Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch

I took my children to Barnes & Noble today to pick up The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf and the recent issue of The Knitter.   My awesome older sister sent me a gift card and I just had to use it. Have I told mentioned before I have a book obsession? I can never go into a book store and just grab something and leave. We spent a good hour and a half browsing and enjoying ourselves.

I found a book by Julie Andrews and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton called, Julie Andrews' collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies. I love Julie Andrews and have read several books she and her daughter have written; so I had to browse this book.

In the book there is a poem called My Auntie by Colin West who is such a fun poet. The poem begins "My auntie who lives in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch has asked me to stay." This is actually a real city in Wales. I wouldn't know where to begin to pronounce the name but I am glad that there is a pronunciation for it at the bottom of the page.

It is roughly pronounced: "Clan-vire-pookh-guin-gekh-go-ger-okh-queen-drob-okh-clantus-silio-gogo-gokh." In Welsh is means "the church of St. Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the church of Tysilio by the red cave."

What a name!