Dreams of heat and light

Summer arrived in Great Britain a couple of weekends ago: the temperature rocketed higher than in Spain. We all peeled off our vests and long socks, sped towards the nearest coast and exposed our pale wintered skin to Vitamin D and sunburn. It lasted 12 hours. We are now back in our winter coats. In Folkestone, on the south coast, last Saturday I was wearing a North Face beany hat and lined leather gloves. It's the middle of May. This should be Spring. I stare at the online weather forecast in the hope that the depth of my desperation might change it. No such luck: this week is rain, rain, mostly cloudy, rain. And a nipple stiffening 12 degrees. 

My anticipation of barbecuing and get-togethers with friends and family around our new garden table and chairs is diluting with each cold morning wind and the inevitable downpour. Did I really make this chicken satay, grill it in the open air, serve it with sticky rice and chilled rose wine one balmy evening? 

Yes. Two years ago in the garden of our old house in Antibes. I suddenly miss being there, the reliability of the climate, living almost continually outdoors for 7 months of the year. 

all this green forgiving the rain - a haiku that gave me the title of my latest book. And when the sky does this, perhaps we have no choice but to forgive it. 

I once tried to find the end of rainbow, tracking one in my car along the twists and turns of rural Kent, always finding myself to its left or right. 'It can't be done,' Tony told me when I got home. A rainbow isn't fixed in a specific spot. We see the refracted colours of the water drops at an angle relative to the sun's rays. 

But Google 'finding the end of a rainbow' and you'll read people's accounts of standing in the ends of rainbows, or driving through them. Who's right? 

I didn't try to find the end of this evening's rainbow. Instead I tried to cheer up the new garden furniture whose chair cushions remain wrapped in thick plastic. And the barbecue that awaits assembly in the shed. Keep calm and think of heat, I said. And light. They'll come.

fresh figs and honey

the longest day seems as if

it will never end

Hungry Writing Prompts

1. Write about taking off your clothes.
2. Write about anticipation.
3. Write about having no choice.
4. Write about a rainbow.
5. Write a letter of hope. 

Search and discovery: from custard to corned beef

My search for the perfect custard slice continued last week at Arthur Llewellyn Jenkins's coffee shop in Swansea. ALJ’s isn’t known principally for its coffee and cakes. It’s a furniture store of stadium proportions: the horizons in every direction are choked with plump cushions, waxed leather and wood, mirrors, table lamps and rugs, mattresses that come with latex or pocket springs, and some that feel like uncooked dough when you press your hands into them but are named for Japanese batter. Okay, they're not. The brand is Tempur but my mind goes to the batter every time. 

Custard slice from the coffee shop at
Arthur Llewellyn Jenkins 

The girl who served us in the coffee shop was confident that their custard slice would be a winner and it was nice (and the cappuccino was a goodie too) but the custard could have done with a little more flavour, more sugar or vanilla perhaps. So, the Greggs custard slice is still at the top of my CS League. And while I know that quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality it actually does in this case. I bought a box of three from the shop in Port Talbot that had my wrist aching by the time I’d carried it back to the car. They weighed in at 1lb 10oz. That’s a ‘half pound +’ per slice. I’ve said it before: Custard Hunk. 

My hankering for Greggs' custard slices has led to another growing addiction: their Corned Beef Pasty. I’d like to show you a picture of the meltingly flaky pocket of pastry filled with a pillow of soft mashed potato and corned beef but once I'm out the door of the bakery with the paper bag in my hand I slip into immediate ‘chow down’ mode until every last mouthful is gone. Except for the bag of course. Although I have been known to tear that open with my teeth if I’m carrying something in my other

Not even a crumb remained.

hand. And they’re only £1 each. The custard slices are an anomalous 77p. I’m a cheap date.

I didn’t realise that corned beef pasties were particularly Welsh but according to Peter’s Pies, near Caerphilly, they originated in the 1940s and 1950s and are deeply rooted in Welsh history and tradition. Think the Welsh equivalent of the Cornish Pasty.

And while I’ve been writing this I’ve remembered the plate corned beef pasty my mother used to make, on the same clear glass pyrex plate she used for her apple tart, a concave plate that wasn't deep enough to be a dish. And here’s a recipe I found online. I’ll probably cheat and buy ready rolled pastry.  Mammy always made her own. Though I doubt you could buy ready-made pastry in the 1960s anyway. Rub the fat into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. The mantra drummed into me in school cookery classes in the late 1960s and early '70s. Before they became Domestic Science. Which has never made any sense to me. 

