We go home via Devon.
Devon. Yes, I know it's not on the way from South West Wales but nevertheless we go back via Devon. It takes us 12 hours with a short stop at a Gallery on the edge of Dartmoor and another thirty minute visit to an artist who lives on the edge of a birch forest in Somerset.
'You realise that he's going to think we're a lesbian couple.' I say when I trail into the artist's studio after her. 'What's worse is that you're the one wearing the skirt and the heels and I'm the one with my hair scraped back wearing old torn jeans and trainers. I don't want to be the butch one. If I'm going to be a fake lesbian I'm at least going to be the one wearing lipstick.'
'So put on some lipstick,' she says.
'It's lost, remember?'
'Yes, along with my handbag and ta...' she adds frostily.
'Okay, okay, never mind...so I'm the butch one.'
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
Wails 6
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.
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.
Wails 5
The next morning it is raining. Hard. Eva and I pick plums from the tree in a marshy field in her garden in our dressing gowns and wellies, then go back to bed with our various books until lunch time. There is nothing else to do. The television has no reception and we've already stalked everyone she has been to college with and found her first boyfriend, as well as the person she started the Lithuanian Society with at Sussex University in 1973. I've lost my taste for stalking. I don't want to know anything about anybody, but nevertheless I find myself dictating another letter to the long lost boyfriend.
'Dear Alexander,' I begin
'I'm not sure whether you remember me...' I say as Eva types. I pause, wondering what to say next.
'...but you were the first man I slept with,' adds Eva, laughing. 'You'd think he would remember that, wouldn't you?
Hmm. I have no expertise on this matter. The last man I went out with didn't even know my surname.
At quarter to four, fifteen minutes after we've finally decided to get dressed, Sheila arrives in a car full of dog hair and straw - though thankfully no dog- and drives us several hundred miles through twisted country lanes of teeming rain to an Arts Centre for a tea dance.
I don't even dance.
Inside it's daunting. Farmers and their wives in Wedding Outfits are sitting around the room where in place of the promised De Souza Trio there's a CD playing Englebert Humperdink singing 'The Last Waltz' to which a few couples swirl round the floor. Tea is laid out on a long trestle table.
'That's Tony,' Sheila says of a tall, red faced man in grey polyester trousers, red shirt, and blue striped tie. 'No doubt 'e'll drag you round the floor if you like.'
I don't, but Eva looks interested by the idea. Tony is the local builder and single. It's immediately evident why.
Shelia slips out of her shoes and into her dancing pumps and is soon off - tall, regal and beautifully poised, dancing a quickstep with a small stooped man wearing his glasses on a chain around his neck who looks like he needs a zimmer frame, but who turns out to be her dance instructor. Another woman in a gold pleated skirt and gold shoes glides past in the arms of her husband looking every inch the professional, while yet another silver-haired couple do the foxtrot (at least I think that's what it was, either that or they were jumping about mid-step for no good reason).
'He's got eight kids and app-arent-ly was un'appy in his marr-iage. Not that 'is wife knew an-y-thing about't. It came as a big sur-pris-e to 'er. But now 'e's getting married to Ger'al'dine the min'ute 'is divorce comes through - 'e met 'er 'ere.' whispers Sheila in my ear between dances. 'But they're not sleeping to-gether until they actually get mar-ried,' she adds.
'Tell Marion about the commune... and the swingers who lived in the greenhouse,' Eva urges and Sheila, flushed and smiley from her various exertions fills me in on the local sexual shenanigans. Well I suppose they have to do something to make up for there being no South Bank Centre.
'Oh I got a mobile, did I tell you?' Sheila whoops and produces a tiny phone from her bag.
'Great, give me the number,' says Eva, 'and then I can text you.'
'I can't read it tho'. The let-ters are too small.' She squints at the dial and then hands the phone to Eva who taps in her number. 'Now, you ring me and I'll have a missed call from you and that way I'll know your number too,' says Eva.
Sheila presses dial. Nothing happens. 'No re-ception.' She says. 'I can only get re-ception when I'm up in the tractor on the top field. It's an awful lot of bother to go up there just for a text message.'
