It was Gordon Brown, I think, who said that the time to fix the roof is when the sun’s shining. What a load of cobblers politicians, who have usually never done a day’s work in their lives, talk.
I was in Wales over the weekend staying with friends near Llandeilo. My picture is of their roof and since they took the slates off the sun has only briefly been in evidence. The rain got into the electrics on Saturday morning and they had to switch off the power.
Moist it may be but also very beautiful in a way as wild and woolly as Berry, their dog. We went through Bethlehem and walked up to an ancient hill fort; real Hobbit country. (They could be a centrefold for Saga magazine.)
On the hillside there is an Ogham stone with runic carving; the first I have seen outside Ireland. The one I have seen most often is visible from the road not far from Annagassan on the side of a hill where the Mullacurry races were held for nearly a hundred years, from 1859 until the early 1950s. My grandfather told me that he and his elder brother went to the races there as children. They were each given a golden guinea to spend and on their way in saw a man doing the thimble trick. It was not long before both guineas had found their way into his pocket. This cautionary tale made an impression on me but cannot be entirely true as guineas stopped being minted in 1816.
We went to Dryslyn Castle, a fine ruin on the summit of a windswept hill, successfully invested by Edward I in 1276, now home to a flock of sheep and swallows and house martins; below the river Towy loops along the valley. After all the rain the water was high and dirty. The fishing, for salmon and sea trout, is excellent.