Hungry Writing Prompts

1. Write about the smell of something new.
2. Write about a clear horizon.
3. Write about something cheap.
4. Write about plates.
5. Write about a school lesson. 

Saying goodbye.

Tomorrow I’ll say goodbye to a friend I made while writing Real Port Talbot. 

Ray Davies Snr was a retired steelworker who painted as a hobby, recreating the town’s lost history in acrylic and canvas. Streets and seascapes, hotels and docklands, rivers, bridges and railways. I met Ray for the first time last year at the house in Port Talbot he used as his painting studio. He made me a frothy cappuccino sprinkled with chocolate and tucked a napkin onto the saucer that was printed with a Welsh red dragon and Bore Da! (Good morning.) 

As I sipped he placed painting after painting in front of me, each one a story, each one a piece of magic to conjure the town I remembered from my childhood. A week or so earlier he’d asked me, via Facebook, if he could use one of my photographs of old St Baglan Church to paint a picture. And suddenly there it was, so much more than its original self, layers of shadow and sunlight, all shades of green nudging the worn inscriptions on old stones.

Would you like it?’ he said.

‘I… you mean… but how can…’ The stuttering went on for some time.

An astonishing gift from someone I had only just met, a gift offered with such humility and generosity that I almost cried.

Ray died on 12^th April. The last word he said to me was, ‘Thanks’. I’d asked him if I could use a photo of one of his paintings in Real Port Talbot and he thanked me. Thank you, Ray. For the cappuccino and our brief friendship. For the history and vibrancy and sensitivity in your paintings that will always remind me of you.

(You can enjoy a selection of Ray's paintings on the Historical Port Talbot website.)

At Home with The Thoughts of Chairwoman Ffion, aged 8

The gap between my lukewarm lasagne going back to the kitchen at the Bagle Brook Beefeater, and a freshly prepared, hot one replacing it (with profuse apologies) is gratifyingly filled with the chatter of my great-niece, Ffion, each revelation prefaced by, ‘Lynne?’ ‘Ffion?’  ‘Can I tell you something?’:

Ffion and the £1 special: Chicken
Goujons, Chips and Garlic Bread

A woman on TV who was 101 remembered her little brother being born when she was three. This was her furthest [sic] memory.

When I was in school did other children pick me up? Hannah, her friend, keeps picking her up and she doesn’t like it.

She is four foot tall.
She didn’t really want to be eight but she didn’t really like being seven.
Mr Doyle, the headmaster, is retiring in July.
She has three money boxes: one Principality and two Hello Kitties.
She is upset with Mittens who scratched Tickles’ nose through the bars of his cage.
She scored the winning goal when Emma tripped.
Iwan doesn’t want to go to Bristol Zoo because of the peacocks.
A newt ran into Miss Trunchbull’s knickers.

All this and more for the bargain price of £1 – a Beefeater special for kids between 3pm and 5pm. And my lasagne was pretty good too.

Beefeater Beef Lasagne with rocket and cherry tomatoes

Now, in my childhood bedroom, I watch the mist push in from the sea, veiling the prom’s railings, the waste land in front of Tirmorfa Road, nudging the end of Mam and Dad’s garden. The cries of seagulls are muted, the sea is a soft rumble.

My ‘furthest’ memory? Either a yellow dress, bright sunlight and falling against the concrete step outside the back door and cutting open my chin, or sitting in a sandpit in the back garden, the sand damp against the back of my bare legs.

Hungry Writing Prompts

• Write a list of ten things you are thinking about now.
• Write about a bargain.
• Write about mist or fog.
• Write about what you find at the bottom of a garden.
• Write about your ‘furthest’ memory.

  

Here comes the sun. And bath-sharing. (Or not.)

Blush Apple Tart Tatin

Portuguese Custard Tarts

I'd like to think I've been channelling the sun through making these dishes but its arrival over the weekend is probably just a coincidence. Or the UK climate finally relinquishing its grip on the persistent Siberian front out of sheer exhaustion. It was like waking up in another country on Sunday morning: blue sky, 20 degrees, and one of the new cherry trees on the cusp of blossom. 

