After the excitement of the tea dance Eva decides we should go for a walk. 'It's not really raining, now. It's only Welsh rain,' She says and we set off up a vertical hill.
She's right. It's isn't really raining. It's like being sprayed with a mist of damp grass scented perfume.
Oh no, it doesn't really start to pelt down until we could do with a rest and we've crossed the stile and are half way across the hills. I'd love to pretend to stop and admire the view so I can catch my breath but there isn't anywhere dry to sit down and there's no view.
'There are 400 hundred different kinds of lichen on these hills,' she informs me as we wade through thigh high dripping ferns, purple heather and yellow gorse, but before I can ask her if she has personally counted each one we are bent double under the weight of the rain, ploughing through a muddy track in the middle of gray cloud bank and I'm too busy keeping my eye on the path, after wiping away swathes of water, to make jokes.
'We're going to the woods over there,' she calls pointing at a fog-drenched haze through which absolutely no trees are visible. In fact, nothing is visible. The rain is now lashing against my back and has soaked my jeans which have stuck to my legs like abused children and my hair which was flying around my face in an alarmed fashion until the weight of the water plastered it to my neck and chest.
'Is your mac waterproof?' she asks, a tad after it might have been a useful question.
'No. It's from Jigsaw. It's for fashionable rain. It's showerproof.'
'Well, this is only a shower. It will stop soon, you'll see.'
By now the water has soaked through to my shirt and is running down between my breasts like a mountain stream. It's probably about then that it starts to rail - a sort of wet mixture of rain and hail that lands with the force of a sniper's bullet and the random profusion of a machine gun, and water starts filling up my wellie boots. We're skirting the edge of a precipitous cliff and I'm only glad that I can't see my hand in front of my face as it seems too late to mention that I have a morbid fear of heights.
'Doesn't everybody,' says Worcester man, later when I relay the highlights of the weekends. Possibly, though, not everyone wants to throw up and freeze to the spot when confronted with a sheer drop.
We've now been walking in weather for thirty minutes. And then the rail gives up its half-hearted fight against the elements and turns to old fashioned plain and simple hailstones that cover us like chick feed thrown by a particularly vengeful God.
'Up there, that's the half way mark.' Eva says pointing again into the void. All I can see ahead is mud.
Mud.
Mud.
Mud and more mud.
And then far below us - a foot from the edge of the path - sea.
Black faced, black arsed sheep in the field beside us are regarding us balefully as if thinking to themselves, 'what in the holy name of God are you doing clambering up a ruddy cliff path in the sheeting rain and hail when you could be home in front of the wood fire? We don't have a choice, and yet people say we're stupid...' I couldn't agree more.
It continues to hail. I can't hear a thing that Eva is shouting over her shoulder as I follow her single file up the excremental track because of the noise of hailstones slamming into my plastic coat. My jeans have reached saturation point and are seeping water, I can feel yet more water sloshing around inside my wellie boots every time I take a step. I feel like I'm wearing a nappy. I'm thinking of Stalingrad and forced marches and foot rot.
And then we reach the headland and the wind starts to gust.
Any second I fear I'm going to be blown off the cliff, or I would, had not both my legs been ankle deep in rich brown, gluey mud. 'There's a great view of Cardigan Bay,' says Eva.
'...usually.'
All I can see is rain, falling like knives.
When we eventually reach the half-way point I don't bother to stop and appreciate the scenery as you can't stand up in the wind, and the sea is wreathed in thick mist. I'm leaning at 45 degrees like the fabled haggis, one leg braced against the bank (tho' of course the haggis has one leg conveniently shorter than the other so it can run round hills, in one direction) just to try and keep my balance.
'Just follow me, you'll be fine. I know my way,' says Eva. I plod after her, squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch.
'Oh look, more sheep.' She's says enthusiastically.
I barely raise my head. I'm over sheep. Really over sheep. We walk on but there is no avoiding them - they're standing there in the path in front of me. I risk a glance, trying not to notice the sheer drop down into the turgid ocean.
'Erm, actually Eva, they're not sheep, they're horses.' I note. 'A great many unfriendly looking horses.'
