Happy Glyndwr Day!

A happy 16th September to you all today, as we celebrate Owain Glyndwr Day.

Of course, Glyndwr Day will largely go by un-noticed by most people in Wales and further afield, but it's one of the many events that could be celebrated after a Plaid motion at Conference re-affirmed the intention of an additional Bank Holiday for Wales.

Along with the Netherlands, the UK has the fewest national bank holidays (eight), while Slovakia apparently has eighteen days of holiday.

Although the cultural argument in favour of a Welsh Bank Holiday (usually identified upfront as March 1st, St. David's Day) has been won at the political level with all parties at the Assembly in agreement, one of the arguments against is economic - that it would interfere with trade with the rest of the UK if we were to be off work for a whole day.

It seems strange that these people don't take such exception to the fact that Scotland already has a different holiday system to us, not just the SNP government's decision to allow St Andrew's Day as an optional holiday (replacing a currently existing bank holiday) but also that 2nd January is taken off in place of 26th December.

Nor do they complain that Northern Ireland has days off for 17th March (St Patrick's Day) and a celebration of the Battle of the Boyne (12th July).

A St David's Day holiday would be widely welcomed across Wales. In the meantime, happy Glwyndr Day!

Conference

Conferences have the potential both to complicate and confuse or to inspire and enthuse.

Judging from the reactions on various Plaid blogs when I got back into the office today (see Borthlas, Guerrilla Welsh-Fare, Bethan Jenkins and Pendroni), I'm clearly not alone in being happy with the events of the weekend in Aberystwyth.

The mood throughout the weekend was upbeat, helped by the confidence inspired by our party leadership and our Assembly ministers that the party is in good hands and that Wales is a better place for us being in government.

The Westminster group more than played their part, with motions on an array of subjects from supporting carers to helping local business, and from Welsh language juries to reducing the voting age, and keynote speeches from Elfyn Llwyd and Adam Price (more of which here). I'll be discussing the aims and effects of these motions in the coming days.

One of my high points, though, was getting to have a proper chat with new SNP MP, John Mason, whom I'm sure will do an excellent job when he gets to work full-time in Westminster in a few weeks time.