I've posted my recipe for the Blush Apple Tart Tatin elsewhere on the blog though I think that cramming as many apple quarters as you can (compare the two photos of the finished tarts) into the dish before plopping on the pastry is a massive improvement.

The attempt at making Portuguese Custard Tarts was a result of our trip to the Algarve last month, ostensibly to play golf. I am using the word 'play' in the loosest possible way - as a beginner I'd have had more success kicking the ball around the course on some days. But, fortunately, there were plenty of tarts to comfort me afterwards. And a big bath in the apartment to soak away the aches from muscles I didn't know I had.

'We could both fit in here,' I said to Tony, as the bath filled, the bubbles grew to a thick sparkling raft and I started to tug off my clothes.

'What are you doing?' he said.

'Getting in,' I said.

'There's not enough room,' he said, admitting later that he was desperately trying to think of any reason to keep me out of it.

'There's loads of room!' I said. 'What are you talking about?'

'Look, Blods [his nickname for me],' he said, frantically trying to dredge up another reason, 'I'm a big bloke and I just want to lie there with my legs open and relax.'

Three days later I was still laughing. And I suppose you could say that after 28 years romance hasn't just died: it's bloody fossilised!

We were more in tune when we made the Portuguese Custard Tarts. As lovely as they were I think filo pastry might be the way to go rather than puff, as the recipe suggests, but I've never used filo. For some reason it scares me. It might be the warnings of it drying out easily that accompany any recipe that recommends using it, of having to keep it between damp tea-towels. It sounds like high maintenance pastry. And this recipe is an easy version, relaxing you might even say (as relaxing as you can get outside of a bath and with your legs firmly together!) courtesy of allrecipes.co.uk.

Hungry Writing Prompts

Write about the sun.

Write about playing a game.

Write about comfort.

Write about the death of romance.

Write about someone who is high-maintenance.

Leftovers

A parsnip. A leek. Three sweet potatoes the size of a child’s fist. A sweetheart cabbage that was far too small to serve at Saturday's Easter family dinner for eight. Leftover chicken. I’m thinking soup. Grab the chicken stock, garlic, salt and pepper.

The trifling plate of cooked chicken was the only thing left over from lunch. Roast potatoes, roast parsnips, honeyed carrots, peas and leeks sauteed in butter, sausage-meat stuffing and gravy all disappeared within a crumb and a splash. I reckon that a video of the table, played back at high speed, might easily draw similarities to a shoal of pirhanas stripping the flesh from a cow pushed into a Brazilian river.

My 1912 doorstep size Ward Lock edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management expounds on soup – broth, clear and thick – for over 50 pages. It’s one of a handful of collectable books that I kept after I sold Foxed & Bound, the second-hand and antiquarian bookshop I ran for 10 years until the end of 1999. The recipes that catch my eye are Solferino Soup (with choux pastry), Prince’s Soup (with turnips) and Turtle Soup (barricade the terrapin tank).

When the delights of Mrs Beeton – Sweet potatoes deserve to receive more intelligent attention in the kitchen – completely distract me from writing this blog post I come across some other people’s leftovers flattened between the pages: a dried fern, the disintegrating flakes of azure blue silver paper that I imagine once sealed a cigarette packet although not a trace of dry tobacco scent remains, a fragment of old newspaper with a quote urging people to return any books they borrow, and one of Julian Barnes’ ‘Pedant in the Kitchen’ columns cut from The Guardian in 2003. By me. The paper’s name and date, 5.4.03, are scribbled in my handwriting on the yellowing newsprint. But I can’t remember doing it. 

I don’t even remember reading the column. But I feel as if I should. I recently bought Barnes’ book, The Pedant in the Kitchen, and this particular article, ‘Mrs Beeton to the rescue’, in which he talks about his mother’s hulking 1915 edition of Mrs Beeton, appears in it verbatim, albeit with the alternative title, ‘The Cactus and the Slipper’. But when I read it again I had no memory of the original article, or of ever having read the Guardian column, or of even having seen the phrase, The Pedant in the Kitchen, before.

How much of my life has been so easily forgotten? My guess would be: more than I’m comfortable with. Does it matter? Probably not. Memories associated with heightened emotional experiences tend to be the ones that persist.  Perhaps what matters more is that I pay attention in the moment. On this day in 2003 I bothered to cut out the article because I recognised and relished the link to something in my life. I acted to mark that connection without the slightest inkling that seven years later I’d be writing about food and writing and life myself.  Perhaps that’s all any of us can do: make some effort to mark our places in the world.

