watching the soap oh those years ago. You do anchor yourself to those type of characters. A sort of soap nostalgia I guess

The new doctor came as a surprise. Bryn Fon. Actor, singer and as I remember it when my daughter was a toddler the Welsh language voice for Bob the Builder.

Sheryl the hairdresser is having a fling with Gethin the mechanic. Which is all very ironic as the man she's with (Hywel) was the Cwmderi Casanova when I started watching the soap. Gethin was living with Ffion who was the wife of the local priest years ago before as I remembered it he turned to murder. As a career change goes that's dramatic.

Interestingly in a pub scene in the Deri arms there were books in the background (?). One of them happened to be by Sue Grafton. A writer of private eye stories who died recently. Was this a subtle tribute or just coincidence?

Of course there were more plotlines than those I've chatted about. One particularly emotional one with regard to abortion.

It was an omnibus after all.

It was good to be back.

Until the next time.