Eva looks at her phone. 'No, I haven't got a signal here either,' she says sadly.
I don't bother looking at mine. It's on the window ledge back at the cottage. Nobody is texting me and so the lack of signal is a convenient fiction to explain why my phone doesn't ring as I try to banish thoughts of Worcester man holed up in a hotel room with a Daily Telegraph lovely who isn't me.
Tea is served. The De Souza trio turns out to be the De Souza One - an old man with a rather warty face who doesn't look particularly Portuguese and who plays the piano. 'Per-'aps he was darker when 'e was younger,' Sheila suggests. Dancers flock to the table. It's another four quid for a cup of hot water with a tea bag swimming in it and a choice of dry cake, dry scone the size of a cornish pasty with jam (the cream has run out - and the 'ad a tech-nich-al problem with the mixer...?!?) or a dry meringue . (No spell check on this computer, so I may, inadvertently have led you to believe that there is a saucy Latin American dance being served with a hot beverage but we both know that would be extremely unlikely).
A few of the women look as though they have trouble walking, let alone dancing. One has a stiff leg that she drags around in a wide circle like the boom on a boat, another shuffles and yet another limps. However, people in glass houses and all that... I have nothing wrong with either of my legs and yet I still can't waltz to save my life, as Sheila informs a lovely young farmer with dark eyes and red cheeks when he asks her if 'any of your friends are dancing,' . She then rushes off to jive with a man in a jumper and a knitted waistcoat who will be perspiring heavily by the end of the dance. 'I 'ope you can't see my knick-ers.' she says as she prepares to twirl and spin.
We fish out our tea bags from the tepid water and Sheila, panting now, announces that she is off next week to ride across the steppes in Mongolia where she will be camping in sub-zero temperatures. 'You must come to one of our dinners and tell us all about it,' says Eva.
'No, I'd be totally out of my depth up in London with all you smart people.'
Eva and I splutter unattractively through our tea. 'Don't be silly, none of us have been on a riding holiday to Mongolia. I think coming to Wales is quite intrepid.' I say.
'No, you don't understand, our idea of a girls' night out is something here called (and she says something un-reproduceable in Welsh) which means girls of the area and it usually involves going to a pub and getting chips. It's boring. We 'ave people who come and give us talks on their tea towel collection or twenty different types of broccoli. It's like Calendar Girls it is. Our next event is a local girl coming to talk to us about her ter-min-al illness. And that was after there was some discussion about whether she would still be alive to do it'
But then one of the other women said, "oh don't worry, her sister could always come along and talk about it for her if she's dead".
Really. It's that exciting...'
The old guy at the piano shuffles back to his seat with his walking stick and the CD plays Acker Bilk's 'Stranger on the shore.'
I start singing along in my trumpet voice.
Really. It's that exciting.
'Dear Alexander,' I begin
'I'm not sure whether you remember me...' I say as Eva types. I pause, wondering what to say next.
'...but you were the first man I slept with,' adds Eva, laughing. 'You'd think he would remember that, wouldn't you?
Hmm. I have no expertise on this matter. The last man I went out with didn't even know my surname.
At quarter to four, fifteen minutes after we've finally decided to get dressed, Sheila arrives in a car full of dog hair and straw - though thankfully no dog- and drives us several hundred miles through twisted country lanes of teeming rain to an Arts Centre for a tea dance.
I don't even dance.
Inside it's daunting. Farmers and their wives in Wedding Outfits are sitting around the room where in place of the promised De Souza Trio there's a CD playing Englebert Humperdink singing 'The Last Waltz' to which a few couples swirl round the floor. Tea is laid out on a long trestle table.
'That's Tony,' Sheila says of a tall, red faced man in grey polyester trousers, red shirt, and blue striped tie. 'No doubt 'e'll drag you round the floor if you like.'
I don't, but Eva looks interested by the idea. Tony is the local builder and single. It's immediately evident why.
Shelia slips out of her shoes and into her dancing pumps and is soon off - tall, regal and beautifully poised, dancing a quickstep with a small stooped man wearing his glasses on a chain around his neck who looks like he needs a zimmer frame, but who turns out to be her dance instructor. Another woman in a gold pleated skirt and gold shoes glides past in the arms of her husband looking every inch the professional, while yet another silver-haired couple do the foxtrot (at least I think that's what it was, either that or they were jumping about mid-step for no good reason).
