August in Pembrokeshire

It's been a warm, still day but with no sunshine until evening as is often the case here on the coast.

The walk down to this little bay takes a winding course through a deep wooded valley. The stream runs below the path and both emerge  at this shingle beach which was deserted today save for this small family who are probably  staying at one of the nearby holiday cottages.

I could not help but be reminded of our own family's early visits to Pembrokeshire when we would stay near a similar small off-road bay. Entertainment was limited to what the beach had to offer: paddling, rock-pooling, throwing pebbles at an old tin,  collecting shells, skimming stones and  dropping 'splooshers' in a freshwater pond just like this. I must have passed many days  just like this, letting the hours trickle by, measured only by the movement of the tide up and down the shore line.

Leaving it all behind at the end of the holiday became so hard that eventually we uprooted our lives in Oxford and moved to Pembrokeshire when the boys were just 6 and 9.  But the wheel turns and while I remain here for the rest of the family it's back to holiday visits. It's hard to leave a place like this completely.