Carn Ingli

...or Mountain of the Angels, was first introduced to me by a special friend, L. She was friends with a man who was carrying out a study into whether people would be likely to have dreams with 'sacred themes' if they camped out on sacred sites. The mountain Carn Ingli, in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, was the chosen site. I missed the boat on that one, but the following year he and L, her daughter and I camped out in a stone circle in Snowdonia.

Here's what happened: first, we came across a ram stuck in a thicket, as only usually found in bible stories; next we found a black cat wandering around on its own in the middle of absolute wilderness; next L's tent blew down in a storm, so we all four ended up in one two person-tent; finally the man persisted in sexually harassing me for most of the night! I was quite pleased to have actually had a dream by morning, considering the amount of sleep I'd had, but when I recounted it to the man, who taped it, he looked disappointed, and said,

"Oh, didn't you dream of the goddess?"

Times change. L is no longer with us, and I am sort-of friends with the dream-man, even though I wouldn't go anywhere near a tent with him! I now go to Newport, Pembs, with a friend of mine, K, who used to go there as a child (she is of Welsh origins) and has a place there. This time there were just four of us: K, her daughter S, and the dog Stella. The weather was in our favour in the morning, despite the gloomy forecasts, so we decided to walk up through Newport town, past the castle, up the hill (I'm not sure it really is a mountain), to have a picnic on top, and go back down and along to the Parrog, the estuary town's answer to a harbour.

So here the girls are on top! The green headland on the left is Dinas Head, which I have walked over, and to the right is the estuary and beyond it the big beach, Newport sands. The Permbrokeshire coastal path zigzags along the coast for around 90 miles. I have walked it for about 7 miles each side of Newport. The visibility was excellent, and though it was cold on top, the light was wonderful. S. had her mother's iPhone and I my compact, so we snapped everything, and when we got bored, I pulled out a bar of chocolate and pretended it was a smartphone, so S could take a picture of me! Because we had no wi fi or mobile phone signal in town, K and S were fond of checking their phones for signals as soon as we got out of the town. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed not having a phone or email or even blip-pressure for two days. It has made me realise how liberating it is not to be wired up 24/7.

Once we reached the town again, we walked past the playing field, where a rugby game was in full swing, and along the coast path (also known in this stretch as the Burma road, because it was created as a work scheme for returning soldiers after WW II) to the Parrog. There we found that the place that K and S wanted to visit for tea was closed for renovations. So I seized the moment and knocked on the door of a woman called Jen, who bakes Bara Brith ( a Welsh tea-bread) and sells it, seemingly in and out of the tourist season. Her husband found us two loaves, and we took it back to K's to eat for our tea-plan B. I could happily eat it till the sheep AND cows come home.

Later, having stretched my limbs out after our four-hour hike, I cooked supper and we watched a movie and started a jigsaw. As Paolo Nutini might say, it's the simple things in life...