Walk to Saundersfoot

 

Wet Wales, that was what I was told to expect. We packed warm clothes and summer outfit. I the end we spent the week in t-shirts and shorts. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Our plans to explore the green countryside vanished as we spent the week walking along the old tramway coastal path from Wisemans Bridge to Saundersfoot.

The most spectacular part of the journey was a walk through two man made tunnels carved through the cliffs. It was dark and damp but the temperature was wonderfully low and a great escape from the scorching hot summer sun.

 

Coast restaurant, Wales

 

Coast restaurant Wales

The price of a good meal is up for much debate. I think in Wales we took the price of a good meal to a new height.

head chef Will Holland sent out a pre-starter carrot drink and from that point on we knew the food was going to be extraordinary.

Sam ate a bowl of spaghetti bolognese, which he ate with our starter and proudly finished before us.

Our mains arrived and were promptly finished before desert or the 'to finish' part of the menu was devoured.

all in all it was a fabulous feast sitting in front of an amazing view of the beach.

As it turned out the price of a good meal is more than the price of our weekly shop at £120. But worth every penny.

Coast restaurant and coppet beach

 

 

Paper planes

 

Paper planes sketch

Oscar and his little brother were frequent visitors to our cabin.

To stop them reengineering Sam's Lego and because we had started origami in the evening - I made three paper planes for racing across the room. I mean where is the danger?

Chaos quickly ensued as the first plane landed in the lampshade. The competition soon changed to who could land the plane in the lampshade.

Swiftly followed by, 'oops my plane has landed in the washing up bowl...and it now flies like a brick.

Polka dots

 

Being lost for words is not something of which I suffer, but while Debs was off buying ice cream - lost for words was how I was...

Walking up the beach at first I thought 'how very daring a young woman deciding to brave the elements and throw caution to the wind, perhaps a bit of skinny dipping.

Sadly the closer the woman got, and the more curious I got , the truth became more scary.

The woman who had looked young, became old. The caution to the wind became a rather small pair of flesh toned polka dot bikini bottoms. Swiftly followed by the heavey pounding of gigantic chubby legs.

However she seemed happy.

 

Sue's Pantry

 

We walked almost everyday from Heritage Park to Saundersfoot, a fair few miles.

 

Sue's Pantry is a picturesque shop whose window is laden with cakes of every colour.

 

It was with great expectation that we brought 3 cakes, 2 iced muffins and a super sized carrot cake slice. Carefully these cakes were transported back to our cabin, in cased in a paper bag atop Samuel's beach bucket, (later we found out for 20pence you could buy a plastic box to protect the muffins).

 

The cabin was hot so while the kettle was boiling the cakes were placed in the fridge. This story doesn't have a happy ending by the way.

 

When it was time to eat the cakes we found the order had been muddled and there was only 1 cup cake...Debs' cake had been forgotten. This explained the reasonable prices.

 

We checked our order on all subsequent visits to Sue's Pantry, as it's no good walking off a cake if you can't eat it, later!

 

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When a spider lands on your face...

I like to think of the noise I make as a manly sound, a strange high pitched screech, when spiders attack. And by attack I mean swing round in front of me. (I'm sure at the right pitch spiders hate this sound).
In the Welsh cabin in the middle of the night it was a different story. With a swift but firm dusting off action if sent the spider that had been dancing on my face and arm, flying to the bottom of the bed. Or so I thought.
'I just killed a spider', I said to Debs.
'Yeah, right', she responded and proceeded to take advantage of me waking her by going to the toilet. Taking her lead I went to the toilet in the second loo in our rented cabin. (Very posh, two loos in a cabin).
On returning to bed Debs remarked, 'What's that mess on the sheets?'
Far from anything inappropriate it turned out to be the unfortunate remains of a squashed spider body and inexplicably two spider legs.
Did this experience help my phobia...Apparantly not. A spider recently leapt out at me from the rabbit hutch whilst I was cleaning it - to a round of manly screams.

 

Stanlake Park Wine Estate

Following a very wet Saturday it was a nice surprise to see the sun shine down on the Woodley and Earley Art Group outing to Stanlake Park Wine Estate.

After a brief tour and a look at a Strawberry tree the eight of us separated out to start our sketches.

I started with a grapevine, the black grapes had caught the sunlight and were shiningwiht pinpricks of light. As I looked I found some wonderful shapes in the leaves. I started with some pastel colour to establish the light and darks (and to kill the white paper) before using a pencil to draw in some leaf detail.

After about 20 minutes I stopped and moved on. Walking round the estate I met some sheep who were giving me long hard stares so I spent about 10 minutes jotting down their shapes.

Inside the walled garden were some young vines with all the grapes dangling from the bottom of the plant. I made a small detailed drawing in pencil and then added some pastel to indicate the leaves.

After a rather loud gun shot from a bird scarier I moved on to the main court yard where I started to sketch the back of the barns that house the wine making machinery.

In my pursuit of watercolour perfection I didn’t notice the cat who had joined me on the table and finally to get my attention, laid across my sketchbook. So I felt the cat was worth a quick sketch too.