Before starting our term of service at Pendle Hill, we are currently enjoying a brief holiday in North Wales – North Wales Pennsylvania, that is! Just down the road is Gwynedd Meeting (pronounced gwined as opposed to the Welsh gwineth – where the th is voiced, as in this and that). The area abounds in Welsh place names, given by the settlers who arrived here in the seventeenth century from North Wales – especially from the Dolgellau area. That story is told very well in the Quaker Heritage Museum in Dolgellau, in the UK – see
It is also recorded in the one of the panels of the Quaker tapestry
see:
Gwynedd Meeting Pa has a splendid website, and you can find more on this at
As for us, our connection with North Wales started when we came over here as chaperones as part of a youth exchange programme between North Wales and Chester Friends and Gwynedd Pa Friends. We came some seven years ago or so, and kept in touch with people here. It is very good to meet up with these friends, who, with typical American generosity have made us feel so welcome.
Pennsylvania is a very lovely state. I am sitting on the raised deck of our friends’ house. Albeit modest by local standards, it has a sloping back garden which runs down to a stream, and is surrounded by trees. Squirrels chase around the tree harvesting the hickory nuts, and pair of humming birds visit the runner bean plants trailing around the rail every morning. The other morning, when I was sitting quietly, one came extremely close to my head, flapping its wings just a few inches from me. At one point I was sure I felt it investigate my hair with its beak. The bird feeder sees a host of colourful birds never seen in the UK.
Tomorrow we go to Eagles’ Mere Lake, further north in the state, and stay in a quiet B & B by a lake.
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