Today R and I drove all the way across Wales – stopping briefly in Cardiff for a cup of tea with Child One at her new studio (honestly, I don’t know what happens with Offspring – one minute they’re cutting off half their hair with craft scissors in Reception Class, the next they’re setting up an animation company with a friend, and renting their own studio space in a repurposed former factory; but I digress) – in the hope that tomorrow we might be able to fulfil a long-held ambition of mine, which is to go to Skomer, and photograph the puffins.
Puffins…! Because puffins!
Anyway, this was all looking very promising: the weather was warm and sunny, and when we arrived at it, the sea was blue, with a very slight swell from a refreshing breeze. Although we’re staying in Milford Haven, we detoured round via Martin’s Haven, the embarkation point for Skomer, in the expectation of being able to interrogate the people at the Welsh Wildlife Trust centre, which sells the landing passes you need to have in order to get on the boat, so that tomorrow we would know exactly how everything works. Lockley Lodge was closed, however, on account of there being no boats to Skomer today.
“You’re joking!!” said R.
They were not joking. Today’s wind is coming from the north, which makes it unsafe to try to land on Skomer. Gulp…..
Will tomorrow’s weather be more favourable? Will JDO get to see the puffins, or will she be blipping a something else through gritted teeth, and preparing to sulk for the rest of her life? Tune in for the next thrilling instalment!
In the meanwhile, this is a photo of Milford Haven Marina, on what you can see was a beautifully calm evening (though – did I mention? – the wind was coming from the Wrong Direction), taken as R and I staggered back towards the hotel after eating about three times as much as dinner as either of us had needed. Stress, I’m going to put that down to; or maybe the fact that I was so engrossed in tomorrow’s weather forecast that I didn’t notice that my chicken breast came with an entire ball of melted mozzarella and about half a pint of pesto, and coleslaw as well as chips.
R likes this photo because he says he likes the contrast between the chaos up above and the calmness down below. He was definitely talking about the image, and not about me.
