But the children's books were out again. It was time to learn to tell the time.

Thankfully it seems quite straight forward, after all we knew the numbers, and o'r gloch is pretty close to o'clock. And then you glance across and see that sinister word mutation.

So two o'clock is dau o'r gloch. But if you want to say at two o'clock it is am ddau o'r gloch. Or for it is two o'clock it becomes mae'n ddau o'r gloch. One extra d that makes all the difference.

And then you realise that of one to 10, only five numbers have a mutuation.

Once you get past 10 those archaic numbers also start to rear their ugly heads. Eleven we had learnt was un deg un, yet eleven o'clock is unarddeg o'r gloch. Twelve is un deg dau, yet twelve o'clock becomes deuddeg o'r gloch. Desperately close to dau ddeg, which I'm sure you all know is 20.

For reasons best known to the Welsh populus, they have decided to stick with the older, no-longer used version of 11 and 12, but only for the purposes of telling the time.

And deuddeg, of course, takes a mutation. A double mutation if you life, because the ddeg part is a mutation in itself. Doesn't a double negative make a positive? Isn't a double mutation cancelled out?

One thing I love about Welsh, and I suppose all foreign languages, is when you find out the literal translation of phrases. Take exactly, for instance. In Welsh exactly is ar ei ben. But the literal translation of ar ei ben is on the head. What a lovely phrase for exactly. It's the same with birthday. Pen-blwydd translates quite literally as head of the year.

On previous weeks we'd learnt some great quirky words. Like divorced. Wedi cael ysgariad. Cariad, as even most non Welsh speakers will know, is a term for darling. Be it son or daughter, husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, it's a kind of all-encompassing term.

So the ysgariad is a kind of un-darlinged expression. Wedi is past, so past being my darling.

What a beautiful way of creating a phrase for something so upsetting like divorce.

Of course time proved my undoing. Not thought lack of ability to speak Welsh, but through lack of ability to tell the time. Looking at children's clocks, upside to me, I endured a number of vacant expressions as I confidently told the time only to realise I'd muddled the hands up.

They were upside down. I am starting to feel like a small child.

By the end of the lesson we were confidently writing a paragraph about our usual days.

Dwi'n codi am pum munud ar hugain wedi sythe, cael cawed, a wedyn cael brecwast am chwarter i wythe. Nesaf, am ugain munud wedi wythe dwi'n mynd I'r gwaith a cael coffi. Fel arfer dw'i mynd adra tua hanner awr wedi pump a cael swper am tun wythe o'r gloch. Dw'i fel arfer mynd a'r plant i'r gwely am tua sythe o'r gloch. Can't understand? Don't worry, it's not that exciting.