Sunday 4 November Lovely Lily, aka the new Mrs J is staying with us for the weekend while Mr J is away. We have a fine old time replaying her wedding day and looking at photos, but a bitter wind and heavy downpours put us off going for a walk to the beach. ‘Never mind,’ says Tom, ‘we’ll drive up to the tea hut at Aberaeron instead.’ A sense that the man in the tea hut is not, perhaps, as delighted to have any customers at all on such a miserable day as we would hope is offset by the fact that his tea is served in decent mugs. The sea is silvery green with impressive rolling waves and we park ourselves on a bench in a painted concrete shelter to watch it. ‘Tea time, is it then?’ says a man sitting on the adjoining bench to offer a biscuit to his scruffy little scrap of a dog. The little dog crunches delicately. ‘Sweet,’ Lily and I say to each other and, ‘oh look, it’s coming say hello!’ whereupon the little dog lifts its leg and does an almighty wee in front of us instead. I...
Christine Stovell, author and freelance writer, on living and writing in West Wales