Those were the days of roses, poetry and prose

In my last travel post, I left you on a rainy Wednesday with some sun thrown in later in the day.

On Thursday we finally woke to the sun streaming in through our cottage's windows! This obviously called for a day at the seaside and that's exactly what we did: we drove 35 miles south to the lovely seaside town of Tenby.

From previous years, we knew exactly where to park, but were not sure how to get there. Nor did the lady who lives in our Sat Nav, whom for some long-forgotten reason we call "Marie-Jeanne". After taking a few wrong turns and ending up exactly where we started, somehow my instinct took over and I effortlessly guided us to the correct street at the end of which was the car park in question. Needless to say, Jos was duly impressed!

The sun continued to shine and I could have worn a dress for the occasion. Unfortunately by then I had lost all trust in the weather, so I wore jeans combined with a vintage top. One particularly naughty seagull did not approve of my choice though, as I was promptly bombarded. Luckily, we were able to remove most of it by using paper hankies and antibacterial hand gel, so that I didn't look like a complete dunce for the rest of the day.

As we were picnicking on a bench tucked away on the steps below Tenby's Esplanade, the gull was probably venting its disappointment at not getting its share of our sandwiches!

In spite of the glorious weather, most of the 2 mile stretch of South Beach was relatively empty, the much smaller Castle Beach being the place of choice for most people, who seem to prefer being packed like sardines onto this rather limited space.

The tide was out, so we were able to walk right up to St. Catherine's Island, which at high tide is completely surrounded by water. I guess that's why it's called an island ...

Since last year, St. Catherine's Island and its Fort can be visited but as I have vertigo, the see-through walkway to the main part of the island was a definite no-no, my legs turning to jelly by even looking at it.

Instead we just wandered around enjoying this colourful seaside town, and popping into every charity shop we came across.

We woke up on Friday morning to the news that the UK had voted Leave and had breakfast while following the developments on TV.  If it all felt a bit strange to us, I wonder what it was like for those UK residents who had confidently voted Remain ...
In the following days, most people we spoke to, upon learning we were from Belgium, actually apologized to us. It certainly was the topic of most of the conversations we overheard that day.

After breakfast we drove south again, this time over the border with Carmarthenshire, to the lovely village of Laugharne, well-known for being the home of Dylan Thomas for the last four, and very creative, years of his life.

One of his most famous works, Under Milk Wood, was written here. It is an absolute favourite of mine and I have even borrowed its opening line as the title of my very first blog post.

Dylan, with his wife Caitlin and their children, lived in the Boat House from 1949 until Dylan's death in 1953.

From the car park at Laugharne, which is liable to flooding, the Boat House can be seen set in the cliffs overlooking the Taf Estuary.

Walking along the estuary and up the steep path leading to the Boat House, we first passed Mr. Thomas's Writing Shed, the inside of which can be glimpsed through the small window.

As we already visited the Boat House itself a couple of years ago, we only stopped by for a coffee this time.
















Afterwards we returned along the foreshore, where we had our picnic with a view. Not only did our bench have a view, it had a roof too, which was a good thing as it had started raining yet again!

Dylan Thomas is buried in the churchyard here, his and his wife Caitlin's grave marked by a simple white cross. I found the churchyard, and especially the older, overgrown part, quite atmospheric.

We ended our day by visiting Laugharne Castle, the "castle brown as owls" as Dylan called it in his "Poem in October":

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail

With its horns through mist and the castle

Brown as owls

A delightful surprise was the Summer House, where it is said that both Dylan Thomas and author Richard Hughes put pen to paper. I tried to leave my mark by writing a blog post, but the typewriter's ribbon was in an even worse condition than my Corona's!

The view from its windows as well as from the castle's ramparts were breathtaking.

By this time a week had passed and we were already halfway through our holiday. I'm sorry to say that the weather did not improve dramatically during our last week, but I will tell you all about its ups and downs in a next post.

In the meantime, this weekend I have a flea market right outside our front door to look forward to. Let's hope the weather is dry, if not sunny, for it.

Summer time and the livin' is easy

I thought I'd give you a break from my Welsh adventures and do a good old-fashioned outfit post ...

Believe it or not, but going back to work did have its perks! As luck would have it, my favourite vintage shops, Think Twice, were in the midst of their sales, and prices were down to € 4 by the end of the week.

Just a quick browse in one shop yielded a bagful of treasures.

Think Twice are actually a chain of shops, with a total of ten shops in Belgium, three of which are in Antwerp, all within walking distance from my office. How great is that? I think you can guess where I'm spending some of my lunch breaks ...

The items they sell are ranging from the 1960s until the 1990s. Yes, I know. I hardly got my head around the fact that the 1980s are being considered vintage, but the 1990s? I beg to differ, but as the shops are being frequented by everyone from teenagers to pensioners, who I am to deny anyone their “vintage” pleasure?

While waiting for my turn at the fitting rooms, I overheard a mother and daughter duo (at a guess, I'd say the daughter was about 13) discussing the merits of a gruesome 1990s pink and white shell suit jacket. Shudder. Very big shudder!

