A cottage near Cardigan

www.visitpembrokeshire.com

Our West Wales adventure is soon to begin. A lovely looking holiday cottage was booked many weeks ago; now the cases are almost packed, OS maps downloaded onto my smartphone, and there's little else to do before setting off this Saturday for the 135 mile drive to Cardigan.

Many friends are surprised that we've never been there before, but having lived most of our lives within a mile or two of the Cornish coast, we've preferred hills, mountains and forests for our holidays.  Now all that has changed and the coast beckons once more.  Rye (in 2014) was wonderful and I feel sure that Penbroke will be too.

My good friend Margaret is fluent in Welsh, having lived near St Davids for most of her life. She is most keen that I learn a bit of the language and has given me a short list of 'useful' phrases. The problem with using them, though, is that my cheery "Bore da" (Good morning) risks eliciting a torrent of Welsh that means nothing to me.  Perhaps I should learn to say "Please look kindly on this ignorant Cornish woman." They will then smile at a poor fellow Celt and speak English, though if perchance they frown and say, in very poor Welsh, "Ca di ben nei di" (Shut your mouth, will you) I'll be one step ahead of them. That's also in my short list of phrases!

We will probably spend most days in and around Cardigan Bay, but I do plan to venture further afield too. High on the list of 'must see' places is the Vale of Rheidol Railway in Aberystwyth (40 miles away). In the opposite direction, my ukulele-playing friend Cherry has recommended Bosherton and, inspired by Lucy's recent blog post, I'd also like to visit Laugharne.  I think combining those two would make a nice, if rather long, day trip.

There's nothing about WiFi in the holiday cottage brochure, so I'm taking along my 3 Network dongle. If it works, stand by for a post or two from West Wales. If not, I'll be blogging again in mid-September.