Long ago and far away on the Dark Side, I wrote a series of blogs about our 2008 summer holiday. It was a trip around the MyT land and personalities of that era . I never found the time to finish it, not being a hasty sort of person. Part 4 was inspired by CO.
Despite my protestations at the time, we were knocked out by the place. Last September, we acquired a hound to celebrate Mrs M’s retirement and this year Dougal, Mrs M and I decided on a dog-friendly holiday. Pembrokeshire leapt to mind immediately and I booked up.
CO was kind enough to suggest a few places to visit and we ended up doing most of them. So, if you would just like to settle back and make yourself comfortable, here’s the holiday snaps.
This was one of CO’s tips and she was not wrong. A former slate quarry where the sea has broken in. It was pretty spectacular on the dull day that we were there. It must be truly mind-blowing on a good day.
Moving on, CO recommended St Govan’s Chapel and thither, in due course, we wended our way. To be fair, I was slightly driven by the fact that I had googled ahead and learned that the nearby Stackpole Inn allegedly served pretty decent pints and grub. Which it did. St Govan’s Head was also a wee bit special.
Next, CO suggested Broad Haven and a stroll at low tide around the head to Little Haven. Herein, she was, I fear, wrongish in claiming that there was a decent pub in Broad Haven. If she meant ‘The Galleon’, she is either out of date or plain wrong (with the utmost respect). It was a tourist dump and we decamped to the ‘Swan’ in Little Haven which was a delight. Dougal enjoyed the beach there a lot. That’s him in the middle of the photo, for the avoidance of doubt.
And so to our last day in Pembrokeshire and CO’s best suggestion. We had done St David’s Cathedral on the Thursday and had decided to forego the pleasure of traipsing around the Bishop’s Palace in the rain that was bucketing down. We still wanted to do it because it looked a bit tasty and resolved to return. Major result.
and
We came back to discover that there was going to be a pilgrimage that afternoon as part of the cultural Olympiad as our country holds a joyous and unfettered celebration of the fact that the Games are in London this year.
Because there were rehearsals on, we got in free. The photo above is of the Artistic Director rehearsing the monks. I spent a couple of hours watching a community doing what we Brits do best. Just muddling through and getting on with it in the belief that it might be all right on the afternoon. I am certain that it probably was.
Thanks CO. However much you enjoy where you are now, there must surely be a part of you that misses where you were? There’s a lot of magic in Pembrokeshire.
In my opinion.
Boadicea's Chariot 
JM, you must take up travel writing. You have the knack of making places intriguing.
Mornin’ JM. I ‘did’ Pembrokeshire years ago as a small cub.and seem to remember some of these places. My abiding memory was of a Short Sunderland sitting on the slipway at Pembroke Dock, the former wartime flying boat station.
OZ
Nice one Jay Em,
I was stationed at RAF Brawdy for 5 years and lived in Haverfordwest between ’85 and 90. Little England beyond Wales is indeed a beautiful place when you get away from the grockle stops. Glad to see you avoided Tenby but Broad Haven was also getting bad when I left the region.
Isn’t St Davids a crazy place, not really big enough to call a Hamlet, but theres that muckle great cathedral go figure.
There was a tavern on the river in Haverfordwest named the Bristol Trader. I still have a framed sketch of it on my wall. It’s probably gone the way of most these days and turned into a soul-less gastro pub but back then it was the dogs danglers.
Glad to see you enjoyed most of your trip and the weather seemed to behave. Well written piece chum, you almost make me want to revisit the place myself. š
Howzit JM
I remember your first ones.
Critical weekend for Sharks (vs Cheetahs 5pm) and Bulle (vs Lions 7pm) this Saturday, both need wins to grab one of the remaining wild card spots. How big a win depends on the performances of The Reds & Warratahs but will know that before kick off.
Hi, JM. I did a flying tour of Pembrokeshire about 12 years ago and have been invited to go and stay there with friends, this summer. It is beautiful. I have just one question. What is that blue stuff that is visible above the buildings in the last 3 photographs? I have not come across such an unusual colour since I have been here in London!
Glad it all worked out, Must admit I haven’t been in the Galleon for 4 years so it has probably changed hands.
I always had a soft spot for the blue lagoon. The water warms up a bit there. The boy and I used to swim there regularly.
I do hope you walked down all those steps to St Govan’s chapel, not just lurked on the cliffs?
Yes, I do miss it but I miss the people even more.
Glad you had a good holiday apart from the weather.
Just reread Chap 4, amusing. Sometimes I write these things so ‘off the cuff’ I completely forget I have written them, I too have wonderful visions of rolling in dog muck with orf!
Did you ever get to Pembroke Castle?
Lovely post, John.
It’s a beautiful part of the country, and splendid for dogs.
My first visit was to Orielton when I was sixteen, a Geography field course, and I remember doing some idiotic survey in the pouring rain in Milford Haven.
Another great post, Mr Mackie. It’s my favourite kind of coastline; I want to go there, right now! Dougal is looking splendid.
Great stuff, JM.
Dougal is amost invisible in photo 1. He blends in that well with the rocks you could have posed the question: Where’s Dougal?
JW, good evening.
You’re not going to catch me out with all your nonsense. I remember all those comments when you tried to persuade Marya, Bilby etc. that you could see various animals in their pictures.
I will admit that the rock formation to the right of the pool does look a bit like a 9 month old cocker spaniel called Dougal if you squint a bit.