The upside is that they are leaving all the wonderful 1960s and 1970s stuff for me!

Here is what was in my bag.

First up are these polyester tops and cotton skirt with ric-rac trim, all being shown to you by Angelica.

This maxi is definitely my favourite find!

I already own a green midi dress in the same pattern, which I am wearing at the end of this post.

As finally we were having some summery weather, I took the dress on its first outing on Saturday, combined with some cheerful accessories.

And look, I have even painted my toenails, which is quite a feat for clumsy me!

The sandals are Clarks Softwear, bought in the sales years ago. Aren't they gorgeous?

Although the dress is a size smaller than what I'm usually wearing, it was an almost perfect fit, except for the sleeves, the cuffs of which were quite narrow and were close to cutting off my blood circulation.

After giving it some thought, and almost writing off the dress as a mistake, I came up with the idea of making some slits in the underside of the cuffs. Now the sleeves fit like a dream, and nobody, except you of course, is any the wiser!













The green fabric peeping out from the pile is actually a 100% cotton Finnish tablecloth.

The final item is a gem of a summer dress in yellow and white, with a polka dot bodice. How could I possibly resist it?

See how our lovely Hydrangea is complementing the colour of the dress? The blooms only had a hint of colour when we went on holiday and this is what happened while we were away.

The gooseberries have ripened to a rich red colour and our honeysuckle has opened the first of its many heavenly scented flowers.  It's not all good, though, as it seems the slugs have been feasting on our Hostas! Now where did we put those slug pellets again?

So, what did we do on our first weekend back?

On Saturday, a round of the charity shops was on the cards, but pickings were meagre. Summer isn't really a good time to go charity shopping here.

Still, this is what we ended up with:

- A vintage Thermos replacement filler. Not bad for € 0,50 and exactly the right size for our tartan Thermos flask.
- A completely kitsch thermometer and barometer.  It's made from plastic and not wood, as you would think at first sight.
- A small JAJ Pyrex bowl. This pattern is from the 1960s and called Harvest. We already have quite a few items of this pattern, all picked up cheaply at charity shops.
- Finally, a cute cardigan from retro label Zoe Loveborn and a spotty scarf.

On Sunday, we fled our village (there was a fair going on complete with noisy attractions as well as cycling in the village streets) for some peace and quiet. We took a picnic to the beautiful Middelheim park in Antwerp, where we walked among works of art and cooled down in the shade of the trees.

Next time, I will continue my Welsh travelogue and take you to that seaside town as promised.

Walking back to happiness

Being back at work since Tuesday, our holiday is slowly receding into a distant memory.
Fortunately there are the many photographs we took to remind us that, in spite of the less than perfect weather, we did have a great and relaxing holiday, and that we made the most of the dry and - heaven forbid - sunny moments whenever they presented themselves.

As we were surrounded by beautiful coastal scenery, we tried to be at the seaside as much as we could.

On the Monday of the first week, after the initial rain had subsided, we drove the 20 minutes or so to the secluded beach at Mwnt. Driving along ever smaller country lanes banked by hedges hiding the view as well as what's around the next corner, it feels as if you are nearing the end of the world and will end up driving straight into the sea.

Finally arriving at this National Trust beauty spot, the only buildings in sight are the little whitewashed 14th century Church of the Holy Cross and, at the far end, above the steps descending to the beach, the small tea kiosk selling the most delectable homemade welshcakes!

We set ourselves the challenge of finding picnic spots with a view, even if it was just from the car, and I think we definitely succeeded with this one, the first picnic of our holiday.

A walk along the beach accompanied by the sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks was exactly what we needed to blow the cobwebs away.

Tuesday was cloudy but mainly dry, so we set off for our first proper walk. The  Marine Walk, a well laid out and picturesque path, starts at Goodwick, from where ferries depart for Rosslare in Ireland.

At the walk's start, there are some beautiful mosaics depicting the town's as well as its neighbour Fishguard's history.

One of the mosaics depicts the French invasion of Fishguard, which took place  in 1797, the so-called Last Invasion, which was defeated by locals. There are stories of the brave resistance of Jemima Nicholas, also known as "Jemima Fawr" (Jemima the Great), single-handedly capturing twelve of the invading soldiers.

As soon as the path started climbing, we were rewarded by spectacular views across the bay to Dinas Head, the dark brooding headland you can see in the distance.

Soon Lower Fishguard came into view. The harbour is famous for being the location of the 1971 film adaptation of Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton and Elisabeth Taylor. Earlier, in 1955, Moby Dick, starring Gregory Peck, was also filmed here.

A path zig-zagged down to Lower Fishguard itself, where not only did we find a perfect bench with a view for our picnic, the sun also decided to make a shy appearance.

After arriving back at Goodwick, we walked along the East Breakwater, where we watched a gull catching its evening meal: a rather large and forbidding-looking crab!

