Scrambling from Trefalen Cottage

While I was waiting for the warm weather to return, and for the seeds in my vegetable patch to germinate, I spent some time scrambling on the rocks near the cottage. Scrambling is not the same as climbing, though both involve using your hands as well as your feet. (And ropes may be used for more challenging scrambles in the mountains). But the scrambling I do round here is little more than moving from one cove to another across the rocks. Low tide is best, when each cove has its own beach and I can scramble out to sea, along the rocky outcrops which are hidden at high water.  These coves are peaceful worlds of their own .The only foot prints on the wet sand are mine , the only sounds come from the birds, or perhaps a seagull trying to smash a spider crab on the rocks. And from the sea of course, gently moving between the rocks on a calm day, crashing and echoing in bad weather.

     It is possible, when the tide is very low, to scramble all the way from Broadhaven Beach  right along to Smugglers Cove; climbing, jumping, and wading, until you get round the final rocks and see a figure (or more often a dog ) on the sand. That’s when  you  know that you have reached safety. (In the next photo of Kathy she will be in a wedding dress).Smugglers Cove also seems to be called New Quay.  But to us it’s always been the Secret Inlet. We once called to tell the coastguard that we had found what looked like a grenade high in the rocks and within minutes a vanload of men had arrived to bear the object away.

     But now it is getting warmer.  The two yellow deck chairs, one each for Marcia and Lawrence, have reappeared outside the farmhouse. Every day now there are campers driving through the gates; old friends who come back every year or first timers, listening carefully to information about showers (there are none) and views (unbelievable). The alpacas and horses are venturing nearer to my vegetable patch, the horses friendly, the alpacas aloof and mysterious. Warren has started cutting the grass, his machine chased by a loudly barking Buster. And Malcolm’s caravan has returned to its usual place in a corner of the field outside our cottage.

     There are, I think, seven or eight of us at Trefalen. Perhaps it’s time to say more about who we are?

Ice-cream vans, samphire and mystery rocks

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 The first sign that summer is coming has always been the return of Gene. Gene collects the parking fees at the National Trust car park, just above the steps to the beach. Sometimes I never get as far as the steps because Gene has waylaid me. We talk about photography, insects, or both.  Last year he was photographing the scorpion fly. But this year there is no Gene. Peter, who has come back, tells me that Gene is visiting family in the States.

       There are other changes too. A pay and display machine for a start. Until now, Peter and Gene would stop each car, ask if the driver was a National Trust member, and collect the parking fee if not. Now  Peter and Alex (his new colleague) still stop each car but  direct drivers to the pay and display machine if they are not  members.

      However the biggest change is the replacement of the colourful ice cream van that has stood at the top of the steps every summer since I’ve been here. On Saturday a new van was sitting in the car park. It sells hot drinks and sandwiches, as well as ice cream, and has a very noisy generator. I could hear the generator from my vegetable plot. However on Sunday it wasn’t there. Peter explained that it had been too noisy and work needed doing to to make it quieter. I wonder how many people will swap their picnics and flasks for its offerings?   

(There should be a photo of the old van here as well but my photo filing system has let me down)

     It wasn’t the best time at Trefalen Farm for the generator to make itself heard. . Marcia has been suffering from a bad cough and sore throat for a week and Lawrence has been holding the fort himself, sitting alone in the farmhouse kitchen. I decided Marcia needed a little present, something to eat to tempt her appetite. So I scrambled over the cliff tops to collect some rock samphire and gave Lawrence strict instructions about how to cook it (just put in boiling water for a second then add some butter or oil).Marcia told me Lawrence served it beautifully, on a large white plate and it was delicious.  

     It was only the next morning, as I was searching in my River Cottage foraging book for more recipes for samphire, that I saw an explanation for its unusal taste . It comes from ‘a cocktail of aromatic chemicals, one of which is pinene.’ Pinene, the author goes on to explain, ‘is a major constituent of turpentine’. I’ve given the reference below if anyone wants to follow this up.

