We were probably feeling nervous about the following day when we came to spend that February afternoon at Three Cliffs Bay. For the first time in more than two years we’d be checking in, presenting passports and boarding passes and heading away from these islands. Two years of pandemic panic and uncertainty. Had we downloaded our Covid passports correctly? Had we missed something essential in either the Portuguese or UK rules that would prevent us from spending more than half an hour in the departure lounge at Funchal Airport before being whisked back home to Blighty? Had we overlooked some clause that said we’d need to spend eternity in a Travelodge at two thousand pounds a week each, just because one of us had sneezed in the direction of a stray baggage handler? There was so much that might go wrong, we worried. It was as if overseas travel had been reinvented as the world began to open up once more. But for now, carefully tacked onto the front of the fortnight in Madeira, we were here in Llanelli.
“Llanelli?” you ask. “What on earth were you doing there? That’s another hundred miles or more past Bristol Airport,” I hear you say. Truth is, this was a period when we were still in the final stages of bothering to buy each other presents at Christmas and on birthdays. The time before we agreed that really, we have everything we need, and buying presents is just an unnecessary layer of hassle. Ali can never remember what my favourite single malt is without asking, and she has no interest whatsoever in things like jewellery and perfume. She doesn’t drink either. And her idea of chocolate is one square a week. She probably has a better chance than me of getting to her one hundredth birthday, but she won’t have a clue how to celebrate. And she’d rather get her own clothes from the charity shops. It takes a brave man to think he can choose clothes for the lady in his life with any degree of success. Those famous five words. “Did you keep the receipt?” I’d heard that withering phrase more than once before in the early days of our life together.
So of course, we’d gone to Llanelli, as you do, but with very little knowledge of this part of the country. I’d spotted a two night stay with breakfast and evening meals thrown in at a hotel in the town and thought to myself “why not?” There was a pool to wallow in, and a free glass of prosecco for us both each night. Decadence itself right there in a schooner of fizz. In between the two nights we’d have a single day to explore. Well, half a day really. It was late February when the darkness still sets in before six, and as we’re not the earliest risers in the world by any means, we probably wouldn’t get away before noon. After all, you can’t mess about when there’s a full Welsh breakfast included in the tariff. “Another frothy coffee sir?” “Don’t mind if I do! If we just keep on eating, we won’t need to pay for lunch.”
A thing I did know about the area came from one of those TV programmes where famous people pick their favourite walks and views across the country, which are then presented in reverse order as the presenters gradually build up to a winner. Three Cliffs Bay was one such winner as I recall. Somewhere near Swansea, nestled on the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, lay a beach that deserved our attention. And so, on a shower laden day, we drove the short distance out of town across the dreamy River Loughor towards the Gower and Three Cliffs Bay. I’d spotted a National Trust car park on the map from where we could walk over at least one of those three cliffs and look down over the empty white sands on a quiet Wednesday afternoon when most of the world would be working and schooling. And what a view it was. Wales is very good at beaches you know.
As we’d hoped, there were only a few strollers on the big open beach, which had thoughtfully decided to offer us a low tide for our visit. A shower rolled over on a threatening sky as we sat on top of the cliff overlooking the beach, hoping it might scatter some of the less hardy types back in the direction of their cars. Either that or content aware fill was going to need to be deployed here and there, I decided. Down on the beach there was a delightful sense of space, with large areas of untouched sand. Sand that might get touched all too soon if I hesitated, so out came the camera earlier than usual as I embraced the day and started to think about compositions.
Eventually I found one I liked, an unending wave of sand blowing low across the broad expanse towards the camera. I only had to clone out a few distant figures, leaving this lone couple with the beach entirely to themselves. I decided not to worry about the blown out light coming in from the left hand side. After all, that’s exactly what it was. You couldn’t look at this huge area of the sky without a welding mask and a pair of Ray-Bans. It’s what a washed out sunny winter afternoon looks like on western coasts. Later on, we headed back towards Llanelli, across that bridge once more under a fiery sunset sky. A shame we couldn’t have stayed at the beach longer really. I couldn’t see anywhere to stop, besides which I was supposed to be looking at the road. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the moment and accept that photography can’t happen every time. Our day in the Gower had been a good one, and we still had a swim before dinner to look forward to. A second splosh of Prosecco too. And another Welsh breakfast to come the next morning. If I was lucky, I might get a third sausage and an extra portion of mushrooms. Something to sustain me through the four hours in the sky that would come later.
The following day we didn’t even have to show our Covid passports to anyone at an almost completely deserted Bristol Airport. Nor did anyone at Funchal seem interested in checking the supposedly compulsory questionnaires we’d completed before boarding the flight. By the time we came home again, rules had been relaxed in the UK and we didn’t have to take a test before being allowed back into our lives. The only nod to the last two years of confusion came in the form of the face masks we wore from entering one airport to leaving the other. It was a small price to pay for two weeks in Madeira. Slowly, the world was returning to something like it had looked before. Two holidays in one trip, and a birthday present where I wasn’t asked to produce the receipt.
