I’m from a small village in South Wales-Uk. I’ve lived here my whole life, and so have my mum and grandparents. Everyone knows everyone else through generations. For six years, I worked in a local garage/express supermarket. Being a small village, the locals were regular customers. 

One shift, a school friend of my mum comes to the counter to be served. She is someone I’ve been brought up speaking Welsh to. Every conversation has always been in Welsh.

Me: “Hiya! How are things?”

Friend Of My Mum: “Good thanks, how’s your mum?”

Me: “Not too bad, thanks. How’re you?”

My work colleague interrupts our conversation while serving her own customer.

Colleague: “Do you know how rude it is to speak Welsh around people that don’t speak it?!”

She then proceeds to tell us how rude we are being, and how speaking Welsh is a waste of time, etc.

Both my mum’s friend and I look at each other in shock. We literally cannot believe that she not only interrupted our conversation but also complains that we’re speaking Welsh… in WALES!

Personally, I don’t think we were the ones being rude.

Browsing randomly across the site, I came across this story and thought I’d share my own version. 

Many years ago, when my now twenty-one-year-old son was about five or six, we were visiting my parents in South Wales. While there, I decided to meet up with a friend of mine in Cardiff; said friend is my son’s godfather, so I took my son along to see him too.

At the time, my father drove a public service bus. On the particular day we went, he was doing the Cardiff run, so we timed our journey to get his bus. My son was most impressed to be riding Tad-cu’s bus (Tad-cu is Welsh for grandfather). I was impressed because, as family members, we got to ride for free (drivers for that company got a couple of discretionary freebies a week).

As we pulled into Cardiff, my dad asked:

Dad: “Where are you meeting your friend?”

Me: “We’re meeting outside Cardiff Castle.”

Dad: “Okay, I’ll drop you at the Castle stop.”

Five minutes later, we pulled up towards the Castle, where (as I suspected), there wasn’t a bus stop.

Me: “There’s no stop here.”

Dad: “There is now.”

He signalled, pulled over, and let us off on the side of the road right outside the castle.

I live in a seaside town in South Wales, UK, where the tidal rise and fall is among the largest in the world. One summer evening, while walking with my wife, we overheard three teenage boys chatting. From their accents, it was clear they weren’t local but from further inland.

One of them exclaimed, “Wow, the sea is a long way out!”

Another, seemingly the brains of the group, confidently replied, “You should come here in winter; the tide comes right up here.”

I was about to go over and explain the basics of tides, but my wife stopped me. She was concerned their minds might struggle with the concept of the sea coming in and out twice a day.

I live in a tenement building. One of my neighbours is right nosy and will comment on anything she finds the slightest bit unusual. She commented on my lights being on past 3:00 am one time. She has commented on how my dad visits me a lot, but she never sees my mum. She commented on it when I once hung up my washing in the shared backyard and my washing happened to include a long-sleeved shirt even though it’d been 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) for three days past.

The worst, though, was when she stopped me in the hallway to tell me the door to the cellar where we keep our bicycles had been left open.

Neighbour: “I know you were the last to leave today.”

HOW, LADY? Does she keep tabs on us all?!

Finally, I’d had enough, and I came up with the perfect comeback. I currently have a number of smaller errands I have to run throughout the day, which means I come and go from the building multiple times during the day. Of course, my nosy neighbour catches me in the stairwell and asks where it is I’m going so often. I say nothing and am politely silent.

Neighbour: “Well?”

Me: “Oh, I was just waiting for you to explain how it’s any of your business, but it’s clearly not! Bye!”

And I left on my errand.

A client requested my presence at a meeting in Wales. She sent me the details of a presentation she wanted me to write for her (for free) while on the train, rationalizing that it would “keep me out of mischief”.

Her assistant sent me the details and a train ticket code. However, when I got to the station, the code to pick up the ticket didn’t work. The station staff were all very helpful, and eventually, just as the train left, they told me that the ticket had been picked up and used that morning.

With no way to make the meeting in time, I called the client and left a message apologizing and explaining the situation.

Five minutes later, she gave me a call back.

Client: “What do you mean, you’re not on the train? What’s the problem with your ticket? I used that code this morning, and it worked fine for me. And anyway, if you’d really wanted to get on that train, you could have made it happen.”

She carried on chewing me out through a series of escalating phone calls, texts, and emails until the presentation time loomed near and she realized that she was counting on me to provide it for her.

The full text of her email read:

Client: “Well? What have you got for me?”