Monknash visit

I was lovely to share our Saturday pancake breakfast with Owain this morning. Clare packed up a picnic lunch and when the early morning cloud began to lift we headed west into the Vale of Glamorgan to visit Monknash with its vast beach and 70 metre high Jurassic cliffs, somewhat inappropriately named 'Smugglers' Cove'. as it's not in any sense enclosed, but an open expanse of coastline. 

The journey through narrow lanes with high hedges and small villages from the A48 to the coast is rather lovely, and we were fortunate not to need to stop to let on coming traffic pass too many times. There were a couple of dozen cars in the parking area a kilometre above the beach, down a narrow valley. Less than a hundred people bunched in groups were scattered on the vast expanse of grey flat bedrock and golden sand which stretches for miles at low tide, and we were there at low tide.

The upper part of the shore is a bank of large pebbles and bigger stones, tricky to negotiate before bedrock and sand is reached. The Jurassic limestone shows remnants of fossil shells, and occasionally dinosaur footprints appear in big slabs which have fallen from the often dangerous cliffs, or been exposed by the action of the sea. Although the rock is hard it has a tendency to fragment over time so the cliffs are subject to a considerable amount of erosion over decades. The Vale coast and inland is rich in bird and insect life. On the climb back up to the village, I recorded a song thrush hidden in a bush nearby. Exquisite!

We stopped for a drink in the garden of the Horseshoe Inn in the neighbouring village of Marcross on the way back, then drove to IKEA in Grangetown so that Owain could buy himself a summer duvet. My fit-bit told me that we walked the same distance around the store as we walked from the car park to the beach and had to queue for ten minutes to pay and get out. Waiting in a long zig-zag snake queue reminded me of going through airport security.

We bought takeaway fish and chips for supper, then watched Paddington 2, a delightful comic fantasy movie, which mocks Britishness in a whimsical way and makes superb use of computer generated imaging to tell its story. Over and above that the editing and production of the film used a vast array of sequences shot in crime drama or action movie, mocking every kind of filmic cliche - a masterpiece of cinematic parody. To finish the day I walked for three quarters of an hour while the sun was setting, and so did Owain, who decided to go out after I'd left. A lovely day all round.