April 25 - Helo, a chroeso i Gymru! Rydym yn cael pél. We have arrived in southwest Wales (where, to our delight, they speak Welsh) in a tiny village called Castle Martin, and we're immediately enchanted. From our converted barn at Pen y Holt Farm (the Granary), we find the unexpected in every direction - literally.
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| Pen y Holt Farm (the Granary) |
One mile to the west is a wild and wooly coastline which was voted one of Wales' best surfing beaches - Freshwater West. Here Robin Hood (with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchette) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows were filmed in 2009. If that isn't enough, there's also a thatched seaweed-drying hut and an Iron Age burial chamber.
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| View from the bedroom (hay loft) to the east |
Immediately to the south is an MOD (Ministry of Defence) army tank training range, complete with targets and shooting - commencing Tuesday. The roads will be closed, the cows and sheep moved to safety, and we will be treated to ordinance - right out our window! Prior to WWII local farmers and villagers for several square miles were summarily moved, leaving a landscape of empty homes and a couple of villages.
And to the north is the 13th century St. Michael and All Angel's medieval church and an oil refinery a few miles away that lights up like Disneyland at night and is actually very pretty. And to boot . . . the Queen is coming Tuesday.
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| St. Michael and All Angel's Church |
We're brushing up on our Welsh and all its double consonants, and none of our Latin or Germanic-based languages are helping. Tomorrow we head to the beaches for Ordovician-Silurian aged fossils.
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