2–3 minutes
This is the post where Welsh finally enters the blog, carried in by daisies, my daughter, granddaughter, and one wandering frog called Bili’r Brôga.
For Little Lottie B (I Lottie B bach)
Bili’r Brôga ymhlith y llygad y dydd
They appear every spring in the same two patches of lawn I never quite manage to tame.
Little white petals, yellow centres, opening as if the morning itself has nudged them awake.
To me, they’ve always been daisies — simple, familiar, English.
But my daughter calls them Llygad y Dydd.
Eye of the Day.
She says it with that easy Welsh confidence she’s grown into,
and Lottie B repeats it after her, careful and proud,
as if she’s being handed a small treasure.
I only know a little Welsh — enough to recognise the shape of the words,
not enough to claim them —
but hearing those two say the name makes the garden feel bilingual,
as if the flowers have been speaking Welsh behind my back for years.
And then there’s the frog.
My daughter named him Bili'r Brôga,
because brôga means frog
and because every creature in her world deserves a proper introduction.
He sits cross‑legged among the daisies,
a tiny stone monk presiding over his bright little congregation.
Except, of course, Bili moves about.
Sometimes I shift him a little to the left,
sometimes closer to the path,
sometimes into a patch of sun he seems to enjoy.
And every time, without fail,
Lottie B goes searching for him —
a small, determined pilgrim on the trail of her wandering frog.
Lola trots past with a stolen sock,
glancing at Bili'r Brôga as if he’s the only one
who truly understands her mischief.
The daisies don’t mind.
They open, they close, they return.
They’ve seen all of this before.
I step around them — the frog, the flowers, the Welsh lesson,
the small inheritance of names —
because some things in a garden deserve to stay exactly where they grow,
especially the ones that carry stories
I didn’t know I was passing on.
I’ll shift Bili’r Brôga before they arrive, of course — his small wanderings are part of the story now, and I can’t break the spell.
Ghosts to Carry, Stories to Keep 