Third time lucky

Good to wake up and see blue sky and sea outside our hotel window. A few brief showers, and the same strong wind from the west, but basically a warm fine day, good for walking. After breakfast we followed a walking path across the dunes to the far end of the nature reserve, a path mostly parallel to the road before turning down to the shore. Interesting to encounter a couple of men with large butterfly nets out in the open heathland. They were probably checking on insect populations in this part of a special ecosystem. 

Having walked more than usual yesterday we found walking hard going today. I wore my hiking boots but found they hurt my feet with an extra insole, so I had to stop and remove them half way along the beach as we returned. It gave me an excuse to stop at the beach cafe for a cup of coffee and a banana. Unusually the cafe sold fresh fruit among its snacks and fast food. I needed to rest when I returned to our room, paying the price for yesterday's extra mileage. Old age taking its retribution on me!

As the tide was in, Clare was determined to make another effort to go for a swim, so we went down to the shore, and this time at the second attempt she was successful. As well as banks of pebbles washed in by the tide, the sand of the foreshore is littered with smaller ones which are uncomfortable to tread on when barefooted, and not visible when wading out to swimming depth, so finding the least pebble strewn spot to enter the water is necessary, and this involved us moving further up the beach, hoping the breeze didn't spring up again. In the end she waded out painlessly, swam for five minutes and was satisfied.

I uploaded the day's photos after returning to our room. We listened to the news before going down for an early supper. Clare had the three bean chilli and rice, which turned out again to be mostly chick peas. I had roast chicken with spuds and peas in a wine and mushroom sauce. Clare ordered a chocolate mousse for pudding, but had to wait a long time for it to be served, as the dining room had filled up after us and there were half a dozen tables waiting for their main course, so it was eight o'clock when we asked for our bill on the way out. As there's been a school field trip party working from the hotel to be fed and watered this past few days, the staff must have been run off their feet with a restaurant to run as well. It's good to know they get used for educational groups, as well as being a wedding party venue. It helps maintain the hotel as a viable business concern way out into a rural area.

No evening stroll tonight, needing to rest my complaining ankle before returning home tomorrow. More reading of 'La Sombra del Viento' to finish the holiday.

Slightly lost on the Coast Path

After a refreshing night's sleep, I posted today's morning prayer link to WhatsApp at seven, then listened to the news before walked the short distance to the hotel for a delicious cooked breakfast at half past eight.

Then we pulled on our hiking boots and set out along the beach for Three Cliffs Bay. When we reached the river flowing out of the nature reserve at the far end of Oxwich beach we were surprised to see that it had changed course. Instead of running straight into the sea, it's created a big S-bend in the sand. 

The first of the two bridges upstream was washed off its foundations by a strong tide last winter I think, but it looks as if it's been washed a bit further upstream since then. It's constructed of a steel framework with strong wooden decking. Although heavy, a strong tidal surge when river level is high would be strong enough to lift and shift it. 

On the other hand, the river water, reduced to a slow trickle in time of drought, when most of the sandy riverbed dries out and tides don't come in as far as the bridge, would make its own way to the sea across the surface along a line of least resistance, not straight, but S-shaped. I recall hearing about this in school geography classes sixty five years ago, but this is one of the few instances since then, that I've seen this combination of natural forces at work in the real world.

We followed the coast path from the bridge, running between the lower edge of Nicholaston Woods and the sand dunes. After a while it begins to climb up steeply to the ridge and the coast path signage became rather misleading. We climbed up too high and reached a farm unexpectedly. We couldn't work out where the coast path ran, as we'd taken a wrong turning. We retraced out steps, found the signed path again, but after a spell of walking uphill, walking down again took its toll on our leg joints, so we turned back, about a mile from our destination. Next time we'll just trek along the shore line as far as we can before going up and over the ridge above Three Cliffs Bay. By the time we reached Ivy Cottage, footsore and tired, we had been walking for over four hours, and done seven miles, including diversions. 

The tide was by this time on its way out, and I got a few photos of Dunlin feeding at close range along the line of the last tiny breaking wave, plus one in flight, I was well pleased with. We also glimpsed a couple of buzzards riding the thermals above Nicholaston cliffs, but just for a moment, disappearing too quickly to switch on the camera. It's just great to know they are still there during the avian 'flu epidemic.

We opted to have supper at tea-time, as we'd just had fruit and a hot drink while out walking. We both had fish and chips, which went down well after such strenuous exercise. After Clare's nightly injection ritual at the hotel again, early bed, hoping for another long walk after breakfast and vacating our room tomorrow morning, weather permitting. Then we return to Cardiff after lunch before it gets dark and life returns to normal. I wish we lived nearer!

Riding the lanes

It's warm today, but overcast for much of the time. Kath returned from the beach last night later than us with romantic photos of the waning moon emerging from the sea beyond the Bay. At that late hour  didn't have the energy to go out again, so maybe tonight, depending on the weather. 

