It was a cold wet winters day, lightening flashed and thunder rolled across the raging sky, suddenly, just above the sound of the storm we heard a tap, tap, tapping at the rain streaked window, a black bird was trying to make itself heard over the maelstrom then the telephone in the corner rang and a gust of wind swept the black bird away.  It was Gill, she was organising a family trip to Aberdaron in the summer, it was hoped that 28 of us would descend on the peninsula. Suddenly the rain stopped, the wind died away and rays of sunshine broke through the clouds. Soon the planning was under way and before we cast off we were joined by Freddy who had recently ventured into the world to become the youngest member of the group.

(Move Mouse Over Photo)

The holiday had just begun, I opened the laptop and created a folder for the holiday, the first words of the diary were typed onto a page and I may say I am extremely proud to say that all the errors in these diaries are my own.  Our first day dawned but already tragedy had struck, Luke had to explain to mum Zee that he had put his glasses down on a rock so that he could fool about with Nathan knowing that his glasses were safe and sound, then without any warning at all a wave came in and swept them out to sea.

He didn’t want to tell her the truth, that as he waded through the sea, along the edge of the rocks, there was an almighty eruption in front of him, a blur, a jelly fish leapt out of the water, slapped him across the face and his glasses were gone, it all happened in a flash, as he recovered from the shock he saw a jelly fish bobbing about in the water beaming at him with a pair of glasses glittering on its visage – not any pair of glasses, they were his glasses.  Apparently, according to the oyster catcher, the jelly fish was in the Beast of Bardsey’s gang, a notorious gang that roams the villages and hills of the peninsula wreaking havoc.

Ice creams all  round

That afternoon we all, at one time or another, bought ice creams, boule sets, towels and beach chairs, all most effective defences against the sun, before we naively marched, heads held high, over the stone ford to Sunburn Alley.  That is all except those who trudged away up and round by the tarmacadam road. We never considered for one moment that we would be the chosen ones to be toasted by the relentless rays of the big bright sun way up in the sky; right in front of our very eyes, we were burnt bright red, at least my knee caps were, they were as red as red as could be.

Meanwhile sand castles had to be built and demolished, boule matches won and lost, dashes in and out of the sea, rock pools explored and dogs to be chased round and round the bay. Since the greater portion of these diaries are being written retrospectively I can not claim to remember anything at all, I of course blame my brain cells, nothing what so ever to do with me the Arthur, or author, which ever fits in with the description most accurately given by the fore mention jelly fish, remember don’t ever cross the jelly fish. However I do remember the Rotten Romans, we dived for cover it looked like a Roman invasion had marched straight out of it’s historic time slot.

Their leader cried out “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender” Proving most conclusively, in my opinion, that Churchill was a plantaganist I mean a philanthropist, no a phlemist, silly me that should have been chemist, there is one down in Abersoch, which of course he could not have been so he must have been a pathologist although I do not quite see why he would want to be one, not that I have anything against pathologists, but Churchill was none of those, he was a plagiarist, yes, that’s it the Romans got in first, although by now I have completely forgotten where they got in, unless it was a Roman bath but if so I must warn you, never get into a Roman bath, they were disgustingly dirty, there was no plug hole for starters.

Then we saw the balloons with Happy 40th Birthday emblazoned on the side, they were very realistic but whether it be the balloons or the Romans I cannot say, it is all too complicated, no wonder they died out.

As a side comment we have not seen any Witches Knickers in the hedges here, more mundanely known as plastic carrier bags it must be the 5p charge for these bags imposed by the Welsh Government putting the super markets out of the reach of poor penniless hedgehogs who now need to use recycle bags for life when they go scavenging around the supermarkets, remember – One Life, Live It. We saw numerous wheelie bins lying at the sides of the roads, it looks serious, Wheelie Bin Dieback could be coming to the UK from mainland Europe.

That evening, or maybe it was another we all congregated at Laura, and Dan’s, James and Nicola’s BBQ up t’ road. It was great, the kids burnt rubber, not on the BBQ, Dan did that, well he was the Cordon Bleu Chef, he transformed the raw ingredients into succulent portions of BBQ food while the kids rushed hither and thither, in and out of the bushes, round the house over and under our chairs and us in search of one another, up onto the bank for stories, up the stairs to watch TV and through the rooms for rest and relaxation, but always eagerly in search of food. 

Prior to this the paparazzi tourists gathed at Spar, cameras at the ready, the presence of Harold the Heron, on the Spar roof, was eagerly awaited but like the diva he could be he had not yet put in an appearance, suddenly there was a whoosh into the air, cameras were clicking like machine gun fire but low and behold it was a swarm of sparrows, they swooped into the air then back to the ground where they  were seen to be rolling around in hysterics, little feathers flying everywhere, they laughed so much they wet themselves, those naughty little sparrows.