'He's got eight kids and app-arent-ly was un'appy in his marr-iage. Not that 'is wife knew an-y-thing about't. It came as a big sur-pris-e to 'er. But now 'e's getting married to Ger'al'dine the min'ute 'is divorce comes through - 'e met 'er 'ere.' whispers Sheila in my ear between dances. 'But they're not sleeping to-gether until they actually get mar-ried,' she adds.
'Tell Marion about the commune... and the swingers who lived in the greenhouse,' Eva urges and Sheila, flushed and smiley from her various exertions fills me in on the local sexual shenanigans. Well I suppose they have to do something to make up for there being no South Bank Centre.
'Oh I got a mobile, did I tell you?' Sheila whoops and produces a tiny phone from her bag.
'Great, give me the number,' says Eva, 'and then I can text you.'
'I can't read it tho'. The let-ters are too small.' She squints at the dial and then hands the phone to Eva who taps in her number. 'Now, you ring me and I'll have a missed call from you and that way I'll know your number too,' says Eva.
Sheila presses dial. Nothing happens. 'No re-ception.' She says. 'I can only get re-ception when I'm up in the tractor on the top field. It's an awful lot of bother to go up there just for a text message.'
Eva looks at her phone. 'No, I haven't got a signal here either,' she says sadly.
I don't bother looking at mine. It's on the window ledge back at the cottage. Nobody is texting me and so the lack of signal is a convenient fiction to explain why my phone doesn't ring as I try to banish thoughts of Worcester man holed up in a hotel room with a Daily Telegraph lovely who isn't me.
Tea is served. The De Souza trio turns out to be the De Souza One - an old man with a rather warty face who doesn't look particularly Portuguese and who plays the piano. 'Per-'aps he was darker when 'e was younger,' Sheila suggests. Dancers flock to the table. It's another four quid for a cup of hot water with a tea bag swimming in it and a choice of dry cake, dry scone the size of a cornish pasty with jam (the cream has run out - and the 'ad a tech-nich-al problem with the mixer...?!?) or a dry meringue . (No spell check on this computer, so I may, inadvertently have led you to believe that there is a saucy Latin American dance being served with a hot beverage but we both know that would be extremely unlikely).
A few of the women look as though they have trouble walking, let alone dancing. One has a stiff leg that she drags around in a wide circle like the boom on a boat, another shuffles and yet another limps. However, people in glass houses and all that... I have nothing wrong with either of my legs and yet I still can't waltz to save my life, as Sheila informs a lovely young farmer with dark eyes and red cheeks when he asks her if 'any of your friends are dancing,' . She then rushes off to jive with a man in a jumper and a knitted waistcoat who will be perspiring heavily by the end of the dance. 'I 'ope you can't see my knick-ers.' she says as she prepares to twirl and spin.
We fish out our tea bags from the tepid water and Sheila, panting now, announces that she is off next week to ride across the steppes in Mongolia where she will be camping in sub-zero temperatures. 'You must come to one of our dinners and tell us all about it,' says Eva.
'No, I'd be totally out of my depth up in London with all you smart people.'
Eva and I splutter unattractively through our tea. 'Don't be silly, none of us have been on a riding holiday to Mongolia. I think coming to Wales is quite intrepid.' I say.
'No, you don't understand, our idea of a girls' night out is something here called (and she says something un-reproduceable in Welsh) which means girls of the area and it usually involves going to a pub and getting chips. It's boring. We 'ave people who come and give us talks on their tea towel collection or twenty different types of broccoli. It's like Calendar Girls it is. Our next event is a local girl coming to talk to us about her ter-min-al illness. And that was after there was some discussion about whether she would still be alive to do it'
But then one of the other women said, "oh don't worry, her sister could always come along and talk about it for her if she's dead".
Really. It's that exciting...'
The old guy at the piano shuffles back to his seat with his walking stick and the CD plays Acker Bilk's 'Stranger on the shore.'
I start singing along in my trumpet voice.
