In A Smiling Place

I am enjoying the early days of my visit to West Wales, partly for the (by now) very familiar beauty of the place itself. Here is a scene along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, where the National Park grazes ponies like these along the tops of the high cliffs by the Irish Sea.

Turn your head one way and see these creatures almost reflecting one another, except that one is scratching its derrière against one of the gates that keeps the happy steeds within safe boundaries.

Turn your head the other way, and you'll see this.

It makes me feel whole again to visit Ceridwen here, in this wondrous niche of Earth where she lives. I remember learning some of Horace's poetry:

Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnis
angulus ridet, ubi non Hymetto
mella decedunt viridique certat
baca Venafro

--which I found translated on line as follows:

"That corner of lands smiles upon me
beyonds all others, where the honeys do not
yield in comparison to Hymettus and the olive
fights with green Venafrum"

[Edit: Mount Hymettos overlooks Athens, Greece and has been producing thyme honey of legendary quality for thousands of years. Venafrum was a town in Southern Italy that produced the best olive oil in the country.]