Gutted for you and all the other Huns. Division I would have been sufficient punishment for me. Still, when you do come back, as you will come back, the other lot will have to accept that you have served your time. I just hope that one of us, preferably Heart of Midlothian, manages to take the title off them for each of the three years when you will not be there.
The Cups are going to be interesting. I’m prepared to bet that you’ll get them in both the CIS and the Scottish. Serious square-ball time coming up.
Aye weel, Bilby, he dissembles well but, in truth, he is a broken hound.
He met her on his first night in Fishguard. Her name was Meg.
Four short days later, they were cruelly ripped apart by their callous owners. This was the moment when they parted.
At least they will always have Fishguard.
Hi Ara. Never made it to Milford Haven but passed it several times. I have the feeling that we did not miss that much, despite it being mentioned by the Bard of Avon.
CO, of course. Mrs M has a ‘thing’ about all aspects Tudor. Amazed to learn that it was yet another ruin that the boy Cromwell knocked about a bit. He was pretty busy in his time. It’s still well worth a visit.
Here’s Mrs M on one of the walls he left standing.
And here’s the photo she was taking.
Hello, Mr Mackie
True puppy love. Wonderful. Please don’t show Dougal the photos until he’s mature enough to cope. š
CO, may you be forgiven! I was, of course, going to clamber down and, more depressingly, up all those steps but Mrs M was worried that Dougal might launch himself into the void so I selflessly volunteered to stay at the top to look after him. This is him sheltering behind me from the prevailing wind.
And this is what St Govan looked out at, courtesy of Mrs M.
Sipu, good evening. We were very lucky. Ten days away from Embra and three days of rain in that time. Left East Anglia two days before it got drenched, Pretty well perfect in Pembrokeshire and got to West Dorset two days after its inundation.
In our absence, there were floods less than 800 yards away from us in Embra, Luckily for us, they were also about 200 feet below us. Hills are good things to live on, in my opinion.
Try to make it to Pembrokeshire to visit your friends if you can. It’s well worth it.
Hi Soutie. I’ll be glued. All the games are on Sky. Long live the Murdoch Evil Empire.
Sorry about Mark Boucher. He was truly one of the Greats and it is such a shame that his International career ended in the way that it did. I hope that he makes as full a recovery as possible.
I also hope, of course, that ‘we’ give you a severe spanking in the upcoming Test series. Bring on the Morkels and the rest of the Proteas!
Hi Guru.
To be fair, we did go to Tenby. Dougal needed a new harness having chewed his previous one to perdition on his first night in Wales. I googled to find that there was a good pet shop there.
I know what you mean. It was a lovely place but seriously infested by relatively unlovely people. As the hymn has it, ‘…every prospect pleases and only man is vile.’
Hi Oz, Still trying for a swift pome. Good to see that you’ve got a lot of excellent entries to choose from now.
Hi Janus, I hope that Mrs J and you are enjoying Copenhagen. A beautiful city. Tell us all about it on your return, please? You are just as good as me at ‘making places intriguing’. In my opinion.
Lovely post.
We used to stay at a Band B / Guest House close to the coast path at Moylegrove, when it was owned by the parents of a friend. Many fond memories.
Hi Pseu, Welcome back. Glad you enjoyed your French holiday.
Good photo subject, by the way. We do ‘weather’ big time in Jockland. Lots of it and mostly seriously different in a very short space of time.
I’ll keep the camera trained.
Interestingly South Pembrokeshire nearly always has good weather, I have often thought that it sticks out beyond it so to speak. South of Hwest is fairly flat, a lot of the air masses tend to get to the Prescelli hills before they disgorge their rain. The north coast is much wetter than the south.
I’m glad to see someone got down to St Govan’s chapel, one of my favourite spots in the world.
Tenby is truly ghastly, full of dreadful grotty peasants and all those bloody caravans, never go near the place, there isn’t a decent restaurant in the whole place, never found one anyway!
Sadly, my house is sold, today I sent the spare keys to the Estate agent in Milford Haven! The harbour has been redeveloped there rather well, several excellent restaurants at first floor level overlooking the whole bit. Surprisingly large freighters, fishing boats, pilots etc, the whole place is much busier than it has been in years. They built the new LPG storage just a mile or so from my place which needs much more security on the water, so there is far more activity than there used to be. The Navy has some serious cutters there now.
I think they are all terrified of terrorism, however I’m not actually sure the bloody wogs know where Wales is!
Not too many of them there were there?
glad you had a good time.
I wish I could like this post twice.
John, the added photos and comments are pure gold, you’re definitely one of my favourite 10,000 people. I agree with you on the Beach Boys wish- Wouldn’t it be good if Hearts won the league. That would stuff them good style.
Ermm.. in photo 2 of #12. Lurking in the background behind the dogs poignant bye-bye conversation is an apparition of the Pixar animated WALL_E.
Howzit JM
It did indeed.
3 teams in the play offs out of 6 is very good going, including top place for The Stormers. Another interesting Saturday’s viewing coming up!
Great Post and some wonderful comments. š
Hi Boadicea,
Good to see you and Bearsy back online. I trust the move went well? I look forward to hearing the tale.
I thought of the pair of you today. A year ago, we passed through Petrie and other points Brisbane on our way to catch the plane to Cairns.
It’s good to be back on line! Everything went well – except for the internet – which was finally connected yesterday evening. Photos to follow!