Really. It's that exciting.
Wails 4
We drive to Fishguard in the evening for a jazz festival.
By 'jazz festival' it means that one of the pubs on the main street has a three piece blues band that 'used to have a really good guitarist...'. We eat supper in a local restaurant and then stand shivering in the street at ten o'clock in yet another orderly queue to get into the pub. There's a bouncer on the door. I haven't done this since I was a teenager but it is not making me feel young. A small woman in black with a face like a pug and 'security' embroidered on her jumper holds her hand up and refuses us entrance.
Beside us throngs of local youth wearing no clothes promenade accompanied by men wearing tattoos. There are lots of mini skirts and strapless tops. Anyone would think it's summer.
'It is summer,' says Eva.
I'm wearing a frock, a cardigan, a pashmina and a big black mac.
It strikes me suddenly that I should also be wearing a handbag. Eva lent me hers and I know I had it a second ago as I just took out my credit card in the restaurant and paid for dinner. Unaccountably, however, it has vanished.
The queue shows no such tendency. Someone has to leave before we can enter. Inside it's jammed with semi-naked people and body art but it looks like we are to be denied the pleasure or rubbing piercings with the locals because I have to go back to the restaurant and see if I've left my bag there.
The waitresses look at us as if they have never seen us before in their lives despite the fact that we left less than five minutes earlier and were one of only three tables in the whole dining room. I feel like I'm in The Wicker Man, what with this and the nakedness. All we need is Brit Eckland writhing around singing and banging on the wall. I feel I could do with a good bang on the wall - I mean of the angry, frustrated sort. Obviously.
'Can I help you? Were you wantin' a table?' she asks.
'Erm, we just ate here.' I say. Her face shows no recognition whatsoever. I explain that I've lost my bag.
'Where were you sittin'?' asked the sweet-faced dark hairded girl who served us.
I point to the cleared away table.
She looks at it as though it had just sprung forth from the earth.
'Oh really? What tonight?'
'Yes, we just paid a few minutes ago.'
'Are you sure you 'ad it with you?'
'Yes I took the money and the card out of it to pay. Maybe you picked the bag up with napkins and it has been accidentally thrown in with the laundry?' I suggest. It was a very small bag.
'Oh, I'll check,' she says as the girl who took the credit card from us (and presumably the tip) walks past us as though we were ghosts.
There's no bag. Definitely no bag.
Eva decides to call the police just in case it has been handed in while I stroll down the marine walk (in the pitch black) to a point where there's a signal to call my bank.
Apparently my bank haven't heard of me either and I can't report the card missing because they can't find any trace of me having an account with them. Meanwhile Eva is talking to the local constabulary.
'Well it's my handbag, but it was my friends card,' I hear her say. 'She had a bank card (what was it Marion, Abbey National?) and some cash.' Pause for Welsh policeman's response. 'Anything else? I don't think so (Did you have anything else in it Marion?)'
'Yes,' I hiss, while getting extremely annoyed that my bank doesn't have me listed by my postcode or either of my surnames and seem to think I should have memorised my credit card number.'
'I also had a lipstick - bright red, Nars, in a black case...'
'...and a lipstick bright red, Nars, in a black case,' She parrots, 'Oh wait a minute. I think I put a tampon in the side pocket,' says Eva to the policeman.' Another pause for police response while I think that may be a bit more information than the local constabulary needed.
I want to take the phone off her and say it wasn't mine.
'So, yes, that's right - an Abbey National Card. Forty pounds in cash, a red lipstick, very red - a bit too bright if you ask me. And a tampon,' She repeats. I'm surprised she doesn't tell them the brand. 'No I don't think it was stolen. I think it must just have fallen off her arm in the street and somebody has picked it up.'
Presumably someone in garish lipstick who is menstruating...
By 'jazz festival' it means that one of the pubs on the main street has a three piece blues band that 'used to have a really good guitarist...'. We eat supper in a local restaurant and then stand shivering in the street at ten o'clock in yet another orderly queue to get into the pub. There's a bouncer on the door. I haven't done this since I was a teenager but it is not making me feel young. A small woman in black with a face like a pug and 'security' embroidered on her jumper holds her hand up and refuses us entrance.
