World's best caffee

BOSHERSTON And no mistake. Easily the best on the planet with its own piece de resistance that I've never even seen on the menu in thousands, literally thousands, of cafes worldwide.

After a day on the beach at Broadhaven, or mooching round the lily ponds trying to spot a pike, tea and cakes are called for. If you're lucky the Army will not be bombing bunnies on the tank range at Castlemartin so you can savour the occasion without the occasional boom of a gun.

Ye Olde Worlde Cafe might be a corny name these days but the 20 outdoor tables are often packed. On arrival a coach tour have hogged half the garden and several people look like they've been waiting a fair while for their tea. There's also a portable cabin if it rains, or you can squeeze inside the front room of the house which has a round table which looks like it could seat all of King Arthur's knights in one go.
They probably came here - that would explain the name.

Not only is the village beautiful but the killer cake reigns supreme. A taste of heaven - apricot sponge. Who thought of it? Who makes it? Who then puts it on the menu, instead of, say, Victoria sponge, and then keeps it there for decades allowing only iced sponge and scones with cream to rival it. Cos if you don't like apricot sponge then your choice is restricted

At 80p a slice, you have to get three. With tea and it's still only £3.60. Christ on Brighton seafront that's only two-thirds of the cost of the dessert you consider having with your mocachino.

No mocachinos here - the only 'cooking' done is egg on toast. Or beans on toast.

Finally the birds. There's a better class of scavenger here. No ratty looking pigeons or moth-eared . Finches and tits have also heard about the apricot sponge. A better class of crumb attracts a better range of birdlife.

Tidy yw'r Teifi

GLAN TEIFI Lle hyfryd glan Teifi - dwi ddim eisiau deud cyfeiriad map. Lle i gasglu wimberries am ddwy awr yn y bwrw glaw. Ond lle odidog siwr o fod. Mae'r wimberries yn tyfu'n well mewn carped o 'lichen' ar y bryn. Fel pys mae' nhw. Neu micro-blueberries. Bron dim swn o gwbl sef rhywun sy'n byw yn ymyl yr afon yn neud
ei waith amaethyddol.

Yn yr wythdegau on i'n teithio sawl waith gyda'm modryb a theulu yma i ddringo'r bryn i gasglu a mwynhau'r tawelwch a'r

Y canlyniad - tart mawr i fwyta yn y nos yn Wooden.

Welsh Windy Miller

MOELFRE Some 300 feet further up the mountain where Mum was born, Moelfre now hosts three giant windmills of the controversial blot-on-the landscape/save-the-world debate. No-nonsense, noiseless turbines that dominate the landscape. Uncle Lyn hates them, says they're in the wrong place. I like them - I gasped when I turned the corner and saw them in front of me.


Guto, 40, of Blaenbowi pulls up in his motor as I look at Glynpurffaith - now Glyn y Mel - from the road above Capel Iwan.

"They went up in 2001. I went to the Royal Welsh Show in about 98 and left my details. From working on Moelfre with my dad I knew the strength of the wind - nothing like down here. So why not make some money from the field?

"Two years later a company from North Wales got back to me and they did the planning permission and all the details - I wouldn't have been able to do all of that. They create enough power for 2,500 homes for a year. In China now they're opening two coal mines a week or something so this sort of thing has to be looked at."

Guto farms 250 acres on the mountain - sheep and beef. "If it wasn't for subsidy we wouldn't make any money though. I remember your grandfather - he used to have a big American car." Lyn says it was a Humber Hawk but granddad had the shell of a Buick on the farm.

"Your granddad saved my grandfather's life. There as a water wheel down below the farm and one of the cogs caught on his clothing and dragged him into the wheel. It pierced his belly and he was stuck'

"Tom heard his cries, came down to the wheel and then was strong enough to push the wheel against the flow of the water, just enough so my granddad could free himself. Grandfather had to go back to the farm holding his intestines in and we had to ring for the doctor who cleaned him and sewed him backup. No trip to hospital for him in those days (I imagine this was in the 20s or 30s) - he had to stay in bed for a bit and then get back to work."

Oystercatcher

TRESAITH Five-hour walk between Tresaith and Llangrannog. Walking at the foot of the cliffs between Tresaith and Penbryn, two oystercatchers bleat to each other. The closer I get, the higher the pitch and then they start flying around agitatedly.

