Someone once said, There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. With this in mind we set off to Pembrokeshire in Wales, for a short Easter break, safe in the knowledge that this was already the coldest March for 60 years and that we would be spending a fair bit of our time outdoors.
As it turned out, we saw what seemed to be the first pale sunshine of the year but the wind was still bitingly cold, with temperatures rarely getting above four degrees and feeling considerably less than zero with the wind factored in.
The landscape was beautiful, the coastline spectacular and all the people we met were very friendly. My favourite spot was Bosherston lakes, where we went for a lovely long walk and tried our hand at otter spotting. At one point we all suddenly stopped dead in our tracks, after hearing a loud squeaking sound coming from the bank... We all heard it once, then after standing quietly for a moment we heard it again… We crept silently, closer to the edge of the lake, our eyes peeled, cameras at the ready… Then we realised that it was a pair of Hawthorn tree branches rubbing together, whenever the wind gusted up!
We all enjoyed the walk, despite the lack of otter photos and when we finally reached the beach, the view was spectacular. A river gently wound its way down to the sea, through wind swept, sea grass filled, sand dunes. As we crested the parapet of the dunes, the inappropriateness of our clothing became apparent; we should have brought full face ski masks... The freezing blast of Arctic wind, bearing stinging sand was simply too much, and we soon turned back to the shelter of the tree lined valleys and beautiful blue lakes.
Fortunately Pembroke is riddled with ruined castles, which gave the kids plenty of room to run around and just enough shelter to give the adults some respite from the bitter weather and a chance to enjoy the sunshine.
The magnificent Castle Carew was my favourite, with its associated tidal mill. I asked our son what he thought they would have used the mill for. He reasoned that the massive, four metre, cast iron and wood paddle wheels, turned by tonnes of cascading water were probably used to power a rotisserie – turning chickens on spikes…
Our son also loves to scramble about and he will climb anything that his small hands can get a grip on. He was spoiled for choice with the wealth of costal cliffs and caves. It’s easy to get concerned about this kind of behaviour but he knows, that I never mind when he needs to shout, Daddy, can you help? I think I’m a bit stuck!
It turns out that our daughter is quite fussy about her castles; she thought that Carew was not ruined enough, for her liking, and neither did she like the new windows that had been fitted in some places. She preferred the nearby Bishop’s Palace in Lamphey (properly crumbling, with barely a roof in sight); this reminded her of our favourite local romantic ruin, Netley Abbey.
We saw acres of Wild Garlic while walking and both children love to nibble on a pungent leaf - saying, it doesent fill you up but it makes you less hungry. I occasionally wonder if we are feeding them enough...
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