other adjectives are available
MONDAY mornings are not renowned for their better qualities and are sadly often only appreciated in contrast to something worse. Monday last week (as I write this) was a glorious exception, beginning with the awareness that I’d taken the day off and that a full English Welsh breakfast awaited. Also it was sunny, I had slept well and I was ready to walk…
To be honest, I think that Monday was more than a little confused. I know I was.
Continue reading “CX – Benllech to Beaumaris”
WHILE I may have avoided walking in August, on account of hot weather and everywhere being booked solid, September is an entirely different prospect. And this is good because if August is optional then the start of September is almost compulsory for walking: I started my coastal perambulations on the third of September 2010, which means that as September rolled around again I was into my fifth year of walking.
MY LAST walk was about a month ago (as I write this) but that feels like forever. I tend not to go walking in August on account of the heat — well, the rain is warmer anyway — and of the near-impossibility of finding accommodation during the peak holiday season. With this in mind, I was keen to get one more walk in before I ran out of July, particularly since it would carry me to Holyhead, which was something of a personal milestone. I was joined in this endeavour by the Lemming who, as tradition demands, was wearing footwear that was less than ideal.
AT THE end of my 99th walk I limped my way along the roads from Porth Oer to Nefyn and it was not at all unpleasant, though I refused to count it as part of my walk.
For my 100th walk, I returned to Porth Oer and basically did the same journey again only this time I stuck to the coast. It was miles better! And also longer: by a mile and a half to be exact.
Continue reading “C – Porth Oer to Nefyn”
MY 99TH walk was supposed to carry me from Aberdaron from to Nefyn. And technically it did but not quite as I’d intended. As it turned out, I abandoned the coast path after only nine miles and walked the rest of it by road. This was in no way what I had planned and I quickly resolved that I would return and complete the coast path route next time. So why did I do this?
Let me take you through it step by step…
Continue reading “XCIX – Aberdaron to Porth Oer”
THE storms that heralded the beginning of 2014 were followed by more storms and then more. The wettest January since records began was followed by a February that seemed to consider that a challenge. All manner of interesting coastal features were washed right away and I, not confusing ‘’suicidal’ and ‘intrepid’, remained in London and followed this on the news.
Until March.
Continue reading “XCI – Llanon to Borth”
THE plan was simple. Get up at the crack of dawn and leave before breakfast, giving myself plenty of time to amble slowly and leisurely around the coast to Strumble Head. And then, if time still allowed, to continue on to Goodwick. It was a good plan. It was doomed.
The enemy, contact with whom no battle plan survives, was in this case me. As evidenced by my getting up somewhat later than intended and then taking time out for breakfast.
Continue reading “LXXXIV – Whitesands Bay to Strumble Head”
FOR one reason and another — partly that I was busy and partly that I wanted to wait until the trees had stopped trying to have sex with my nose — I allowed six weeks to elapse between my previous walk and this one. It was probably a little too long.
I was feeling slightly out of practice as I arrived back in Newgale (Niwgwl) and looked at the path climbing up out of the village onto the clifftop. Certainly, it was long enough to miss a window of several weeks’ worth of glorious weather; it was overcast with threats of drizzle when I finally returned.
Continue reading “LXXXIII – Newgale to Whitesands Bay”
I had a cunning plan to make the best possible use of Easter and its attendant four-day weekend by walking great distances along the Pembrokeshire coast. It was a good plan and I liked it, but the common cold virus had other ideas and decided to prove that it’s not only Martian tripod pilots that it can bring low if it wants.
I thus spent Easter feeling somewhat sorry for myself and occasionally wondering if I’d somehow stuffed a hagfish up my nose.
Continue reading “LXXXI – Milford Haven to Westdale Bay”
THIS weekend’s walking adventure was something of a triumph. Not a triumph in the Roman sense, nor even remotely like it unless the victorious general’s processional route was first inundated by the Tiber. Nor in the sense of an old British motor marque, now owned by BMW, whose vehicles would quickly have been mired.
What I’m trying to say here is that it was successful despite being ever so slightly muddy.
Continue reading “LXXVI – Carmarthen to St Clears”