Waving goodbye to my guests

I have just waved goodbye to my guests, Kim and her two lovely children. We have had a lovely time together and packed a lot in. I wish them a safe journey home and hope that they will have happy memories of exploring new bits of Wales.

Yesterday we drove down to Manorbier Castle in Pembrokeshire and divided our time between the castle and the beach, and I managed to walk up to the 12th century church the opposite side of the valley to the castle.

Below shows some of the lovely gardens which line the walls.






Manorbier was where Gerald de Barri was born (we know him as Gerald of Wales and he famously penned - as Geraldus Cambrensis - his history of Wales). This website can give you far larger pictures than mine (!) and some good historic background too.

This was the huge inglenook fireplace in the kitchen, you can just see the little skirt of front wall which would have been full height and incorporated into a room with the fireplace.

These triangular holes were intgriguing. For bee skeps or for pigeons I wonder? Though there was a proper dove cote in the main wall of the great hall.

Ivy-leaved toadflax growing on one of the walls.

Anemones and lots of shellfish in one of the many rock-pools down at the beach below the castle.


The rocky rock-pool side of the beach.

Just off to take our eldest daughter and her boyfriend to the Green Man Festival, so had better dash.