Coming within four or five yards of my head, first thought they were being friendly but then realise I must be close to the pair's nest.

Still a wonderful sight though, beatiful red/pink beaks like long thin pencils. Lovely pinky webbed feet. Their trademark bleats given further resonance and intensity as they echo off the cliffs - it could have been a bit Hitchcocky but I was mesmerised.

Dr No revisited

WESTDALE BAY. Beach is virtually deserted. Sky is grey and likely to turn greyer. Four surfers in the sea facing Skokholm island, lying on their boards and bobbing up and down as tiny waves almost apologetically head for shore. The waves are barely ripples in the surface. The quartet look like frogs in a pond.

Only one surfer takes on the tiddlers. Jumping elegantly on to the board and effortlessly gliding down to the shore several times before deciding to call it a day. On closer inspection, the surfer has long blonde hair and turns out to be female.

Paddling through the shallows in, it has to be said, Ursula Andress-style, she sweeps up a clump of straggly seaweed, fronds six inches long and adds them to her hair. She rearranges her locks to appear dreadlocked as she heads unabashed for the only two people on the beach Ben and Eirlys who have been declaring their love to us clifftop walkers - Ben loves Eirlys. And 'To the world one might be one person, to one person you might be the world'. Someone been reading a self-help book?

Clearly she knows Ben and Eirlys and poses for pictures with them, seaweed on her scalp, neatly arranged. She then ditches the weed and they walk back to their vehicles.

Drove past one of them - animal - kirstyjones.me.uk.

Turns out I've been ogling the surfing superstar.

Puffin paradise

SKOMER - Puffins are so funny they should be given to the depressed instead of drugs.

Standing next to a burrow a yard away, one appeared to be flying right at me before screeching to a halt at the burrow. Shortly before the moment of landing it resembles
a cartoon Tom or Jerry, wings and legs akimbo, face apparently expressing panic, as if it has absolutely no control over what it's doing.

Sand eels given to the chick, it then emerges to waddle with a Charlie Chaplin gait, inspecting other burrow entrances and staring, unfazed, at the crowd of 20 adoring fans who can't believe they're only one yard away from it. The puffin meanwhile
seems to be in its element as it basks in the glare of mobiles, video cams and serious photogs with expensive lenses.

Even in the water they continue to amaze, diving for eels for up to a minute they're more elegant then when they fly. And they cluster in their dozens on the sea, looking just like rubber ducks on the bath. They fly like bats, wings
flapping furiously, banking steeply, which is why the gulls don't try to catch them in the air, and then avoiding the gulls with a scurry to the sanctuary of the burrow.

If I'd known they were this much fun I'd have visited Skomer in the puffin season way earlier.

Guillemots are quite comical too. Their plunges from the cliffs seem sure to end in a watery crack but they glide and swerve just in time. Coal grey and white, they're absolutely beautiful. Two-tone treats.

Theh other highlight of Wales's Galapagos island threw up its endemic treat - a Skomer vole scuttled across the path.

Loritz

TENBY Alec's stories - too many to recite. One stuck. A Dane, Loritz one of 11 children, sent to Kew Gardens, from Denmark to learn
a trade in, I would imagine, about 1925. It was felt, given the difficulties of growing up in a big family, that he would have a better life
if sent abroad. Gets a job in Tenby after a posting from Kew and gets to know granddad. Settles in Tenby and knows granddad so well that Uncle Tommy's middle name is Loritz. Now we know.

Some time before World War Two Loritz returns to Denmark, married, and settles. Only for war to break out and of course, as someone fluent in English, is regarded with suspicion. For the entire war, the Germans posted a sentry outside his home.
There was always someone present. The stress, immense, was too much. Loritz's wife died of a heart attack.

The Germans banned everyone from attending the funeral, apart from Loritz. The whole town, however, followed the funeral procession to the churchyard. The Germans sat on the coffin in the back of the hearse and puffed on cigarettes.
The coffin was taken into the cemetery. Loritz was allowed in. The Germans prevented anyone else entering.

In response, everyone threw their flowers over the Germans, over the wall, into the cemetery.