New Quay, Allt Penrhiwgaled, Cei Bach ... and Llareggub

What with losing our caravan and our Arts Council funding, which meant losing a job and retraining over a couple of years, which then stretched to three owing to a worldwide pandemic, plus the worldwide pandemic itself, we hadn't been on holiday since 2017 - that is, until this last week, which we spent in an 18th century coach house on a farm just outside New Quay in Ceredigion.

There are steps to one side of the building which suggest the upper floor, now a bedroom and bathroom, was once a hayloft or similar.

dovecote

And very picturesque it all was too, even if the anchors were a bit unexpected and reminded me of when Luke Jerram parked several fishing smacks in Leigh Woods, high above the Avon Gorge in Bristol. 

New Quay being our nearest town, we visited a couple of times, the first being the evening of our arrival, when it felt very crowded, not least because the tide was in and there was no beach to soak up the overflow of people. 

'Fair Winds and Following Seas', a 2019 sculpture by David Appleyard, with an accompanying poem by Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

Since the Northerner's must-see of the holiday was the bottlenose dolphins in the bay, it was rather gratifying to be able to cross them off our list straight away - though, of course, they might have been porpoises, who can tell from a long distance?

Another day we walked down from the farm through the woods above the little river Gido to the coast, emerging just before Cei Bach, at the north end of the bay.

It was a very pleasant wander along the beach to New Quay, with a scramble over rocks just before we get there, the tide not being quite low enough to have uncovered a route over sand all the way. 

washed-up compass (dial) and blue jellyfishes

Both Cei Bach and New Quay have strong connections with Dylan Thomas, with New Quay joining Laugharne in staking a claim to be the inspiration for Llareggub in 'Under Milkwood'. I have to admit, we didn't follow New Quay's Dylan Thomas trail, as the waymarks seemed to be mostly of the 'this closed restaurant that is now under renovation used to be the post office where Dylan Thomas posted his scripts to London' variety, while the bungalow he stayed in has been pulled down and the pub he drank at is closed. Apologies to New Quay but it's rather less resonant than the Boathouse, the writing room, Brown's Hotel and Dylan's modest grave marker in Laugharne. Not that I'm qualified to join any scholarly argument, apart from to say Llareggub must surely be located primarily in Dylan's imagination. 

A pint at the shifting sea