Next morning we drive into Newport and walk by the sea. The rain has finally stopped and miraculously the sun has come out. However, banish all thoughts of rural Wales and blink a couple of times. Everyone who, like me, is escaping the Notting Hill Carnival, is here in the land without vowels, walking around in mufti - hairy blonde knees, Birkenstocks, baggy shorts and waterproof jackets flapping like sails. Cut glass English accents (they bring their vowels with them you see) shatter the silence as Mr and Mrs West London (with obligatory spaniel) queue outside the butcher in an orderly fashion while my sights are set on Spar next door where there's no queue and there is vodka. We spend a week's wages on olives and a lot of different stuff with spelt on or in it from the Health Food Shop, then walk down to the harbour and along the cliffs. Eva points out various homes in the village: 'That one there belongs to the Xs - they have a big house in Ladbroke Square, and the man who owns that place with the scaffolding is something big in the city - they're completely renovating it...' Up on the cliffs the grass is full of wet dog and the sea is like fresh plaster. Some brave souls are even swimming. 'We could go kayaking later,' she suggests.
And then you could kill me, I think.
Thankfully it has clouded over rather ominously by the time we finish our walk and there is no more talk of messing about in small fibreglass vessels. Instead we have grilled peaches with prosciutto from the Ottolenghi cookbook, with leaves and edible flowers from the 'man in the village' who grows them in a polytunnel. Eva puts on some music - Olympia's Lament and we settle by the tiny wood-burning stove the size of a matchbox that glows like a kissed mouth in the gloom of the afternoon and watch the soft Welsh rain fall like mist into the soft Welsh grass.
'It's so restful here,' says Eva as we both look wistfully out of the window.
'Voglio, voglio mourire...' sings Emma Kirkby.