We gathered for breakfast at the hotel this morning at nine thirty, and lingered long, enjoying a lazy time, pottering about until lunchtime. I went down the beach to take some low tide photos of the Bay with my Sony DSLR and wide angle lens. Finally a walk to Port Eynon was decided upon with a picnic on the beach about a kilometre away from the village. The slope above the coast path is home to lots of small butterflies, and the most wonderful bright purple gorse flowers. 

Port Einon beach with the tide out is a spectacular expanse of sand, with long shoals of grey pebbles and bedrock with green and brown seaweed exposed when the tide is at its lowest, altogether colourful. In today's sunshine, it was well populated with family groups.

Clare and I were too tired to enjoy the return walk, so we waited an hour and caught the local bus, which turned out to be an exciting ride through narrow lanes, expertly driven by a guy who had his passengers in stitches of laughter with his comments as we sped along. We arrived just after Kath Ano and Owain, who found a slightly shorter route back.

I cooked a big veggie pasta dish for supper while the others went swimming, as the tide came in again. Afterwards we went down to the beach and made another fire with driftwood, as did several other small groups along the foreshore. Oxwich Bay is one of the few places around the country where beach fires are tolerated. I'm not sure why, but it could be something to do with ownership and management of land right down to the shore. On the whole, people are respectful and tidy up after them, and after dark there are far few visitors around as the (paying) car park closes for the night, and there's no public transport at that late hour, so it's only people who can stay overnight are likely to go the the beach in the dark.

Scores of messages of sympathy have been posted on the Parish WhatsApp group over the post twenty four hours, and Fr Rhys has reorganised the rota to cover Frances' absences, I can't be of much extra help as I'm covering St German's for most of August. Just as the parish was getting back to normal, again we are in a time of upheaval. We are fortunate enough in the new Ministry Area to have five retired clerics supporting the existing four full timers (with one vacancy) and one NSM, but the availability of retired clerics varies a great deal, so there are always unforeseen crises to be managed in an area with seven congregations and a constituency of 80-90,000 to serve. It'll be quite an achievement if we can get through the next couple of months with a minimum of cancellations.

Home and dry, nevertheless

After the torrential rain and flooded roads a few days ago, and prospect of more rain to come, we were left feeling uncertain about travelling home on Tuesday morning. As there were no extreme weather warnings for today, we decided to leave today instead, and packed after breakfast. Then the sun came out, so we walked on the beach and through the dunes for a couple of hours before lunch and then headed for home. There were only a few light showers all day! 

Clare was happy to return early as she has extra preparations to make for school this week. I did the shopping, then uploaded to Google Photos 290-odd pictures from our Oxwich stay, and edited them on-line. In the absence of a wi-fi connection, there was no point squandering mobile phone data allowance, especially given the flaky signal we had there. I tried old-school editing on the Linux laptop I took with me, but although the software is good, the poor resolution display on a machine nearly ten years old delivered misleading colour rendering, especially with large high quality photos.

I indulged myself by taking four cameras with me and using them in different situations, just for interest, as taking them by car wasn't a burden. With a poor display screen, comparing them was unsatisfactory, so I transferred the entire folder of these photos to the SD card on my Blackberry, for viewing purposes. As this is a modern sharp high resolution screen on a powerful device, the viewing experience was impressive, despite being small. It revealed mistakes I had made in trying to adjust photos using a screen not really fit for purpose, and that convinced me to leave editing until I could do so at home using a better screen. 

The laptop is OK for writing but not for editing photos. I still regret losing to a beer spillage while working a similarly aged Dell XPS a few years ago, which had a high res screen and ran Windows and Linux well. In most ways a Chromebook fits the bill. It's designed for 'always online' use, and can be used off-line, although differences between modes of use are a limitation, especially when it comes to saving a copy of work on a USB device for transfer. It's do-able, but calls for vigilance. 

Although 'always online' is the new normal with Windows, files created by use of the device's own apps are saved first to the device, easy to copy for transfer, and then  sync'd if/when it's on-line. For Chromebooks, it's the opposite way around. Normally this does not matter, but this difference becomes a noticeable irritant if working offline is inevitable.

Still, it's back to digital normal again now. It was noticeable that after powering up the router and signal booster on arriving home, that we were attached to the internet again within minutes, while the EE signal booster, which runs via the router, and normally runs very well, took several hours to settle down and deliver the usual service. Again, it's one of these things you don't notice, if you neither send nor receive mobile phone calls or texts in the house while the network sorts itself out and re-attaches the device. 

It's confusing if you find you cannot make a mobile call, and confusion is compounded nowadays as we can make WhatsApp or Skype calls via wi-fi as well as direct mobile phone calls. It's easy enough to forget or confuse what medium you're using, when not looking at the phone. That's if you've bothered to register the difference between the two services anyway.

I managed to get another couple of hours writing my latest story, which continues to grow in a way which keeps me interested and motivated. I had no idea when I started where this would take me. It's a story about a traveller, and while I have ideas about how it will end, I'm still not sure how long it will take or how to close the circle. What an adventure!