Day 5 – Thursday, 8th March, 2007

A very busy day today.

At 9.30am we went over to the Noddfa Centre on the Ysgubor Goch estate in Caernarfon. Every week, parents take their children to a ‘Ti a Fi’ session at the centre, and we were invited to speak to the mothers whilst the toddlers enjoyed their playtime!

Bethan Gwanas spoke to them about her books generally, and especially the Quick Read book Os Mêts, before discussing with the mothers what they liked to read and when they got the time to pick up a book. Everyone then received a copy of the book to take home and it will be good to get their opinions once they’ve had time to read the books between nappy changes and feeds!

Then Bethan and I went on to Caernarfon library, where a group of young mothers between the ages of 15-18 meet to chat to the midwife. The girls were a bit shy to start, but sooned warmed up once they found out who Bethan was – many of them had read her books at school, so they were glad of the opportunity to read her latest book and speak to her about what it was like to be young mothers.

In the afternoon, we had a special event going on at the creative centre, Galeri. This was a chance for the public to come and listen to Bethan Gwanas being quizzed about her new book by Luned Emyr, a popular S4C presenter. The whole afternoon had a nice feel to it – everyone sitting on the comfy sofas listening to the two ladies having a laugh and a natter. It was interesting to see people passing and trying to see what was going on, and by the end of the session, our audience had doubled.