The sun is shining, the sparrows are coughing... and today is Dydd Dewi Sant, St David's Day! Olly and I have just got back from Caerffili Borough Council's all-day celebrations at the two ex-mining communities of Bargoed and Blackwood; we played for Gwerinwyr Gwent, the Newport dance team. As we left Bargoed, lovely harper and singer Bethan Nia and a smashing fiddler were just setting up.

There was music and song everywhere, all over Wales; in Cardiff, the City Council sponsored the massive St David's Day parade, with fiddlers, pipers, drummers, pibgorn and crwth players, giant rugby players, film stars and more... the parade, which has grown and grown, wends its way through city streets before ending up in Cardiff Castle where the crowds are treated to a display of old and new Welsh tradition: Pibau Planed, Bagad Morgannwg, Sesiwn Clera, Samba Gales, Wonderbrass and The Hennessys (with radio personality and Celtic Heartbeat presenter Frank Hennessy bringing the show to a perfect end.)

Incidentally, St David was the only patron saint of these islands to be born in the same country that now observes his day. St Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, came from Israel; St George (England) came from Armenia; St Piran (Cornwall) came from Ireland; and St Patrick (Ireland) was born in Wales. St David, however, was born in Wales and his day (March 1) is now celebrated in Wales!