Blood this morning was 5.3.
Had a day out, courtesy of friends of the family, Gill and Paul. First time I’ve ever ridden with people who actually carry their Bible on the dashboard, but hey, it’s probably about as much use as most satnavs. Moses might have wandered in the desert for forty years, but at least his people eventually got where they were going. Can you say the same, Garmin? Iiiiiiidon’thinkso.
Went to St David’s – about as far westward as you can go before getting your feet seriously wet - via
the tiny, colourful village of Solva. Solva was cute; it seemed to have two streets – Main Street and High Street (High Street being rather literally named – it was separated from Main Street by a long, winding hill street. I sort of expected to see a sign saying “Hill Street”, but I was doing the Solvents a disservice there). Solva also has probably the weirdest harbour I’ve ever seen. It looks, to all intents and purposes, like a landlocked green valley, and if you see it, as we did, at low tide, there are a bunch of beached yachts in the valley, like they’ve been prematurely scrapped. Then, at high tide, the sea floods in from somewhere unidentifiable, and it looks like Thurston Howell III’s bathtub. Apparently, it’s the only harbour on this side of the country never to be bothered by the Vikings...because they couldn’t find the way in! Which, given the Vikings’ navigational and seafaring prowess, is really saying something. The harbour entrance is like a paper cut in the landscape, and, in all fairness to the Norsemen, you probably can’t see it with the naked eye from a boat on approach.
So much for “Odin is my co-pilot.”
Apparently, in the early 20th Century, Solva was a departure point for transatlantic journeys. I love the Welshness of that. It’s almost like they thought “we’ve got a long journey across the open Atlantic ahead of us...but how can we make it really tricky?”
St David’s, by comparison, was a bustling hub of tourism. The alleged birthplace of (can you guess?) St David, the Welsh patron saint, it has a kickass cathedral from ye olde beginning of tyme, a pretty cool exhibition of Graham Sutherland paintings (the 50s wunderkind of British art got his mojo from the Pembrokeshire light and landscape, so it’s pretty much claimed him as one of its own in perpetuity), and if you’re lucky, is also the embarkation point for sailing trips and whale-watching expeditions. I was quite keen to do the whole whale-watching thing (I’ve never been particularly keen to “swim with dolphins,” being persuaded by the Billy Connolly argument that we wouldn’t like it if we were sitting in our native environment and a family of dolphins came swimming through our living room going “Oi, you, do that cute thing you do. Yes...now! We paid to walk with humans, dammit, now walk...”) – but visiting their environment while still respecting the boundaries of ours, sure, I’m up for that.
Which will clearly teach me not to bad-mouth Caldey Island in future, because the weather rose up and bit me. Next time they’re likely to be going out is Wednesday...when we bog off home to Merthyr. So – no whale-watching for us this year. Hey ho.
One other thing that distinguished St David’s for us though was the food.
I’m not sure we were even particularly hungry when we got there, but we spotted a little place by the name of Cwtch. Now, I’m a sucker for this word, cos it’s one of those few...and I mean verrrrrry freakin’ few...times when the Welsh language really does come into its own. There’s no absolute translation for cwtch, which, given that Welsh steals so many words from English and just changes the way they’re spelled to fuck with the English, really appeals to me. “So – what does that mean?” “Oh, don’t bother, your language isn’t quite rich enough to understand it yet...” “But we have Shakespeare, Wilde, Tennyson, Keats, Graham Norton...” (Shrug) “I know...sorry. Keep trying though...”
Quite apart from anything else, there are at least a couple of similar, but distinct meanings of “cwtch”. One has a fairly standard translation – a small, tight space. So you can have a “cleaning cwtch” or a “cwtch under the stairs”, a “cwtch dan sta”. But by far the better meaning of cwtch is...well, by nature, tricky to approach. It’s something like “a lovely warm cuddle that makes you feel entirely content and secure and loved, like you’re wrapped in warm Welsh wool with a warm coal fire and some good home-made food on a day when it’s absolutely pissing down or snowing outside...” – though undoubtedly, other Welsh folk would have their own interpretations, and – and this is the kicker of having a truly self-important language – all of them would be equally valid.
Annnnyhow, all of this meant I was quite keen to check out this place. d on the other hand, was keen to check out this place because of a sign outside its door. “Cawl served here,” it said.
Now, in case some of you haven’t been paying attention, my girl’s a bit of a foodie. So we watch a fair amount of food TV (one of the Amroth cottage’s many delights is that it has different food channels to the ones we can get at home. Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, is playing as I write this). So, having been in Britain for seven years now, she’s heard of Cawl on many shows. Cawl is essentially a rich, hearty lamb and vegetable soup, that, with bread, is a meal unto itself. I suppose in essence, it’s a food-cwtch. It’s also a Welsh speciality (oh and while I think of it, it’s pronounced as “cowl”...Because it’s Welsh, that’s why!). So my girl had heard of it, and vaguely lusted after the experience of it, but never, as yet, had that experience, so between the two of us, we didn’t need much convincing to pop in and try Cwtch’s cawl.
Unbefreakin’lievable, if I’m honest. Served with chunks of gorgeous nutty bread and a wedge of cheddar cheese (which I could be wrong, but I figured was for melting into the soup), it really was a cwtch all unto itself. Now, apparently, there’s a cawl contest in St David’s on St David’s Day (March 1st), at which I imagine the Welshness in the area reaches critical mass, and any English folk caught in the bubble spontaneously combust, but I don’t want to talk out of turn here – there may be better, more authentic, more genuinely historically-recipe’d cawls out there. All I can tell you is for a couple of cawl-newbies, Cwtch was quite awesome enough to turn us into junkies. For something different, d also had a ham hock, pistachio and apricot terrine. I’m not usually terrine-guy, but I have to tell you, I could have eaten that too, had I not been full of cawl and bread and cheese and the contented self-satisfaction of being full and Welsh right then.
So if you get a chance, check it out. We also spotted a notice on a store across the road. Apparently, it was a UK “local food hero”. “Local Food heroes” was a contest launched a while ago by a UK food TV channel where people could nominate individuals, stores, producers, providers...anyone that made their experience of food significantly better. The nominees were then assessed by a bunch of Proper Judges, devoid of local pride, to see whether the claim to make food life better was valid. St David’s Food and Wine was a gold prizewinner, and it was easy to see – and indeed smell – why, the minute you walked in the store. If Aladdin had been a foodie rather than a street-rat, he would have given up all the pissing about on magic carpets, and come to St David’s Food and Wine. Every aisle was crammed with sauces, jellies, biscuits, breads, deli foods, spices, herbs, preparations, witches’ brews...everything you could possibly want to fire your culinary imagination. What’s more, the bloke we spoke to (again, this is West Wales, you’re weird if you don’t speak to strangers), was not only courteous but genuinely friendly and not a little funny. He managed to sell us a jute bag for £3, which is a measure of his affability. So, again...just go. I know, I know...it’s a Hell of a long way to go. But it’s worth it. Truly. The last thing anyone would ever (dare?) call me is a Welsh patriot, but occasionally...jusssssst occasionally, we knock things out of the park. Today was one of those days.
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