'Really! Oh Yes,' she wipes water off her steamed up glasses, and crows, hugely delighted. 'They're the wild ponies. We don't usually see them in this part. '
Nope. Just like 'we don't usually get wet' and 'it never rains for long' and 'last week we had sun every day so bring your swimsuit...'
The ponies look back at us equally unimpressed, straddling the path.
'They don't seem to moving out of the way.' Eva says. Sure enough the ponies are stationary. They also have foals with them.
'I'm not sure it's a good idea to go too close. Animals can be funny if they have young and they think they are threatened.' I say - suddenly the country expert. Two months writing a farming book and I'm David bloody Attenborough. My words are snatched out of my mouth like a handbag on Oxford Street. The ponies do not move.
'Oh well, we'll just have to walk round them,' says Eva and sets off piste through a forest of prickly gorse and ferns and into a bog into which she promptly sinks with a loud sucking noise. I hesitate, but the only other way round is doing a Thelma and Louise over the cliff. For a nanosecond it seems like the better option.
I follow, keeping a wary eye on the ponies. The bog swallows my ankles. I'm seeing helicopters in my mind circling overhead, pulling me out of the waist high marsh and then Eva's phone beeps. She has a signal. Now, freaking now she has a signal! Quick, call air-sea rescue. But it's a text message from her son in Bali. Apparently it's very nice but a bit touristy. She stops in the bog to read it aloud. I sink in a little deeper.
'Don't you think we should move a bit faster?' but no. Eva is texting back.
'Watch out for stallions.' I add, again showing my superior knowledge of animal husbandry as some of the ponies begin to snort and stamp their hooves.
'How would I know which one is a stallion?' asks Eva.
'It would be the one with bollocks. If there's anything hanging down, keep away from it.' James Ruddy Herriot. Eat your heart out. We're now slithering down hill. I slip and land in the heather and gorse. It's like sticking your hand into a bag of pins.
'Just keep following me. Down the path.' She says.
There's a torrent of water. I think this is what she means by a path.
'It's not usually a river.' She adds.
I can't help it. I begin to laugh. I laugh so much I double over, safe in the knowledge that if I wet myself it wouldn't make one damn bit of difference. It might only warm me up. I'm still laughing when we arrive in the relative shelter of the woods where every time the wind blows it's like someone has just dumped a gallon of water in a bucket from overhead trees on to our backs. The rains is now in our face like needles. I'm reminded of the episode of the Wire where they talk about killing people with nail guns.
Please. Just make it quick. I think, and realise that my fear of falling into the sea has completely gone. I'd almost jump into it if I thought it would put me out of my misery.
'Look, this is sooo beautiful.' She urges me to admire a huddle of moss covered tree trunks. Everything is green. Green and spongey. And wet. Very, very, very drippy, primeval, wet. 'It's so romantic. If you were with a lover, this is where you would stop and kiss.'
'Well afraid you are out of luck there, Eva. I'm not ruddy kissing you.' More downhill paths, now with tree roots hidden in the mud. I can't quite believe it when I finally see a sign that says the car park is a mile away. And then we reach a tarmac road.
Similarly, the people in the car park sitting in the warmth of their camper van can't quite believe it when we slosh up to the car and begin stripping down to our underwear. I pour half a pint of muddy water the colour of coffee out of each Wellington boot, wring out my socks and my jumper and peel my jeans off my legs, taking some of the skin with it. I at least have a pashmina that I can wrap around myself. Eva keeps on her blouse and the two of us, a clammy blob of white, rather large thighs and big industrial bras climb into the front of her BMW and drive off home for a bath.
'We could jump in together, if you like,' I joke. 'I've got my swimsuit with me for modesty.'
'Don't make me laugh. I'll pee myself,' Eva giggles and puts her food down hard on the accellerator as we drive out of the bay. 'Look,' she says, 'I think those might be some seals.' She points out at the sea and I turn my head hopefully.
Dear God that girl is blind. How did I allow myself to follow her across a bloody cliff in a gale force hail storm?
'Mmm - yes, Eva those would be the rare blue plastic buoy seals of Pembrokeshire who swim together at regular intervals of ten yards connected by rope... Another unusual sighting to go with our encounter with the flock of giant dappled gray-maned sheep of South Wales.
Later she points out a hawk that may or may not be a red kite.
It's a fricking seagull as far as I can see.
