November 2020 – Gone West

Another Year – Another Birthday

Well, at least it’s good to have another birthday! What’s the alternative?? After our blow out meal at the Shed, we planned a quieter, DIY tapas meal for Sunday . . .Viv had made a gorgeous fruit cake and was set to coat it in marzipan and then ice it!!

OK, it was shop bought fondant icing but it did have to rolled out properly . . .

And the big surprise – artistic bits glued on . . .

Still in his jimjams, bless, the ol geezer gets his whisky, pants, after-shave, DVDs and lots of chilli sauces . . .

this simple idea kind of grew a bit . . .patatas riojana, roast chicken in garlic & chilli, migas (Spanish breadcrumbs with chorizo), langoustines in garlic, pigs in blankets, devils on horseback, olives, cheese and a token salad!

And Viv’s magnificent cake . . .which we had to eat quite a bit later after that lot – Thanks Viv

One Year On

Well, hasn’t time flown by. A whole year gone and quite a year too . . . if only we’d known . . . probably, if we had known, we may of bought a small place in the north of Tenerife . . .warmth, friendly and less affected by the virus. Still, Trefin is on the way . . .not quite as warm but not as cold as most of the UK and it is certainly a better place to be, if isolation is your aim.

Back to The Shed, Porthgain – last year it was for Steve’s birthday so this year it’s a celebration of One Year On plus the birthday.

All properly distanced and masked up . . .those lovely monkfish in batter plus decent chips and BIG gherkins

Viv looking rather splendid and displaying the Senior menu – another time for that, we’re having the full three courses with wine!!

A bright and dry day but still gale force winds . . .I don’t think we’ll ever get used to them. Here we are doing an inland walk from St Justinian, across fields and down to Porth Lysgi beach, our favourite.

A stunning location and today we have a very low tide and great skies . . . Toby loves it too

Candidate for my photo of the year? The dog alone.

Well not quite alone – my Seek App told me this was a Trigger fish, a bit rare but they do get washed up.

As does this – lots and lots of plastic. Most derived from fishing. An ugly site on this lovely beach.

On the way back – lichen on the trees – quite beautiful and fractal in nature

A whole row of trees covered with the stuff.

The beach . . . . plus wind!

Evolution . . . . . . ?

Coetan Arthur

The wind is back but it is a sunny day and we both fancy a stroll and it kind of isn’t raining, honest. So we went back to Whitesands – this time not up Carn Llidi but on to Coetan Arthur, a Neolithic burial chamber and no, nothing to do with King Arthur, this is 3000 BC.

Looking back towards Carn Llidi – last week’s heroic mountain climb (!) and in the foreground the burial chamber.

A bit underwhelming but it has lasted well. And so have these two – Toby was especially lively today, great a finding the path ahead and running all over the place and a squirmy or two.

Trying hard to make it look more impressive – I say that to all the girls!!

Very windy but dry . . . . I think I spotted a Unicorn . . . . .

Portals

Weather bad, again, so Toby just gets a short walk at Abereiddy beach . . . Steve’s feeling a bit down and is still searching for that portal back to our home planet . . .

he’ll get over it . . .

Carn Llidi – St David’s

A fairly local walk, travelling towards St David’s and on to Whitesands beach. From here we trekked up the coastal path towards the big rocks (Carn Llydi). A very unusual day NO WIND and sunshine. Such a rare event we made the most of it and went up to the top. Here we were surprised to see a concrete path and roadway – obviously WW2 construction and learnt later that it had a gun emplacement plus a radar station – previously a hydrophone station in WW1 – well worth looking up! The views were stunning and you could see why it was an important look out point.

the start of the coastal path . . .not too much up and hardly anyone about

looking back to Whitesands beach, with Ramsey island in the distance

Panoramic view from . . .

Meanwhile, the local butcher was advertising boned & rolled turkey breast . . .seems a good deal….guess what we’re eating for the next fortnight.

What to do in lockdown? All a bit sad. Missing the community gatherings of pubs, clubs, theatres etc.
Luckily, there’s a lot of streaming media…lots….here we subscribed to the National Ballet’s new production Back on Stage – first time in 6 months. Not a great ballet fan but this was a collection of pieces – some trad (Swan Lake) and some very mod (Golden Hour?) plus they ended up (after 2.5 hrs!!) with Scott Joplin’s Elite syncopations (above) brilliant!

Newgale Beach

A visit to Newgale beach and an inland walk.