Beside us throngs of local youth wearing no clothes promenade accompanied by men wearing tattoos. There are lots of mini skirts and strapless tops. Anyone would think it's summer.
'It is summer,' says Eva.
I'm wearing a frock, a cardigan, a pashmina and a big black mac.
It strikes me suddenly that I should also be wearing a handbag. Eva lent me hers and I know I had it a second ago as I just took out my credit card in the restaurant and paid for dinner. Unaccountably, however, it has vanished.
The queue shows no such tendency. Someone has to leave before we can enter. Inside it's jammed with semi-naked people and body art but it looks like we are to be denied the pleasure or rubbing piercings with the locals because I have to go back to the restaurant and see if I've left my bag there.
The waitresses look at us as if they have never seen us before in their lives despite the fact that we left less than five minutes earlier and were one of only three tables in the whole dining room. I feel like I'm in The Wicker Man, what with this and the nakedness. All we need is Brit Eckland writhing around singing and banging on the wall. I feel I could do with a good bang on the wall - I mean of the angry, frustrated sort. Obviously.
'Can I help you? Were you wantin' a table?' she asks.
'Erm, we just ate here.' I say. Her face shows no recognition whatsoever. I explain that I've lost my bag.
'Where were you sittin'?' asked the sweet-faced dark hairded girl who served us.
I point to the cleared away table.
She looks at it as though it had just sprung forth from the earth.
'Oh really? What tonight?'
'Yes, we just paid a few minutes ago.'
'Are you sure you 'ad it with you?'
'Yes I took the money and the card out of it to pay. Maybe you picked the bag up with napkins and it has been accidentally thrown in with the laundry?' I suggest. It was a very small bag.
'Oh, I'll check,' she says as the girl who took the credit card from us (and presumably the tip) walks past us as though we were ghosts.
There's no bag. Definitely no bag.
Eva decides to call the police just in case it has been handed in while I stroll down the marine walk (in the pitch black) to a point where there's a signal to call my bank.
Apparently my bank haven't heard of me either and I can't report the card missing because they can't find any trace of me having an account with them. Meanwhile Eva is talking to the local constabulary.
'Well it's my handbag, but it was my friends card,' I hear her say. 'She had a bank card (what was it Marion, Abbey National?) and some cash.' Pause for Welsh policeman's response. 'Anything else? I don't think so (Did you have anything else in it Marion?)'
'Yes,' I hiss, while getting extremely annoyed that my bank doesn't have me listed by my postcode or either of my surnames and seem to think I should have memorised my credit card number.'
'I also had a lipstick - bright red, Nars, in a black case...'
'...and a lipstick bright red, Nars, in a black case,' She parrots, 'Oh wait a minute. I think I put a tampon in the side pocket,' says Eva to the policeman.' Another pause for police response while I think that may be a bit more information than the local constabulary needed.
I want to take the phone off her and say it wasn't mine.
'So, yes, that's right - an Abbey National Card. Forty pounds in cash, a red lipstick, very red - a bit too bright if you ask me. And a tampon,' She repeats. I'm surprised she doesn't tell them the brand. 'No I don't think it was stolen. I think it must just have fallen off her arm in the street and somebody has picked it up.'
Presumably someone in garish lipstick who is menstruating...
Wails 3
In the late afternoon we update Eva's profile on Guardian Soulmates where I try to make her sound less like a West London Party Animal on crack and tone down her love for Scandinavian jazz. As she lolls on the sofa with her laptop on her knee wearing fisherman's socks and her son's track suit bottoms, this is not a difficult task. While I am dictating her qualities, she asks what Worcester man looks like and, obligingly, I switch over to The Telegraph where he was looking for love before he settled for me, and call up his picture.
'Last logged on: Yesterday' it says in bold type above his lovely smiling face.
'Oh, he looks nice,' says Eva, as I desperately try to ignore the glaringly obvious truth that Mr Worcester is still pushing his trolley around the supermarket long after I thought he had stopped shopping.
'Erm, yes.' I say embarrassed.
'Where did you say he was this weekend?'