Hungry Writing Prompts

Write a list of ingredients - practical, imaginary or fantastic -  for Leftover Soup.

Write about a river.

Write about an old newspaper cutting.

Write a list of things you have forgotten.

Write about what connects you to the world.

Sardines and feisty women

You can’t come to the Algarve and not have sardines, sprinkled with sea salt and grilled until the skin is crisp. So I did. At Taberna do Pescador in Albufeira. And they were good. Not outstanding.  Not memorable. Not as delicious as the photo promises. They were on the dry side so I think they were cooked for a bit too long. But they were still good. Tasty.  
  

It’s out of season on the Algarve but the terraces of two restaurants that front Praia dos Pescadores at Albufeira were a clamour of tourists, mostly British, waving their arms in the air and singing along to the jolly bing-bong of a brass band performing on the raised promenade. I guess that meant they were enjoying themselves. I hate that kind of enforced entertainment, particularly when I’m trying to eat, so we forged through the throng and the excitable waiters trying to reel in more lunch victims and did a U-ey back to the Taberna where the waiters outnumbered us three to one and we chowed down on good bread, sardine spread and sweet and crumbly cheese before the arrival of our main courses.

Food is dressing the pages of both books I’m reading here, one on the Kindle, the other in paperback. I’d never heard of Ann Bridge, author of The Portuguese Escape and a multitude of other titles, before I came across a handful of her novels republished as electronic editions by Bloomsbury Reader.  She was the wife of a diplomat and her experiences of postings around the world gave her the backgrounds, scenes and characters for her novels. The Portuguese Escape was published in the 1970s but is probably set in the 1950s. The heroines are feisty and independent but they know (or will come to understand) their place in the patriarchal order of things. The romantic male protagonist (the British one) dresses in tweed and drives a Bentley. And there’s more than a whiff of support for President Salazar, the dictator who ran Portugal until his death in 1968. The regime was subsequently ousted by the Carnation Revolution in 1974.  

‘He dictates this country, no?’

‘NO, and no twenty times!’ Richard exploded. ‘He guides it.’
(Kindle Location 945)

Guidance? Yep, that's what most fascists tend to offer. But I'm still enjoying the story. It’s a bit like watching an old black and white movie. I’m entranced by the plumby accents, the clothes, the cars, the pressure cooker emotions. And the food. ‘… meltingly tender young French beans, then cold veal with salad followed by a delicious local cheese — all washed down with good red wine…’ Even the Communists who abduct our Hungarian heroine eat reasonably well: ‘…an omelette, some bread and cheese’.

‘And is it not a form of blasphemy to abuse the gifts of God by bringing them badly cooked, and therefore horrible, to the table?’ proclaims our heroine.

(Kindle Location 970)

Switch God for Nature then I’ll chant that message too.

My paperback is a Sue Grafton Kinsey Millhone PI novel, S is for Silence. Grafton’s novels have been my indulgent holiday reading for years: sharply written and atmospheric with convincing characters. And Kinsey likes to eat too, the kind of food you stop talking for and lick your fingers clean when you’ve finished, the stuff that healthy eating gurus warn you against. Barbecued chunks of beef, rubbed with salt, pepper and garlic salt, and served in thickly buttered rolls. A Kaiser roll, ‘buttered and laid on the grill until the bread was rich brown and crunchy at the edge. Rings of spicy salami had been soldered together with melted cheese — Monterey Jack infused with red pepper flakes. When I lifted the top, the yolk of the fried egg was still plump, and I knew it would ooze when I bit into it, soaking into the bread.’

I admit the latter might not be every gourmet’s dream but I’d happily take one of those after a day’s work. Who am I kidding? I’d take one after a day of doing nothing.

And what do I have to look forward to at my next physical, as opposed to literary, meal? Prawns as big as a baby’s arm. Some butter and oil, a little garlic, salt and parsley. Fresh bread and a tomato salad. Life is good. But it’s about to get better.

(Yes, that’s a full size dinner knife in the photo, about 10 inches long.)

Hungry Writing Prompts

Write about a memorable meal.

Write about someone on holiday.

Write about a favourite old movie.

Write your own definition of blasphemy.

Write a list of things that make life good.

Reading the menu. Paying the price.

