Thursday, October 10

 We rose late this morning and breakfasted leisurely (soft-boiled eggs, lots of toast and butter—with black currant jam or Teresa’s marvelous ginger marmalade, and lots of tea and coffee). As we were finishing breakfast, we realized that we had only minutes left to pick up a bakery order Carol had put in the previous day. I zoomed off to the bakery, which was fortunately only five minutes away, and came back with a bag full of fresh-baked oatmeal and sourdough loaves and some luscious specialty filled doughnuts. Thank you, Carol! 

It was a gloriously sunny/partly cloudy day, so Ruth and I took Teresa and her little rescue dog to the beach at Broad Haven, to introduce Chico to the ocean for the first time. It was a delight to see him prance along the beach and meet the multitude of other dogs running there.

We then found the trailhead for the circular path leading from the youth hostel car park into Haroldson Woods and up along the coastal path. The woods were wet and lovely, almost like a jungle.

After a mile or so it joined the coastal path, where we had sweeping views of St. Bride’s Bay and walked along hedges blooming with late gorse.

Then home again to our lovely cottage in Talbenny.

View of the house from the back garden.

Some of the shrubs and trees in the garden.

Carol and Gayle had taken a two-mile walk into the little cluster of houses that is Talbenny, and visited a small art studio and gallery there. They also walked down to St. Mary’s Church, through lanes overgrown with ferns and wild blackberries. 

Later we drove to Milford Haven to pick up some medication for Carol and to explore the shops there. It was a bit of a depressed town, with not much in the way of shops, but we did find a lovely used clothing store with a friendly shopkeeper, and Gayle was able to change some money at a post office. The town also had a Tesco supermarket, so we picked up more groceries and pork chops for dinner.

Dinner is always in the sun room because of the light and warmth.

We’ve had some wonderful meals here! We ate the luscious cupcakes for dessert tonight.

Teresa made a lovely fire after dinner, and we gathered in the sitting room for a while, but sleep overcame us, and most of us were in bed by 8:00. Sadly, we missed the northern lights around midnight, which were apparently quite spectacular. Perhaps we’ll see them on Friday night.