'Camping. With his family. In Dorset.'
'Oh well, don't worry. I'm sure he's just being curious.'
Curiosity is not a good sign, I think.
'I am cheerful, good-natured and...' I dictate and Eva continues tapping away like a little woolly woodpecker, but I'm not really concentrating, I'm looking for my mobile phone so I can text Worcester man.
'I can't get a signal,' I say waving my phone around the room.
'What are you?'
'O2.'
'No you won't. I'm on 02 too and it never works up here. Try out in the front garden.'
I walk out in the rain and stand by the front gate holding my phone up like Liberty waving the flag. Still no darn signal.
'You could call him,' says Eva and hands me the house phone.
'It's dead.'
'Oh yes, that's right. It isn't working. I forgot. I need to get new batteries.'
'This is how horror films start.' I say, and she laughs. Cheerfully and good-naturedly.
'So you mean to say we're in the middle of fricking nowhere and we don't have a working phone between us?'
'At least we've got broadband. Send him an email'
'He's camping.'
'Never mind, you should put your own profile up, see if he's a match for you.' She laughs again. 'What shall I say I'm looking for?' She's back peering at her profile on the screen.
'I don't know. It doesn't much matter, does it? You'll get what you get and it won't be what you asked for.' I've lost my enthusiasm for internet dating all of a sudden.
Just then the lights flicker ominously and there's a crack of thunder.
'Don't worry. We've got plenty of candles,' she says.
But I am worried. A bit wet and deflated and worried.
'Last logged on: Yesterday' it says in bold type above his lovely smiling face.
'Oh, he looks nice,' says Eva, as I desperately try to ignore the glaringly obvious truth that Mr Worcester is still pushing his trolley around the supermarket long after I thought he had stopped shopping.
'Erm, yes.' I say embarrassed.
'Where did you say he was this weekend?'
'Camping. With his family. In Dorset.'
'Oh well, don't worry. I'm sure he's just being curious.'
Curiosity is not a good sign, I think.
'I am cheerful, good-natured and...' I dictate and Eva continues tapping away like a little woolly woodpecker, but I'm not really concentrating, I'm looking for my mobile phone so I can text Worcester man.
'I can't get a signal,' I say waving my phone around the room.
'What are you?'
'O2.'
'No you won't. I'm on 02 too and it never works up here. Try out in the front garden.'
I walk out in the rain and stand by the front gate holding my phone up like Liberty waving the flag. Still no darn signal.
'You could call him,' says Eva and hands me the house phone.
'It's dead.'
'Oh yes, that's right. It isn't working. I forgot. I need to get new batteries.'
'This is how horror films start.' I say, and she laughs. Cheerfully and good-naturedly.
'So you mean to say we're in the middle of fricking nowhere and we don't have a working phone between us?'
'At least we've got broadband. Send him an email'
'He's camping.'
'Never mind, you should put your own profile up, see if he's a match for you.' She laughs again. 'What shall I say I'm looking for?' She's back peering at her profile on the screen.
'I don't know. It doesn't much matter, does it? You'll get what you get and it won't be what you asked for.' I've lost my enthusiasm for internet dating all of a sudden.
Just then the lights flicker ominously and there's a crack of thunder.
'Don't worry. We've got plenty of candles,' she says.
But I am worried. A bit wet and deflated and worried.
Wails 2
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.
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.
Wails 1
The train dragged its feet into Swansea station seemingly as reluctant as we were to arrive since the heavens had chosen just that moment to unleash vertical rain which, by the time we were under the corrugated roof of the platform, had turned to a deafening drum roll of hail.
The August Bank Holiday Weekend.
In my suitcase I had a swimsuit. Somehow or another I didn't think I would be using it. Similarly the open toed sandals seemed to be an even bigger mistake as my feet slipped out of the sodden soles and I walked away from them, barefoot on the platform in the deluge. The connecting train that was apparently leaving for two unconnected destinations at exactly the same time from the same platform Carmarthen and Caerfyrddin, was twenty minutes delayed. I called Eva. She was breezily cheerful at the news, as you would be if you were tucked up warm in TK Max buying Betty Jackson dresses. I tried not to snap. There would have been little point. She wouldn't have heard me over the hail and the succeeding thunder.