Shortly after the Midland Bank transferred me to their offshore offices in the Channel Islands, in April 1978, the company’s external auditor, Mr Wu, invited me out for dinner along with a posse of his favourites from the banking department. 

20 and decorative

I think the invitation was made more for my decorative qualities than my contribution to due process during the yearly audit: I’d only been there for less than 2 months. But I was 20 and in awe of the promise of sophistication offered by  Jersey’s restaurants, in comparison to South Wales, so despite feeling out of my depth I went along, hoping I’d say the right thing at the right time. I hadn’t given a thought to what I might eat. 

Until then, apart from a couple of Italian restaurants (complete with straw covered Chianti bottles), my dining out experience had been limited to Berni Inns, a chain of restaurants first launched in the UK by the Welsh-Italian Berni brothers in the late 1950s: a reliable choice of Gammon, Steak or Plaice with peas and chips. I was ill-equipped for a menu written in French. Although if I’d been less anxious about the whole situation I might have noticed that beneath the French names and descriptions, in a font decorative enough to twaddle your eyes, there were English translations. But I wasn’t.

Add to that a complete ignorance about the financial and gastronomic protocol of the meal – who was paying? should I choose a starter? did I like wine? – and you might begin to understand why I leapt upon the first thing with a glimmer of familiarity – boeuf. 

‘Are you sure you want that?’ my head dealer said hesitantly.

‘Yes,’ I said, with cheery faux confidence.

Sophistication did not welcome me into her arms that night. After smiling, hungrily, through other people’s starters of Moules Marinieres and home-made chicken liver patés, it took a herculean effort to maintain the grin when my main course arrived: a thick, plain rump steak topped with a stack of deep fried onion rings. Disappointment soaked through me like cold drizzle. The memory of the rest of the meal is lost to me. Though the whole ‘deep-end’ learning experience had a significant effect: I made sure to read all future menus properly. I still do.

There wasn’t a menu as such at the pub we ate in last night not far from where we live – I’ll call it The Scratched Salmon, The Bloated Bass or The Hopeless Herring in recognition of its true alliterative name. The dishes were chalked on blackboards on the wall and above the bar. ‘Can be a bit fatty!’ written in parentheses underneath Shoulder of Lamb alerted me to the possible level of the chef’s culinary knowledge and skill so I decided on something less challenging, more pub-grub and surely pretty risk free: home-cooked ham with a fried egg. How wrong I was. I asked the waitress whether the ham was genuinely home-cooked. 

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen it’. Seen it doing what?

‘It’s just that it was very bland and spongy,’ I said, pointing to the majority of it left on my plate, crowned with the remains of an egg, also devoid of any flavour.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said. And cleared the table.

Perhaps it was me though. And Tony. His scampi was the ‘homogenous, mealy bread-crumbed straight out of the freezer’ version. And dry. And our friend, whose suspiciously extravagant monkfish (with a prawn, lobster and brandy sauce) appeared to have lost all dimensions of flavour, and prawn, lobster and brandy, during its journey from the kitchen to our table. Yes, perhaps it was us. Because the place was packed. The restaurant was full and we’d managed to book one of the last tables in the bar. And it was on the pricey side too. £10 for ham, egg and chips. Though I wouldn’t have flinched at the price if the ham had been even half as nice as the joint my mother par-boiled then roasted with honey and mustard and sliced to delicious wafers of sweetness that melted in my mouth when I was in Wales last month. So maybe we were all unlucky. Or perhaps the place has been trading on its allegedly considerable reputation for so long that the people who go there are immune to the mediocrity that’s now on offer. 

I’m really not that difficult to please when it comes to food. Quality and taste are far more important than inventive sauces, exotic ingredients or plates elaborately dressed. I arrived home, grumpy, and had a thick slice of six grain bread spread with lemon and coriander hummus to cheer myself up. This morning Tony made me pancakes with butter and Demerara sugar. I’m starting to pick up. 

Hungry Writing Prompts

1. Write about youth and inexperience.
2. Write a list of French words you know.
3. Write about fat.
4. Write about being unlucky.
5. Write about what cheers you up.

Fancy a Gurkha? Or a George?

I had a day-out yesterday, not a shopping/special event/friends kind of day out, more of a welly-booted farmer's day out: we latched the trailer onto the old Peugeot and set off for Godstone, heading clockwise on the M25. When I say old, I mean old: 120,000 miles on the clock, one of the doors has a nail jammed into the hinge so it doesn't fall off, and the front seats are bucket style through decades of slumped arses, rather than by design. The doors don't lock either but that's hardly a concern.

