In Tenby Hurrah!

Here I am, by the sea in Tenby on my Eee - - poetry!

We crossed the M62 motorway really rather early, having left the house at ten past six this morning. We were aiming for a great cafe, Caffi Beca, twenty miles from Tenby, for lunch, and indeed got there in time. It's 250 miles from Leeds to Tenby which is a long way on winding Welsh roads - but the scenery's glorious so that makes up for it.

I love rediscovering all the Welsh names for villages on the way down and today my two special favourites were Pontybodkin and Ffos y Ffin. Glorious!

The weather ignored the forecast, luckily, and we encountered a few showers on the way down but here in Tenby it's hot and the sun is shining. The hotel's outdoor pool is warm too - even Olli - who is very slim! - thought so. Though "warm" is a relative term and it's perhaps best to remember that I was brought up to swim in British seas in April, for example, so most pools feel like a warm bath to me.

So, having had a walk into the town and a swim, I feel I've earned my Park Hotel dinner. Well, that's my excuse, anyway. I'll write more tomorrow.

Home Again to Tenby

It's hard for me to believe that it's a year since I saw this view:

Tenby, Pembrokeshire, South Wales.

I had my tenth birthday there. And my eleventh. And my twelfth. And my thirteeenth. My fourteenth was in Llandudno, where we spent a week - - then travelled to Tenby for the following week.

Lots of people have said to me "Tenby - - ahh yes, we used to go there when I was a child, I loved it."

In our case, the difference was - - we didn't stop going there, just because I wasn't a child any more. We kept right on going, one week every year. We went to other places too, of course, but we always went back to Tenby. I met Stephen and he came too. Olli was born, grew up, met Gareth - - they both came and still do. Special friends have joined us there over the years. Olli and Gareth got married there in February 2008.

This year I have travelled more than I have ever done in my life - - Paris, Barcelona, Florida, Normanton (which wasn't the highlight, I can tell you). I loved them all (except Normanton) and my top thrill was finally to go to the Kennedy Space Centre.

So why go back to Tenby, pretty little old-fashioned seaside town a long way South and a long way West?

Well, firstly, because there are lots of things there, or nearby, that we like. Beautiful beaches, safe swimming, lovely scenery, castles, historic buildings, castles, museums, boat trips, seals, lovely scenery and castles.

Here's Priory Bay on Caldey Island, three miles from Tenby, which you can see in the distance in the photo above:

But it's Park Hotel that has been crucial to our return.

It's impossible to describe, really - it's been owned by the same family since the late nineteen-fifties and probably the best way to describe it is "old-fashioned charm" - - which is what the people on Tripadvisor seem to have picked up on. What's best about it? I just asked Olli. "It smells nice".

Well, yes, it does actually. It's always beautifully clean. The food's lovely - fresh ingredients, beautifully cooked. Glorious desserts. Splendid breakfasts. Friendly staff, many of whom have been there since Olli was a baby or before. It has a lovely outdoor pool - very simple, no gimmicks, but lovely and clean and a pleasure to swim in. And it has this view.

The Communist loved it too. He couldn't come with us last year, as he was too ill, and of course he died in December - - but I'll be thinking of him as I look at all the places he loved there. My mother, of course, will be with us, still swimming in the pool before breakfast, no doubt, because she's done it every year, and it's Tenby so who cares if she's eighty-five! "Tenby magic" my mother calls it, and she's right.

The first year we went to Tenby was in 1966. In Tenby I feel - - well, ten again! After nearly forty-three years, I'm still excited to be going back. Tomorrow! For a week! Wooohooo!

Park Hotel's motto is "Where our guests leave as friends".

Some of us never really left.

Bonkers Benefits

My son-in-law Gareth, as you may recall, is still recovering from an appendix operation performed by the Butchers of York nearly two months ago.

He's not having a good time at the moment. The company he works for has now put him on a two-day week because of the recession. So he's applying for jobs, and fortunately interviews are coming in, so we hope it won't be too long before he's offered one of the jobs.

He went along to sign on, just to see if they could by any chance give him any financial help, since he's now earning very little indeed. Let's face it, none of this is his fault and he's doing his very best to get a job.

He is earning £5 too much a week to get jobseeker's allowance.

He is working one hour a week too little to get the working person's tax credit.

My brain hurts.

The Price of Strawberries

How much are strawberries?

Half price, that's how much. Has a punnet of strawberries ever been sold, at any time, in the universe, ever, that wasn't marked "Half Price"?

Well, legally they're supposed to have been sold SOMEWHERE at whatever they're claiming is the full price. Normanton, probably, or Goole, or a very small Tesco Express three miles north of the Arctic Circle. One Tuesday morning, very early, in May. Between the hours of two and ten past.

After that it was "Quick, get all the half price stickers out and slam them on every strawberry in the land."

Of course, I wasn't fooled. I knew they weren't really half price. I just bought two punnets because I like strawberries.

Looking for Eric

Some of you who read my previous post will know that Steve Evets, the star of Ken Loach's new film Looking for Eric, was represented by the agency that I work for when he got the part - - and in fact, 'twas me who wrote the letter submitting him for the role. From the casting breakdown (which outlines what the characters in a film, play or television series are like) I thought that Steve would be perfect for it.

And so it proved. Silverback and I took ourselves off to t'pictures this afternoon and found a tremendously entertaining film, funny and moving and superbly acted by all.

Of course, most of the publicity has been centred around the mega-famous French footballer Eric Cantona who is in the film. But I must say that the real star of it is Steve, who is in just about every scene - it's a huge role - and who is brilliant.

