Mini Pilgrimage

Newgale Beach is just 6 miles from the treehouse. When the tide is out you can walk for 2 – 3 miles from one end to the other – that flat clear space calms my chattering mind and restores a sense of balance.

(Click on any of the photos to see them larger.)

The first walk is always special, reconnecting with the place. I remember all those happy family times. Each little landmark holds a memory from a different year.

My senses are heightened and I see beauty in every pebble

every wave and ripple

every grain of sand

There is a rock  …. the one with the yellow arrow

with a huge rock-pool in it, in which my Grandad and I once found an eel. It inspired this poem: Journey Into Now

I make a mini-pilgrimage to it each time I visit Pembrokeshire. As I touch it and climb up to look into the pool I feel closest to my grandfather. He was a rock and a safe haven for me through a stormy childhood.

We are making new memories there  – a photo taken in August 2015 of Miss E and Master R exploring the rock pools in and around that rock.

The pool indicated by the Blue Arrow features in this post . My daughter discovered it, Miss E swam in it and we all threw in a pebble and made a wish – we call it our Wishing Pool.

I threw in a pebble this time and made a wish for my Mum.

Here is my favourite photo from that first walk, I have just ordered it to be printed on a large  30″ x 20″ canvas.

I feel like the figure represents me – it was a man with a child in a carrier on his back, walking with a dog. I don’t have a dog but when I walk I am never alone.

~

On the way back to the treehouse I called into Number 35, a great little cafe/restaurant in Solva, for a scrumptious lunch of smoked salmon salad with garlic bread.

Yummmmm!