August 2008
day 7 strumble head and white sands
day 7 was a failure in many respects as we didn’t achieve anything we hoped for !
we drove for an hour to strumble head, not least because of its excellent name. but mainly to see if we could see some dolphins. google maps here and read more about it here and here
it turned out (according to these chaps) that some had whizzed by a few hours earlier, but dolphin sitings are very rare round here.
then we went in search of a nearby geocache on a hill overlooking the lighthouse, but once again failed
jane tried to move a mountain and kezia had a lie down
even the cows had been packed away in to little black and white bags
day 6 caldey island
caldey island is a monkery just a few miles away from tenby. we got absolutely soaked on the boat ride across, but the weather was (mostly) ok once we were there.
a life in the day of a monk
it’s also got a very nice lighthouse with a big orange tank next to it
inside it was covered in pieces of paper with prayer requests. someone had even popped their’s behind jesus’s back on the cross, no doubt trying to bump it up the holy order (pun intended)
here’s the post office
and another chapel
and here’s the monkery itself
it’s got some lovely beaches
and a couple of comedy shops
i was deliberately steered away from the chocolate factory (although i’ve had a few chocolate cakes i’m still off chocolate bars)
community strickly enclosure private
ultimately though it was a very peaceful island containing a dozen or so people devoted to serving God through prayer.
read more about it here
once we got back from caldey island we popped over to enjoy some rare evening sun and had luxury (expensive) fish and chips by the quay at saundersfoot
it’s weird being on a north facing beach in the early evening as the sun seems to go down in the wrong direction (and it gets cold once it pops down below houses – not that it was particularly warm anyway)
lenny henry
i walked 20km on thursday and at one point nearly crashed in to lenny
henry (his fault, i was walking along minding my own business [as much
as i ever do with camera in hand] and he was talking on the phone and
suddenly turned round in to my path
i realised who it was (from his voice) so turned round by which time he was leaning against a building with the same colour as his jacket so he wouldn’t be seen.
day 5 silent world
silent world is a bonkers aquarium in tenby and well worth a visit
it’s in a funny little old church and despite its small size contains loads of slightly worn looking exhibits. actually, it was only the tanks which looked aged. the animals looked fine.
kezia took the photo above
they also had some lizards and excellent signage
and in the corner there was an abandoned bin bag full of old snake skins
little people at the gallery
if you don’t know about little people then shame on you ! i think it’s fantastic. and i just happened to be in london yesterday on the evening of the solo show launch. unfortunately i didn’t rsvp and it looked really busy and i had my big camera back pack so didn’t go in.
but this on sunday looks fab (although i don’t think we’re going to be able to make it)
day 5 tenby beach again
i went photoing whilst the girls played on the beach. i arrived back just in time for a massive rain shower which completely soaked everything. amazing it was. but before we abandoned the beach the girls demanded a photo in their boat
you can see the little tent where i hide when on the beach above to avoid the sand.
master blaster ?
how desperate are you ? in some cases a toilet won’t suffice and you’ll be choosing the master blaster option
day 4 heatherton tree tops trail
kezia, esther and jane all hit the ropes on day 4 at the heatherton tree tops trail.
it was my job to catch the action from the safety (and dampness) of the floor. the three shots above are of them whizzing down the death slide thingy at the end
i was very impressed by everyone’s progress through what looked (to my untrained eye) quite a challenging course (hence the name i guess)
even the signs said it was difficult, so it must be
esther was brilliant and went whizzing on ahead
kezia was only just tall enough to do the course (although she did need
poking with a stick from the ground at one point as she couldn’t reach
the nextswinging rope !)
and of course jane did very well too !
seeing this photo reminded me it was sunny as they went through the training before the rain storms arrived for the day
i’d like a sign like this for my desk at work, with an arrow i could use to point to the level of trickiness of the task in hand
day 4 colby wood garden
after all the excitement of the ropes course we then went for a wander round the lovely colby wood garden
day 3 tenby and saundersfoot
remember to lean in to the wind
it’s a shame more places don’t go for the crazy wall colours which only seems to happen at the seaside. perhaps inspired by the plastic buckets and spades they see go by every day
this is the quay at tenby
and this is the (old?) lifeboat launch thingybob. we found out on our last day that they do their practising on a tuesday evening so that would have been a good time to have gone to watch something happen. but we didn’t.
in the afternoon we went to saundersfoot where the girls sat on the beach when i went in search of art works and found some art (and a beer on a cliff top vantage point)
seaside commerce
i spotted a lot of use of the word ‘famous’ by the seaside. i suspect it might be used in place of the word ‘only’
these posters in an abandoned hotel were advertising tenby’s famous fun fair
and in the nearby town of saundersfoot there was a massive pound shop
this claimed to be saundersfoot’s famous one pound shop.
tune in tomorrow for more pictures from the famous funkypancake website
beach shoes at barafundle
whilst jane and i huddled together in our warm hoodies, raincoats and boots, our girls threw off their shoes, and threw on their swimming costumes to shiver in the sea.
only in britain would you find people wearing skimpy sunbathing clothes alongside those more suitably dressed for winter wind and rain
day 2 barafundle and stackpole quay
pembroke08 day 2 was a windy day. we went to stackpole quay and walked round to the magical barafundle beach.
to get to the beach you have to walk over the coastal path
despite the bright colours (i’ll admit i’ve souped them a bit in lightroom) it was right chilly
when you get there you have to go down a long set of steps to reach the beach, but it’s totally worth it.
this was the one day when we didn’t have my little hidey beach tent (i don’t like sand)
