Down to the Gower again

Up, and finishing bag packing for our stay in Oxwich Bay before breakfast. It still took us a while to get going however, and it was gone eleven by the time we left under leaden skies. It rained most of the way to the Gower with fleeting respite and glimpses of sun. We arrived before one but were able to check in and take our room early. We have a sea view across the bay. The tide was in and just started receding, so we went and sat on the slipway visible from our room, and picnicked on sandwiches and coffee, watching a family of sand martins (possibly?) hunting for flying insects on the shoreline, their swooping flight pattern made jagged by snatching their prey out of the air above them. Amazing to watch but hard to photograph.

Before going for a walk along the beach, Clare was bold enough to don a bikini under her clothes hoping to swim, but a cold wind picked up. Although she stripped off and went into the sea, she only went shin deep, then turned around and came straight back. I didn't have a top coat on and started to feel chilled by the strong breeze. I headed into the dunes and found a path across a wooded area covered with young oak trees past the grazing wild horses, ending at the road and the the entrance to the big pond with the bird-watching hide. The only bird I saw was a swift. No ducks, moorhens, coots or swans visible, and few bird sounds from the thickets of reed.

After a cup of tea in our room, I went out again, walking up to St Illtud's church and along a short stretch of the coast path, up to where it starts to climb, then back to the centre of the village before returning to the hotel restaurant for supper - a substantial three bean chili and rice for me, salmon for Clare and plenty of veg all around A meal that cost forty pounds last winter costs fifty now, and I bet the hotel struggles to make ends meet despite its popularity with walkers, school groups and wedding parties. They certainly make an effort to maintain standards.

Hope of an evening stroll after supper was cut short by rain, but not before I saw a pied wagtail standing on a rock calling out to another bird. Then on another rock six feet away, I saw a smaller bird, about the size and shape of a sparrow, but didn't look like one. When it chirped it sounded like a wagtail, and then I noticed it had a couple of black and white tail feathers, which it wagged as it moved. That was when I realised it was the wagtail's offspring, just learned to fly properly, but not yet developed its distinctive plumage. That was a first ever for me to notice.

Then it was back to our room, time to upload photos and read more of 'La Sombra del Viento' before turning in for the night.