(We still haven’t sorted out our website so no photos will be displayed on this blog…….so please refer to our ‘gowiththeflow’ facebook page to view our gorgeous photos…..)
‘Bore da’…….
It seems that none of us slept well last night which could have been a combination of a) the excitement of being on holiday b) the excitement of travelling into another country without the need for a passport c) going to bed late or d) too much alcohol……or probably a combination of all four!
I was awake at 5am so took Winston into the vast garden to do his ablutions. I must say it was a glorious morning. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the grass was a vibrant green….it wasn’t exactly what the weather predictions had forecast for today, which was wet, so what a bonus this was. I took myself back to bed then went next door into Maices room where we made notes of yesterdays events for the Day 1 blog then, wanting to continue with our daily exercise regimes Maice carried out her yoga workout on the bedroom floor, both Jane and I took ourselves outside to the garden where we performed our psychical exercises hoping that the neighbours weren’t watching, Winston had a good sniff around the garden and Abigail stayed in bed, asleep, oblivious to all the physical activity going on around her!
With everyone finally up and showered we retired to the patio and enjoyed a lovely breakfast soaking up the amazing views and the spectacular colourful countryside and deliberated what we were going to do with the day ahead. Before we came away friends of ours, Jane and Steve suggested some places to visit, the Gower peninsula being one of them and even went as far as to provide us with four OS maps of the surrounding area. Of course we’d checked them out during our planning session and even though there were four of us none of us could understand the maps….too many squiggly lines for our liking but not to be deterred we brought them with us and poured over the map of the Gower peninsula. Ok, so in conjunction with a bog-standard local map we‘d found in the Welcome Pack we deduced that a) the Gower had some beautiful beaches b) the beaches were dog-friendly c) it wasn’t far to travel d) we could swim in the sea and e) there seemed to be plenty of places for coffee and lunch!
Decision made we packed up the car and headed off towards The Mumbles, following both Marsha on the SatNav and our trusty Road Atlas. Of course Abi did a classic M&A and chose to ignore both sets of directions and a number of manoeuvres had to be carried out before we arrived at The Mumbles. We parked up, walked along the windy promenade and found a lovely coffee shop where we sat outside and enjoyed cappuccinos and tea whilst soaking up the sun. How nice was this…..it really felt like we were on holiday! Having had our coffee ‘fix’ we perambulated ourselves along the promenade admiring the views across the Bristol Channel. The water itself was rather choppy and brown in colour and it reminded us of the River Mersey but it was lovely to stretch our legs and we walked to the end of the promenade before taking the inside road back to the carpark. Well, who’d have thought we would encounter probably one of the best ‘second hand clothes shops’ we’ve ever been in. ‘Twice as Nice’ is a shop where you take your clothes to sell and you receive a percentage of the sale price. We’ve got some down in Dorset but they’re not quite like this one. With a window display full of designer clothes and even more crammed inside we we had no option but to follow our feet inside and have a peruse. Naturally being the ladies that we are we purchased a few garments…….me some killer stilettos and a designer necklace, Maice a designer dress, necklace and ring and Abi two lovely tops. Jane almost succumbed to a purchase or two but seems her will-power is much better than ours!!
The lady in the shop recommended Caswell beach as a great place to swim so we headed off in that direction and when we went to park-up noticed a No Dogs sign so that put paid to that idea. Poor Winston, we wanted him to enjoy the beach as much as us. We consulted the maps and headed towards Oxwich Bay, a Steve and Jane recommendation and paid £7 to park up which included some friendly banter with the carpark man. What we have noticed since we’ve been in Wales is how friendly everyone is and how they engage in conversation with you. It’s really nice. We found a spot on the dog-friendly beach, laid out our towels and our bikini-clad, swimsuit clad ‘bods’ for a nice quiet relax under the sun. Well it would been nice and quiet had Winston not taken umbrage with the woman sunbathing some yards from us as he kept looking at her and wouldn’t stop barking. In the end Maice took him off for a walk to pre-occupy him and Jane held the fort whilst Abi and I took ourselves off for a swim. Well, no one said anything about Jellyfish littering the beach. Honestly, there was so many of them it was like an infestation and we had to make sure we didn’t step on any as we made our way down to the sea. We must have been mad to enter the water but we were committed to having a swim so in we went. Thankfully we were both wearing aqua shoes to protect our feet but it didn’t stop us treading on them and when one touched my arm I ran out of the sea screaming……yuk, yuk, yuk.
Back on the beach and the safety of our towels Winston was still making it quite clear he didn’t like the woman next to us so we cut short our sunbathing, upped sticks and found a nice hotel restaurant at the end of the beach where we enjoyed a lovely meal before heading off to Rhossilli Bay…..another Jane and Steve recommendation. The beach itself was framed with sand dunes, sand dunes made up of very fine and very hot sand which made it really difficult to walk up. It was so hot Winston had to be carried to protect his paws but when we reached the top of the dunes, my oh my, what an amazing sight. The tide was out and all you could see for miles was sand, beautiful golden, firm sand. We walked approx 6,000 steps along the beach, paddled in the sea, chatted to a lovely couple from Llandelio and Winston, bless him, had a great run around. Is there a better way to round off such a lovely, warm sunny day than with an ice-cream? Ok, an Aperol Spritz would be lovely right now but hey, we’ll be having those when we get home so an ice-cream it was. It was whilst we were enjoying our ice-creams that thoughts turned to what we were going to drink when we got back and the realisation that maybe we’d forgotten to take the second bottle of Prosecco out of the freezer yesterday evening! Oh, dear…..we feared a small explosion may have taken place within the freezer compartment….let’s hope we get back in time to save it. Abi had brought a bottle of Lanson Champagne that she’d been given some time ago so we decided we’d have that first then proceed to our Aperol Spritz’s.
Having stopped off at Tesco’s and purchased a bag of ice we arrived home and looked inside the freezer. No explosion had taken place and the bottle was still intact but the wire holding the cork had unravelled itself so we took the bottle outside where it popped its cork and sprayed practically all of its contents, in ice format, all over the grass! Ah well, that’s the end of that bottle then! Champagne it was then! Now when one pops a bottle of Champagne or Prosecco there is usually a loud ‘PoP’ but this champagne was silent. Not only was it silent it was also corked and smelt like vinegar. We asked Abi how long she’d had the bottle for….’oh at least a few years’ she said! Jane went to check out the date on the bottle and confirmed that Abi had been in possession of this Champagne since 2014!!! You see, it just goes to show, you shouldn’t keep things for best!
So, ‘yaki dar’! After the double fiasco with the alcohol we plumped for white wines, Aperol Spritz’s and Prosecco and sat outside in the garden. We were just sipping quietly when Winston chose to use his vocal cords once again and started barking at one of the neighbours who had venture onto the patio. Maice went to fetch Winston and had a conversation with the guy. Apparently he’s here with family and friends on a fishing trip but they’re all leaving tomorrow. He even mentioned that he’d watched us this morning whilst we carried out our exercise programme in the garden! You see, we thought no one could see us, but just goes to show, there are eyes everywhere! We retired to the lounge, watched the tennis, enjoyed a lovely cheese buffet and retired to our beds. Ah, bed. We were all so tired we were really looking forward to a good nights sleep…..
Nos da…..
A, A, M, J & SW xxxxx