The Ministry of Defense shot flares into the sky to hang like Christmas tree glow-worms over the night black sea, and set fire to the grass the next day.

I had a box of flapjack and enough money for the bus fare home, it was a hundred and one miles from Amroth to Broadhaven and Rob couldn’t join me at the weekend. By day I beat hot paths through yellow wheat shot through purple sometimes, with vetch and valerian and devils-bit-scabious. There were foxes in the fields, there were toads on the track, (swollen and stubborn) and potatoes lost in the dust.

pembrokeshireI got heat rhythm, walking slow and soft by the glimmer sea and biscuit cliffs. Black islands, black cormorants, the sea was so clear reflections of bubbles danced over the sand when I swam. I waited for languid water to slide from the stepping stones while the estuary mud bubbled and shlucked, crossed the river and walked under the moon sailing high over the gloaming boats, I slept on the beaches.

And I slept at Brownslate Farm where Pam (75) and John (80) were pruning roses. They gave me apple juice in the kitchen where tinned apricot light wobbled on the brown wallpaper, and ‘we’re delighted to meet you!‘ they say, ‘it’s the first time since 1976 we’ve got all the hay in so early‘. They have a Hawkwind poster on their bathroom wall.