January 25 is St. Dwynwen’s Day. She is the Welsh patron saint of lovers and in our house, this is our Valentine’s Day.
I’m not sure how my interest in her began except that I remember flipping through a book, Britain’s Holiest Places, at Wendy’s cottage in the Welsh countryside and somehow I became interested in St. Dwynwen’s site on the sea.
I knew I wanted go to there, but it wasn’t until I was trying to finish my book That Cooking Girl that I knew I needed to go there to finish writing the novel.
The book centers around Megan, a Welsh name that John Peters, the man I called my “UK Dad’ and who died just a few weeks after my mom, thought I should build a character and story around. While my story about Megan isn't quite what I know he had in mind, I did incorporate so much that he shared with me, especially adding the “Mzee,” the wise uncle he called himself. It’s a Swahili term he learned from the years he and his family lived in Kenya.
It was important to John on my visits to the UK that he and his wife Jean show me Wales. He wanted me to see the “other” part of the UK that he felt Americans too often overlooked. On my next visit there, which fell during my one-year wedding anniversary with Greg, Wendy (who had never been to St. Dwynwen’s site) and Nigel took us there.
It’s important to note that you can only visit when the tide is out otherwise you need a boat (good luck swimming since it never really gets warm there!) to get to the little piece of land where she lived.
That visit allowed me to finish the book because I had the final piece I needed for it. And each year since then, we have celebrated St. Dwynwen and her day in our house. Maybe one day I’ll understand why I was drawn there, but I’m not sure it matters. The reality is that I felt a need to go, I was able to do it and had people who wanted to experience with me, and I finished my fourth novel because of it.
I’m sure John is nodding approvingly.