It seems odd for me to talk about being “back in England” when I don’t think of myself as being English: I see myself as British. However: I have just returned to England following a weekend away in Wales with the rest of my family.
The title of this blog post, by the way, is Welsh for ‘Welcome to England’. I don’t speak Welsh. At all. Living just just 30 miles as the crow flies from the Welsh border (closer than that when I’m in Cheltenham) – and still able to pick up BBC Radio Cymru on FM – you might think I’d have picked up a bit of Welsh. But no.
I don’t think we could have picked a better weekend to go away. We managed two entire afternoons at the beach, in the sunshine, with not a cloud in the sky at times as well.
We were staying in Pembrokeshire – in Freshwater East to be precise. It’s in the South of the county, between Tenby and Pembroke.
Friday night was BBQ night: enjoying the garden and the sea view from our cottage.
On Saturday after a walk around Bosherston Lily Ponds…
…we enjoyed an afternoon on the beach – in hot sunshine, almost getting burned in the process. Once the tide had some in it was just like being on a beach in Greece!
In the evening we enjoyed fish & chips by the sea in Tenby, and then walking around the town, we discovered the town has a link to Greece…
…The motto on the town’s coat of arms is written in Greek!
ΞάλαΟΟΞ± ΞΊΞ»Ο΢Ρι ΟάνΟΞ± Ο’ Ξ±Ξ½ΞΈΟΟΟΟΞ½ ΞΊΞ±ΞΊΞ¬.
The sea washes away the ills of men.
It’s written on the front of Laston House, by the harbour, as well.
On Sunday we got to the beach again – this time to Barafundle Bay: considered one of the world’s best beaches apparently. It can’t be reached directly by road: you drive to Stackpole and walk over the coastal path.
When the weather’s as good as we had it, it becomes almost like a Greek beach – and it’s East facing, so sheltered a bit from the Atlantic.
In the evening we all enjoyed lamb shank and yorkshire pudding at the pub in the village.
On the way back today we stopped for a couple of hours at Freshwater West, to catch the last bit of sun, before heading back to the motorway and the M4 bridge back in to England.
Take a look at some more photos of our weekend away at fred-hart.co.uk/photos.
There’s so much of Pembrokeshire we have yet to see – hopefully in the future we can go back and see more of it (Mum seems to travel there for work quite a lot, so maybe she’ll know her way round without needing a map before too long).
But the next holiday for me starts in about 2 weeks, when I’m off to Greece for the Summer.
Back to Cheltenham tomorrow though.
I’m off to bed.
Good night.
FH.