As Steve says in this clip of news footage from the premiere in Manchester, the film was, unusually, shot in sequence and Ken Loach doesn't always tell the actors what will happen next - with the result that the expressions of shock on Steve's face at various points in the film are genuine.

Silverback has already written - very enjoyably as always - about the film on his blog here . Here's the trailer, with Steve Evets and Eric Cantona:




One or two people have said they think they won't like it because it's a "football film" - well, that's really not the case, football is not the focus of it at all. And Eric Cantona does send himself up very well!

I spoke to Steve afterwards and he says he's still surprised when he hears his name mentioned in a review of the film. Our agency represented him from the mid-nineties and he's always worked solidly, mostly in television, but has never had any kind of fame before. He's up for a couple more films, so look out for him. Sadly, of course, our agency doesn't represent him any more - that's showbiz! Lots of big agencies that wouldn't have considered him a year ago decided he's a Very Good Thing - - which, of course, us lot in Leeds have always known. I don't blame Steve for leaving us at all, I stress this - actors lead such precarious lives that they must take every opportunity that they can - but I wish that "showbiz" in this country just wasn't so London-centric.

Do go and see the film if you can. It's already into profit - - and a tiny bit of that goes to me! So, you'll enjoy it and bring me money at the same time. Grand!

On the Cat Table

Here's Wendy, Olli and Gareth's kitten, on my friend's shoulder, when Wendy first arrived back in September:

Incredibly cute and she never stayed still - in most of the photos that I tried to take of her, she was either blurred or missing altogether, having jumped out of the picture at top speed.

Now she's grown up into a very beautiful cat, and still comes to stay with us most weekends when Olli and Gareth are busy:

She has a very long body and is extremely athletic. Also, she has no sense of fear at all. Hence I've spotted her in a few very strange places: a few days ago, she was right at the top of the big old pear tree, having a pitched battle with the very large magpie that has its nest up there.

There are several cats that haunt our garden - including our very own Froggie, who is extremely cute but middle-aged and sedate. There's a three-legged cat, known as Tripod. I don't know what its original name was, but it answers to Tripod now. It lives next door but seems to prefer our garden. There are a couple of huge and aged black-and-white cats, and a large ginger one.

Most commercially-available bird tables just aren't high enough, so cats can easily jump on to them.

Our bird table, however, was built years ago by The Communist, with this in mind. Birds love it and so far no cat has ever managed to reach it from any direction.

Then I looked out of the kitchen window this morning and saw this:

I'd simply no idea what I was seeing for a few moments until I worked it out. Yes, it was Wendy, Half Cat Half Cheetah, having got up there with a Supercat Leap.

The bird table's getting very old, as you can see. Sadly the Communist's not around any more to build me a new one. If I'd shown him this photo he'd have been out there this afternoon, with a hammer, some wood that he'd scrounged from somewhere, and about half a ton of cement to keep it in place - he was very fond of cement.

So I think we're on the lookout now for a very, very high bird table. Something about the height of a Saturn V rocket should do it.

We Choose to Go to the Moon

On July 15, 1969, something momentous happened to me. I became a teenager.

The next day, July 16th, something momentous happened to everyone. They launched Apollo 11, taking the first astronauts to land on the Moon.

I've always loved everything to do with the Moon landings and space exploration in general and I've thoroughly enjoyed all the commemorative programmes being shown on television at the moment, with the fortieth (sighhhh) anniversary coming up. To me, visiting the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida last year was not so much a dream come true, as what seemed to me to be an impossible fantasy come true: I truly never, ever thought I'd go there.

As part of the commemorative programmes, they keep showing that clip of President Kennedy, speaking at the Rice Stadium, Houston, Texas on a very hot day, September 12, 1962. He says,

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard - -

So, I wondered - and have wondered for years! - what are the other things?

Thanks to the wonders of t'interclacker, I found the whole speech.

He's been talking about climbing the highest mountain, and flying across the Atlantic, and those kind of things are the "other things" to which he refers.

It's a great speech. Watching it now, it's interesting to see the faces of the people watching. For a long time they're not really listening. They are just thinking one word and it's HOT. They've all put their best suits on for the President and it's TOO HOT. The poor chap on the right hand side of the screen looks about to melt - he mops his brow about a million times.

It's only towards the end of the speech that some of them seem to pick up on the excitement of the idea of putting a man on the moon - - and even then, it's hard to tell. They might just have been thinking "Hurrah, it'll soon be over and we can go and get a cold drink".

President Kennedy, of course, was cool, the kind of cool President that we've not had since then, until the current one. Cool in all ways, he seems completely untroubled by the heat It's a well-written, powerful speech and on he goes, sounding as though he knows it's momentous, even though the watching crowds don't really seem to.

He mentions the Russians, of course, because this was at the time of the Cold War and showing the Russians who was Top Nation was a big part of the space programme. He says that the USA is going to do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out. But, apart from the Cold War references, the speech sounds so modern in some ways that it's hard to take in that it was nearly fifty years ago. And, of course, it all happened - - he says that there's going to be

a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

And they built it! And I've seen it! The Vehicle Assembly Building!

Most importantly, of course, men walked on the Moon. It still amazes me.




Here's the full text of the speech.

Of course - and it's hard to take it in, watching this speech - President Kennedy never heard Neil Armstrong saying it's a small step for man but a giant leap for mankind, because of course President Kennedy was assassinated; shot dead in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

Where was I when I heard the news? In the kitchen of this house, where I had my breakfast this morning.

I may be a Woman of a Certain Age heading towards Bearded Lady territory - - but hey, I feel sorry for those who weren't around to experience the excitement of the Apollo missions. There's never been anything like it, and I don't think there will be again.