Back again with some more seaside photos from last week

I am so sorry at taking so long to get back to you, but we had a busy week, what with a house viewing, restocking our Unit, the trip to the coast, a business trip to Leominster, work on house and garden, and a selling opportunity again.  Hectic.  This week will be busy too as we have another viewing next Saturday, and the garden still needs mucho work, but I have been quite poorly with my Asthma as this recent hot spell resulted in a "pollen bomb" and although I don't normally react to NORMAL amounts of tree pollen, driving along in a car with the windows open for several days in a row got lots of pollen deep into my lungs and my inhalers didn't work.  I am now on steroids and my breathing is a little easier already.  I would rather not have to take them but they are a lifesaver at times like these.  Hopefully a short course will work.

Here we are in the Antique shop in Newport, Pembs.  They sell books as well (but none to tempt me this time) and specialize in Railway collectables.  We had a lovely chat with the lady working  there, and my darling man bought me a selection of fabulous cards by a local artist, Sarah Earl, when I couldn't choose between them.  My favourite pic is the 3rd to last one, with the Swallow.

Walking back to the car.

Views from the beach.

I thought this was Squinancywort, but the leaves are wrong, so I will keep researching and come back with an ID later.

Above and below: Carn Ingli - hill of the Angels.

Above and below: the river which heads out to sea.  Views from the bridge.  There is a Dolmen just across the Newport side of this river - Carreg Coitan Arthur - which we normally visit, but not on this occasion.  It is now incongruously surrounded by bungalows . . .

Mesolithic man thought this place was heaven on earth and came here for the fish, wildfowl, shellfish etc.  On an Archaeology Field Trip we found flint arrowheads amongst the rushes at the tide's edge.

Down to Pembrokeshire for some sea air

Pic for Pat, over at The Weaver of Grass blogspot - the Mollyblobs (Marsh Marigolds) are in full bloom here.

A wonderful photo of Newport castle and trailer of rubbish . . .

At the beach.  Back with more in the morning as they are loading SO slowly.

Newport beach photos

No real need for words, just enjoy, as we did.

The far end of the beach, with Newport across the estuary.

Left of the last photo, with Carn Ingli in the background.  When I had finished my degree, a group of the girls I was at Uni with (studying Archaeology), stayed nearby at Brithdir Mawr and climbed up Carn Ingli with a bottle of champers and some home-baked goodies.  Magic.

Looking back down the estuary towards the road bridge.  Hidden on the left are old lime kilns.

I got my OH to stop on the bridge across the estuary.  You can see the position of Carn Ingli here. There is a hillfort on the top, with the remains of hut circles too.    A very apt place for us to celebrate our Archaeology degrees!

Lots of photos of the estuary by the bridge.  This area was very important in prehistory and we found Mesolithic arrowheads here, caught up in the tussocks of reeds in the river (see the photo 2 down, looking towards the sea).  As you can imagine, an important estuary for wildlife at various times of the year, especially geese and other edible birds.  Plus fish, shellfish, and other marine foods, and deer in this (at the time heavily-wooded) area.

Out of sight on the left bank of the estuary, in the photo above, and now surrounded by bungalows!, is Carreg Coitan Arthur, a Neolithic burial chamber which would have been the first thing anyone fording the river here in those times would have seen.  It was a place of the ancestors, and clearly said "this is OUR land."

Finally, back to the auction, where I noticed some colour-co-ordinated parking . . .

Another trip to the seaside!

This was JUST the photo I was trying to get yesterday, with some reasonable sized waves surging in and breaking over with a mist of spume above them.  Magical.

Following on from last night's post, we were on the beach at Newport, Pembrokeshire.  We went to view an auction not too far away, left two bids, and as we would have hours and hours to wait until the 2nd bid, as that was late in the furniture section near the end of the sale, we headed off to the coast.  Newport is a small town which we generally get to once a year and we felt we were overdue a visit.

We half-thought of a sit-down snack in a cafe, but the fare on offer was the sort my husband isn't partial to - soup, paninis, pizza etc and we decided that £3.95 for a Bakewell tart in one eatery was a rip-off, and sharing one between us might look a tad mean.  Besides, we had brought a flask of tea, so it was a bit daft sitting down to a pot to go with cake.  So, a car picnic it was.  After a fossick around in the Carn-Ingli Antique Centre, we crossed the road and bought Spelt and Honey bread, a little waxed truckle of ginger cheese (which we had cut into four), liquorice for OH and 2 Red Pippin apples for me.

We sat in the car in the sunshine, eating to the accompaniment of seagulls, childrens' excited half-term voices and the occasional manoeuvring car.  My OH did his newspaper puzzle page and I began reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a book which someone had mentioned the day before and I realized was in my bookcase, still unread.

A brisk breeze shook the ivy flowers, rosehips and barely-formed end-of-season blackberries in the hedgerow behind us and when I looked up, my eyes were drawn above the rooftops to a green path amongst the spent heather and bracken, leading up to the ridge by Carn Ingli.

Carn Ingli, taken from the bridge across the river.  More about this tomorrow.

We parked up and walked up to the shops.  This old chapel is directly across from the car park and is typical of many rebuilds of chapels - many like this were built smaller initially, and then rebuilt much bigger to cope with the increase in chapel- (and church-) goers in early Victorian times.  There was a terrific surge in non-conformism which saw chapel-building reach epic proportions - the above link speaks of one chapel being built every 8 days in Wales at the zenith!  The peak was reached in the middle of the century began to decline after Darwin's "Origin of Species" was published and people began to question their absolute belief in the Church and Chapel teachings.

A lovely little cottage is just along the road.

These buildings used to be in a sad state of repair but look much better for being restored and refaced - some lovely stone-work there and buildings with a purpose again - the 2nd one along is a fishmongers.  The next building is the health food shop where we brought bread, cheese and apples for our lunch.

We had a lovely stroll around.  These cottages are up towards the Castle.

This lovely old cottage was behind the castle.  I felt I would love to live here - there was a lovely feel to this area.  Note pumpkins for sale (there were eggs too).  A beautiful unspoilt cottage.

A couple of views (and below) of the Norman castle, now a private residence.  HERE is a link to the history of it.

Then we wandered round by the church.

Lots of telephone wires over the rooftops, but a tempting glimpse of the sea and the beach we were about to head for.

I think this was Church Street, as these cottages were just below the church.  Nicely painted and cared for.

One garden was just one huge tumble of these pretty daisies.  They look lovely edging steps.

Sea and beach photos tomorrow.  I have enjoyed writing this - well, a big chunk was jotted down yesterday whilst we were having lunch.  I had written on someone's blog earlier in the week that so many things I meant to write about got lost if not written down at the time.  I plan to try and change that as I hate just writing up basic descriptions for photos when time is short.