We were picking up a second-hand 1,000 litre water tank for the farm and stopped in Godstone for lunch at what we thought was a pub but turned out to be a Nepalese and Indian restaurant, Lal Akash, that had held onto one of the former pub bars, complete with stool-perching beer-drinking locals. In the bar you could have pizza and chicken nuggets and chips; in the restaurant there were a range of Nepalese specialities and the usual Indian restaurant fare. 

And that's where I ordered Gurkha Rifle with chapati. When I read it on the menu I immediately thought of Clive Dunn as Jonesy in Dad's Army. 'They don't like it up 'em, Capt. Mainwaring!' The reality is boneless chicken cooked with chilli, ginger and garlic in a hot spicy sauce. I also tried a Khukuri: no, I didn't have a go at wielding a curved Nepalese knife, it's a Nepalese beer brewed in the UK that packs a punch at lunchtime.

Notice the paucity of photographs? I left my camera at home... But I did learn how to say 'thank you' in Nepali: 'dhanybad'. And I said it several times: the food was freshly cooked and the service full of smiles. And even though we only ordered for two there seemed to be enough for a small regiment of Gurkhas. One of those lunches where you can't imagine eating for at least another 24 hours.

***

Today, 1st March, is St. David's Day - the patron saint of Wales. I made welshcakes as I do every year. Packed two little boxes of them to take to my step-daughters tomorrow. I've never heard any of my English friends talk about any particular recipe in association with St. George's Day (April 23rd). The BBC Good Food website has a list of St George's Day recipes but I feel suspicious about its authenticity when the first recipe is Full English Frittata!

But how do you choose between what's English and what's generally British? Cornish Pastie, maybe. But that's specifically Cornish. Same with Lancashire Hotpot and Clotted Cream: they're regional. What would an English person choose to cook on St. George's Day that's quintessentially English?

Hungry Writing Prompts

Write about a day-out.

Write about something broken.

Write about feeling full.

Write about saintliness.

Write about a food that encapsulates your personality.

Keeping warm. Staying whole.

I was driving from my parents' house to Port Talbot town centre yesterday morning and stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a guy and his young daughter cross the road, obviously on their way to school. His tracksuit bottoms were tucked into long socks, his hoodie pulled tight around his face. Thirty years ago, maybe even twenty years, I'd have thought: man, you're in desperate need of some style advice. Yesterday my immediate response was, good on you for keeping warm mate, and wondered if I should tuck my leggings (under my jeans) into my socks for added warmth.  

When I was a kid, growing up in a house with no central heating and gas fires in only the living room and front room, I used to get dressed under the blankets on winter mornings, pulling my nightie off and my underwear on, tights, vest and petticoat, jumper and skirt, before hurtling downstairs for breakfast. 

As a teenager and in my early twenties I'd freeze in the line for a nightclub, sleeveless, bare legged, daring my teeth not to chatter rather than spoil 'the look' with a coat. 

These days I belong to the same style club as the long socked man: whatever it takes to keep warm in cold weather. 

Age or maturity? (The two don't necessarily go together.)

Heat and warmth and protection from the cold. I had them all at once in Llangrannog last Monday after a visit to Sebastien Boyesen's studio. Boyesen is the sculptor responsible for two pieces of public art in Port Talbot and a whole swathe of them around Wales, sculptures that draw on a region's history and myths, the lives of people who have lived and worked there. His bronze sculpture of St Caranog watches over the coastline here.

At the Patio Cafe/Caffi

Llangrannog, on Wales' west coast, is a one road in/one road out kind of village, roads that make you breathe in (in a futile attempt to reduce the width of your car), with a cliff-framed beach created for satisfied sighs and silent gazing. In a cafe at the shore I had a dish of fish chowder, two hunks of wholemeal buttered bread and a view I could spend my life with. 

Outside, the wind had nearly sliced me in half. Inside the soup, and the sunlight and sea through the window, made me whole again. 

Hungry Writing Prompts

• Write about something fashionable or unfashionable.
• Write about keeping warm.
• Write about an episode from your teenage years.
• Write about what's at the end of a road.
• Write about what makes you whole

Llangrannog beach and cove