By this time, we were getting optimistic about the weather, so on Wednesday we set off for what should have been a spectacularly scenic drive starting from Tregaron in Ceredigion (Cardiganshire). Sadly, it started raining before we even got there and as it didn't look as if it would let up any time soon, we had a rethink on how to spend the rest of our day.

 After we had driven all the way to nearby Lampeter, the sun started coming out, so we drove all the way back again to Tregaron for a visit to Cors Caron nature reserve.

Cors Caron is one of the few remaining examples of a raised peat bog in Britain, bordered by the river Teifi and on the edge of the Cambrian Mountains.

You can walk along a circular boardwalk with spectacular views of the bog. The sun was out for once when we where there, but I can imagine it being very eerie on a dark winter's day.

I hope this has whetted your appetite as in my next travel post, I will be visiting a popular seaside town and pay tribute to a well-known Welsh poet.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Into each life some rain must fall

Ok, but not during my measly two weeks’ holiday, right? At least, not too much of it. But then again: Wales, what did I expect? It wouldn’t be as green and lush without rain, and lots of it, would it?

It all started very promising as we arrived in glorious sunshine. Here I am posing with a view of the Teifi Estuary behind me (left) and in front of our little cottage (right).

But appearances can be deceptive, and we woke up on Sunday morning all ready to enjoy our very first day, only to be greeted by grey skies, shortly followed by showers, which later developed into, you guessed it: rain!

We had only planned a visit to nearby Cardigan, where not only there was a small car boot sale, some shops, including one charity shop, were open too. It was only raining lightly when we left, so I opted to wear a dress, which wasn't the best of choices.

Striking gold at both the car boot, where I bought the first of many brooches, and the chazza, where I found this lovely handbag, did compensate for the dismal weather a bit, though!

Rain again on Monday, but that soon improved, and we managed to go the beach, albeit wearing quite a few layers.

After a mainly dry Tuesday, rain made another appearance on Wednesday. 

In fact, it started pouring down so heavily that, after a car picnic in a nature reserve car park, we abandoned all our plans for the day, and drove to the nearest town, Lampeter, for a spot of shopping. 

By the time we got there, wouldn’t you know it, the sun had come out.

Thursday was a gorgeously sunny day, which we spent at the seaside, but it was followed by two days of such unstable weather that we ditched any plans we had for longer walks and did something else instead, including more charity shopping and a visit to an antique centre.

These are just some of our finds. Clockwise from top left: little pyrex jug, new-to-me pyjamas, books and more books and a small vinyl handbag.

At first, Sunday didn’t look too bad, but clouds starting gathering while we were having breakfast. Nevertheless, we had hopes of it staying dry enough for a local walk starting from nearby Poppit Sands. The weather gods must have been laughing as we were putting on our walking shoes in the pouring rain. Surely it would stop raining any minute, so off we went. 

But no: instead it started pelting down with a vengeance. As luck would have it, the walk, which was initially on a small tarmacked lane, soon veered off into an grassy path between banks of greenery. Needless to say, by the time we were back at Poppit Sands we were soaked through and through.

The rest of the day was spent drying our clothes and relaxing in our cosy little cottage.

We got our hopes up on Monday, waking up to some sunshine, which for once stayed with us all day, although it was a bit chilly for the time of year, especially on the coast path.

Not to mention, very windy indeed. Just look at my hair!

That night, the forecast said rainy and windy for the rest of the week, which was obviously a bit of a letdown and called for yet another change of plans.

On Tuesday, a mere 15 minutes or so after we landed in the colourful seaside town of Aberaeron, our umbrellas had to come out, so we hit the town’s one and only charity shop, British Red Cross, locally called Harrods, which we remembered from last year. 

Ever on the lookout for brooches, I was in luck as they had quite a nice selection, and I came away with six, making a sum total of 18 brooches, all found at charity shops and one car boot:

Let’s forgot about Wednesday, shall we? It must have started raining before six in the morning. Sleeping right under the eaves, we could hear it pelting down without any letup. Indeed, it did not stop raining until the late afternoon. 

So, instead of showing you yet more rainy photographs, let's crack on and show you some more of our finds instead.

This set of luggage, comprising of a Constellation weekender and a vanity case, were found at two separate locations. Unfortunately, this is not our car I am posing in front, but the one which was conveniently parked next to ours.

We also bought another old bottle, which is joining the ever growing collection on our windowsill. This one is from Tenby.

This threesome of super cute little glass deer must be my favourite find, bought at the Oxfam shop in Cardigan. The largest one is only 8 centimeter high. 

They probably date from the 1950s. We paid only £ 1,99 for them, but they seem to command much higher prices on-line.

Unfortunately, the weather only improved slightly during the last days of our holiday, but at least it stopped raining from time to time, so that we were able to squeeze in some more coast path walking.

All too soon it was time to once more say goodbye to our little cottage with its ever-changing views of the estuary, always inviting me to take one more photograph.

I'm leaving you now with a photograph taken from our car on our hellish return journey, involving queues on the M4 and M25 as well as torrential rain on our final stretch to the Channel Tunnel on the M20.

I'm promising a more sunny outlook in my next post, so please stay tuned!