     And finally, a very different story, of magic and mystery. One of my favorite parts of the coast is the cove just beneath the campsite. It is reached by a steep, rocky path and then an awkward scramble over boulders until you reach the sand. So it is visited by few, even in high summer. Yesterday it was of course deserted. But something looked different .There was an oval stone, perhaps a foot high, balanced on one of the boulders in my path. I touched it very carefully and it crashed to the ground. Then, as I went further, I saw more, a semi circle of similar stones, all about a foot high, all oval, all balancing on the rocks between the cliff and the sea. I wonder  who put them there and how long they will stay?

Reference 

Wright,J .(2009).Edible Seashore. River Cottage Handbook no 5.

We didn't bring our sunhats

We are usually alone at Trefalen Cottage, just Chris and me. But sometimes we have visitors. The visitors we enjoy most of all are Gabriela and Silvia, our granddaughters. And last weekend was to be their first visit to Pemrokeshire since Christmas. The weather forecast was not encouraging; icy blasts from the north, strong cold winds, overnight frosts. But they came anyway, bags laden with winter jackets, woollen hats, wellington boots and gloves.  

     But of course the weather in this tiny corner of Pembrokeshire does not obey the weather forecasts. Saturday was warm and Sunday even warmer, especially between the rocks, out of the wind, on the far side of Broadhaven beach.

     This is one of our favourite parts of the beach  because we have so many places to paddle. There is the pool of water fed by the lily ponds, sometimes no more than a big puddle, sometimes a lake. There is the channel that joins the pool to the sea, sometimes a rushing torrent, sometimes a trickle and sometimes not there at all. And of course there is the sea itself, sometimes creeping up the beach, into the dry spaces between the rocks, sometimes hurling itself into the channel.

     And we did paddle. We also  built sandcastles, constructed  bridges across the stream and ate our picnic tea leaning back against the warm rocks. The bag of warm jackets , gloves and hats lay on the beach beside us, ignored. All that Gabi and Silvi needed were their improvised sunhats

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wild garlic and a wedding arch

It is April and the wild garlic is here again. It was in flower when we first moved into Trefalen cottage, in 2008, and the wide green leaves and star like white flowers remind me each year of those early days. I didn’t know anything about wild garlic then. But now, for four or five weeks each year, we feast on wild garlic soup (made with potatoes and crème fraiche), and wild garlic salad (it goes well with nuts). And, whatever the weather, we open the car windows wide as we descend into the magical green and white banks just after St Petrox.

     April means, too, the start of real work on my vegetable patch. It backs onto the road leading to Broadhaven beach and in summer gardening can be very sociable. But the road is quiet now and I am glad there is no one to see the ravages of the winter. Even the   purple sprouting broccoli is bursting into yellow flowers, and then there will be nothing until the first salad crops, or maybe the spinach. I have sown the spinach and the beetroot under cheap plastic cloches, which are impressively surviving the gales. But it is hard to believe that, a couple of months from now, this forlorn patch will be a riot of reds, oranges , purples and green as the strawberries, carrots, beetroot, blackcurrants fight with the spinach and salads for space.

     However you can’t dig and weed all day. So I took time out last weekend to go on a ‘driftwood search’. There are piles of driftwood in one of the coves to the east of Broadhaven but it is only accessible by kayak. So we drove to Stack Rocks. There is a tiny beach, just accessible via a gulley, to the west of the car park and we managed to haul up enough wood to make a wedding arch for Kathy, our younger daughter, and Mark. The arch is now propped against the cottage wall, swaying in the wind and rain and waiting for its day of glory in June.

     By June the beach will be a mass of colour; windbreaks, beach umbrellas, tiny tents. But I like it right now; grey and white and brown. At high tide the sea batters the headlands and Church Rock, at low tide there is just a vast expanse of sand. Sometimes, from high up on the cliffs, I see a tiny solitary figure making its way across the sand. But it soon disappears, up the steps to the car park or across the bridge to the Lily Ponds, leaving the beach, once again, to me.

      However away from the beach there is plenty of life, especially on the last Friday of the month, which is curry night at St Govan’s Inn. Last Friday it was as busy as ever, all tables occupied (including my favourite one in the corner with the climbing photographs) and a crowd around the bowls of curry set out on a table near the bar. In summer there is a happy mix of locals and holidaymakers at curry night but the holidaymakers are still in Cardiff, London, Birmingham. They will be here soon though.