High in the attic of Brown's Hotel, Storm Brian sounded very loud indeed. It woke us several times in the night. I wondered if we'd complete our walk. Maybe we'd have to come back and stay another time. I wouldn't mind.
Laugharne looked sullen the next morning. The cockerel weather vane swung moodily.
The castle glowered.
Parked next to the salt marsh was a trailer crammed with hounds. Some of them had blood on their faces.
I don't like the hunt. I don't like the unloved life of the unloved hound.
We took the path signposted Dylan's Birthday Walk up through the woods.
These days the route is punctuated by information boards and benches inscribed with phrases from 'Poem in October', but it was originally built to help pickers access the cockle beds more easily.
It was fairly steep, very muddy, and deserted apart from us and Brian.
Carmarthen Bay came into view - sort of.
At a point where we could look back at the Boathouse and the estuary, the Northerner read 'Poem in October' while I sat on a bench inscribed with the legend Summery on the hill's shoulder.
A little further on we came to a fingerpost carved with the words The Last Verse. Apparently, you're supposed to descend the path here, and if it is your birthday, read the last verse of the poem aloud. We looked at the track and at each other. It was really steep and really muddy. It wasn't my birthday any more. And it didn't seem right to read aloud
'O may my heart's truth still be sung
On this high hill
In a year's turning'
when you are no longer on the high hill in question.
Oh and neither of us care to be told what to do ... unless it's by poetry, of course.
By now, Brian was thrashing fleets of trees across the sky with a terrific creaking.
We climbed another precipitous, muddy path out of the woods and up to a stone stile, which led Over Sir John's Hill. Beyond it, cattle were grazing threateningly. The Northerner doesn't much care for cattle. I don't care for precipitous, muddy descents of tracks I've just climbed, especially not since I broke my leg.
We braved the cows. They ignored us.
As soon as we'd passed the castle, it started to rain. Mission accomplished, it was time to go home. So we did.
Laugharne, in Camarthenshire.
A little touristy, but not overly.
Not that gentrified either.
In fact, probably not that different from when Dylan Thomas lived here, from 1949 to 1953.
Here's the castle, 'brown as owls' ...
... and the salt marsh which floods at high tide ...
... leaving a strange, seaweed- and dead crab-strewn tideline on what looks like ordinary grass ...
... but is anything but. (We call it 'warth' where I'm from.)
We were headed for Brown's Hotel, Dylan's favourite bar, to meet up with friends.
And did those feet tread these boards? I think they almost certainly did.
In between all the hard talking and laughter, we made our way along the road to the famous boathouse, bought for him to live in by his benefactor, Margaret Taylor, who was infatuated with him.
But first the shed where he would write.
This is the boathouse ...
... looking out over the beautiful estuary.
You're not supposed to take photos inside. Luckily for me, I only discovered this after I'd snapped a few.
Evidently Dylan wrote here too.
His death mask.
After a cream tea on the sunny decking, we set off for St Martin's Church, where Dylan and his wife, Caitlin, are buried.
This is probably the 'sea wet church the size of a snail with its horns through mist' of one of my very favourite poems, 'Poem in October'. (This is my birth month too.)
If you go down to the woods today ...
... you'll eventually come across Dylan and Caitlin's grave.
So little for such big personalities.
I have form for reading poems at gravesides and grizzling before I get to the end. Today was no exception.
'Oh may my heart's truth - sniffle sniffle'
It's no good, we're going to have to come back to walk the Dylan Thomas birthday walk.
Maybe in October?
High in the attic of Brown's Hotel, Storm Brian sounded very loud indeed. It woke us several times in the night. I wondered if we'd complete our walk. Maybe we'd have to come back and stay another time. I wouldn't mind. 
The castle glowered. 
