Anniversary flowers from Husband? Or not?

Husband went shopping while I did some cleaning this morning. On his return he said, 'Oh bother, I meant to get you some flowers but I forgot.'
'You forgot? Even after I deliberately walked slowly past you with a vase of dead flowers in my hands just before you left?'
'I thought about it.'

In case you're wondering about the photo that was a bunch of flowers given to me by a Zac's regular back in 2008.

Husband and I decided some years ago not to exchange cards or gifts on our anniversary but we did go out for a walk this afternoon and we're eating out tonight.

We walked from Kittle through Bishopston Valley to Pwll Du, a walk that is always further than I expect. And George took advantage of the visit to the beach to rescue some stones.

At least we always think he's saving them but a thought occurred to me this afternoon: perhaps rather than saving stones he's catching them. Some dogs like to catch cats or squirrels. Maybe George just prefers the stone catching option. He's very good at it. And determined. He spent ages in that rock pool trying to catch the stone.

Look mum, no feet!

Bishopston valley, an ancient native woodland, is at its best at this time of year with the wild garlic, wood anemones, bluebells, primroses, and violets all coming into bloom.

George liked it too.

And we loved paddling in the sea at Pwll Du.

Well some of us did. GrandSon4 wasn't entirely impressed with his first experience of sand and sea. And please note: both feet have left the ground!

An adventure with George

'Let's go and explore today!' I suggested to Husband.
'Nah, you can go. I'll do some weeding.'

So George and I set off to follow the Bishopston Valley and Pwll Du Bay walk as described in the Gower Coast walks leaflet I'd acquired somewhere on my travels.

It's a fairly basic sort of map, the sort even I could follow. You'd think.


So off we went.

According to the signpost it was 2 and a quarter miles to Pwll Du Bay. 'That won't take us long,' I said to George. 'People can run a mile in a minute.'

Some three-quarters of an hour later I was wondering:

a) how I'd managed to miss the clearly-marked View Point*;

b) what had happened to the stepping stones**;

c) if we'd ever reach the sea.

We did. But by then I'd realised that we had to be somewhere else soon and we wouldn't have time to paddle or even admire the view for longer than it takes to take a photo to prove we got there.

On the way back George said, 'It was four minutes.'

'What was?'

'The mile. Roger Bannister. Not one minute.'

'Oh, that explains why it took us longer than I expected.'

Roger Bannister also didn't have to avoid huge muddy puddles, climb steadily up a steep slope for five minutes, or scramble through nettles and over rocks.

And I have to say that reaching the sea was the result not of my map-reading skills - the deficiency being in the map not me obviously - but of my tunnelling - no, wait, that's not right - channelling my inner outdoorsman and realising I probably needed to go downhill and follow the river to the sea. Helped a bit by the occasional signpost. Okay, frequent signposts.

Very lovely walk though.

Apart from aforementioned 5 minute hike up the side of the valley.

I'm not resting, George. I'm taking a photo.

Incidentally, thanks to the wonders of FitBit I can tell you that on the return journey, uphill, I covered the ground at the speed of 1 mile in 22 minutes. Which actually I think is pretty impressive.

* I can only assume it's a winter only view point.

** There is a bridge about where the stepping stones may have been supposed to be possibly maybe. So maybe they were replaced?

A basket of hope

It was a glorious Spring morning, ideal for a walk to Pwll Du.

 Where I hand-picked about 30 big and 30 small stones to bring home. Husband, trying to be helpful, grabbed a big handful and dropped them in my bag. 'No, no, they can't be just any stones; they have to be just right.'

And here's my basket of hope for Zac's this afternoon, our very first Sunday meeting.

Mother's Day

I couldn't capture the sweet coconutty smell of the gorse to bring you but I hope you'll like this photo anyway. This afternoon, Husband, George and I went for a walk to Pwll Du Bay.

From the early seventeenth century until the first years of the twentieth century, many parts of the southern Gower coast were quarried for their limestone. Favoured tenants were given the right to strip limestone from the cliffs for shipping to Devon where it was used in the preparation of agricultural lime. Pwll Du (Black Pool) proved to be especially popular for limestone quarrying: the layers of rocks that were laid down over millions of years have been so disturbed that what was once horizontal is now virtually upright, making the limestone easily accessible.

At the height of production there could be as many as thirty ships in the bay. Part of the payment the captains gave the quarrymen was a beer allowance. This was paid to both men and women – some of whom had a fiercesome reputation for equalling the men in both strength and drinking ability.

The houses that are to be found, nestled into the hillside just behind the shingle bank, were originally built as inns - the Ship and the Beaufort - to cater for what could be hundreds of sailors and quarrymen.

The track that leads down to the beach runs perilously close to the cliff edge, but even that hazard of navigating the track home in the dark while drunk, didn't stop the quarrymen from enjoying their allowance.