It is 10am and we are rocketing along the road from St. David's to Carmarthen - one must go 60mph on these very narrow roads - scary backwards - and slowing of course for towns and places where the road narrows to one-lane. Just had our staggering amount of English Breakfast and showed Kila my fern photo from yesterday -a Hartstongue fern shot, which she says is good enough for her collection.
Yesterday we went in to Carmarthen and saw the college campus - wow has it grown! And tried twice to get up Bryn Myrrdin, foiled by the new development. We tried to have lunch in "Y Ceffyl Ddu", my old haunt, but it was closed, as was Kwon Yick, the old Chinese take-away of yore. Water Street and Glannant are the same, and St. Catherine's also.
We ate lunch in Blue Boar Bistro, which used to be a pub I frequented by another name, and there we met one Geraint Thomas, who lives there and who knew several of my tutors, including Dr. Raymond Garlick, my beloved poetry tutor. He told us that Dr. Garlick ought to be at the Ivy Bush today at 11, which is why we are headed back today.in hope. Many folk in town speak of him in reverent tones, including the bookstore people in the market, who ordered us a book of his poems. I hope we catch him!
Then we tried for Bryn Myrddin the second time, gave up, and drove down the riverside to Llansteffan Castle, where we spent a long lovely leisurely time exploring it and walking in the mist on the golden sand below. I keep remebering poems I wrote 28 years ago in these locations - really odd. It was so sweet to just do almost nothing, just be together, laughing about silly things, often. ("Someone made these tracks... Or some THING...") No agenda, no pressure, just the gulls and the wind and mist and sand and crows and castle stones. Perfection.
We made it back to St. David's as dusk fell and went to dinner at "Cwtch" a sort of fancy place with utterly delicious food. I had this crab pate and a tender pork dish ... Ahh. Tallis told us about Kohlberg's theories about stages of ethical development. So it goes.
We sat there for a long time - and not just because it took the lady half an hour to bring our check :) Then back to Amber Cottage to fall into bed in utter exhaustion. Tallis had been coughing a bit, here and in London, especially in the back of the car with the nasty diesel fumes and no Recirc. setting in the air intake, but thank God he stopped enough to sleep. We all got a good sleep last night/this morning. The sea air blowing in the open window helps a lot. However, we all heard the car Kila calls the "Egg Fairy" bring the fresh eggs at 5am...we are eating earlier every morning as that seems to be the order of the day.
(Dashed into an internet café, computer in hand, to see if I can upload photos . . . it does one about every ten years but here is one of Terry and me at Llansteffan yesterday :)
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