Return to Oxwich

Yesterday morning, straight after breakfast, I was collected and driven down to St John's for an early funeral service. This was followed by cremation at Thornhill at ten thirty, but despite heavy morning traffic we were on time.
We were in the Briwnant Chapel again, and after the brief committal ceremony, the funeral director's effort to accompany the mourning party out through the correct exit foundered. The door mechanism was stiff and hard to push open. Thanks to a few seconds delay, instead of following him smoothly, the family faltered on leaving their seats, then habitually turned and left the chapel the way they came, in much to the embarrassment of the F.D. The new one way traffic arrangement in chapel isn't working yet!
I think the family were too stunned by early bereavement to notice. Mam had died at the same age my mother died fifty years ago this month. Her two kids, the same age roughly, as I was then. I could see myself in them as they stood there, poised between numbness and tears.
Back home then to pack my bags and then squeeze everything into the car. Clare had taken much time to pack food supplies that will more than give us a head start in self catering. We won't need to visit a supermarket until the weekend, when we fetch Owain from the station.
We reached our well appointed holiday two bedroom holiday bungalows by four, on quiet hillside estate with a distinctly suburban feel to it, grass lawns, bushes, tarmac'd roads and plenty of parking space. It's situated just above the old main village street, now devoid of shops. The old Post Office has been a dwelling place for decades. There's a whitewashed thatched house with a plaque affixed to its front, recording five preaching stays on visits made there by John Wesley. Some dwellings are up market holiday lets, others are elite commuter residences or dream retirement cottages. As for village life? Oxwich Parish church overlooking the bay still has regular services, and there's a fair sized a rebuilt Community Hall hosting a variety social activities, just below the bungalow estate. But no food shops just a seasonal holidaymakers store the  beach snack bar and the Hotel we last stayed in fourteen years ago. Its prices have doubled since then.
After unpacking and storing foodstuffs, we walked to the beach to watch the sunset. The tide was way out, and we saw a flock of about fifty Dunlin scurrying about like ants on the wet sand of the foreshore. The temperature dropped and we called into the hotel for a drink before heading back in the dark. We heard an owl hoot in the woodland above. No traffic noise, pure fresh night air, silence.
The bungalow takes time to heat up so extra layers of clothes are needed indoors. Clare cooked a delicious celery soup for supper, and I sat and got started writing another story, on the largest of my three Linux laptops which I brought with me, as it works well without needing an internet connection. No wifi here, and an often flaky 4G phone signal, no good for tethering. It's normal for parts of rural Wales, but never mind, there are far more important and enriching things to fill our time with around here.