Lightening flashed across the black and blue bruise of the sky as I shivered so much that the wheels on my suitcase rattled on the concrete. And the cafe was closed.
'How much further?' I asked when I eventually arrived in Carmarthen/Caerfyrddin (when we were Anglicising all these ruddy Welsh place names you would have thought we would have come up with something that at least remotely similar and not merely a word that begins with the same letter of the alphabet) and she and her friend Sheila had stopped laughing at me in my little ghost dress, bare legs and gold sandals. ('I see you're a Welsh virgin, then Mar-i-o-n-n-e,' Sheila had chortled adding more syllables into my name than I thought linguistically possible. I kept my last visit when I arrived wearing satin slippers and silk trousers, to myself.)
'Oh about an hour.'
'An ho....?'
'To Sheila's farm, and then another forty minutes to my cottage...'
It was dark when we finally drew up on the gravel and let ourselves into a tiny stone house which was maybe 10 degrees colder than the car (which had a heater, you see...) and Eva showed me to my bedroom into which she had thoughtfully put a radiator in case I got chilly. I wished I had brought flannel pyjamas instead of the purple silk nightdress and matching dressing gown. I wished this even more two days later when it was raining so hard that we didn't bother to get dressed until two thirty in the afternoon (to go to a tea dance in a nearby village) and simply went back to bed and watched the weather from the relative warmth of the duvet for the morning.
'Shall I open the bottle of wine you brought?' She asked as I put on several sweaters and glued myself to the wood burning stove which she was stoking like the mouth of hell.
The fact that she even had to ask made me quake with fear.
'I don't usually drink when I'm here,' she added.
If I had boots, my heart would now be in them.
This is why St Bernard's have brandy round their necks...
The August Bank Holiday Weekend.
In my suitcase I had a swimsuit. Somehow or another I didn't think I would be using it. Similarly the open toed sandals seemed to be an even bigger mistake as my feet slipped out of the sodden soles and I walked away from them, barefoot on the platform in the deluge. The connecting train that was apparently leaving for two unconnected destinations at exactly the same time from the same platform Carmarthen and Caerfyrddin, was twenty minutes delayed. I called Eva. She was breezily cheerful at the news, as you would be if you were tucked up warm in TK Max buying Betty Jackson dresses. I tried not to snap. There would have been little point. She wouldn't have heard me over the hail and the succeeding thunder.
Lightening flashed across the black and blue bruise of the sky as I shivered so much that the wheels on my suitcase rattled on the concrete. And the cafe was closed.
'How much further?' I asked when I eventually arrived in Carmarthen/Caerfyrddin (when we were Anglicising all these ruddy Welsh place names you would have thought we would have come up with something that at least remotely similar and not merely a word that begins with the same letter of the alphabet) and she and her friend Sheila had stopped laughing at me in my little ghost dress, bare legs and gold sandals. ('I see you're a Welsh virgin, then Mar-i-o-n-n-e,' Sheila had chortled adding more syllables into my name than I thought linguistically possible. I kept my last visit when I arrived wearing satin slippers and silk trousers, to myself.)
'Oh about an hour.'
'An ho....?'
'To Sheila's farm, and then another forty minutes to my cottage...'
It was dark when we finally drew up on the gravel and let ourselves into a tiny stone house which was maybe 10 degrees colder than the car (which had a heater, you see...) and Eva showed me to my bedroom into which she had thoughtfully put a radiator in case I got chilly. I wished I had brought flannel pyjamas instead of the purple silk nightdress and matching dressing gown. I wished this even more two days later when it was raining so hard that we didn't bother to get dressed until two thirty in the afternoon (to go to a tea dance in a nearby village) and simply went back to bed and watched the weather from the relative warmth of the duvet for the morning.
'Shall I open the bottle of wine you brought?' She asked as I put on several sweaters and glued myself to the wood burning stove which she was stoking like the mouth of hell.
The fact that she even had to ask made me quake with fear.
'I don't usually drink when I'm here,' she added.
If I had boots, my heart would now be in them.
This is why St Bernard's have brandy round their necks...
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