Pembroke Break

Had occasion to buy some engine oil for the car over the weekend - £36 for 5 litres. Why is oil, which is merely less refined petrol, more expensive than petrol? Answers on a postcard.

We went to Pembrokeshire for a couple of days over the weekend, staying with some AirBnB people, and what wonderful people they were. We've used AirBnB about half a dozen times in the last year and had simply the best experiences and met the most interesting hosts.

The place we stayed at was virtually an estate and the owner is one of those engineering types who can turn his hand to anything and do it well. The place we stayed even has its own forest and is littered with interesting artefacts, like a TARDIS (see yesterday's post), a racing Triumph GT6 (which he offered to sell me, but it was a tad too expensive for my taste) and lots of machinery - including a digger (I lust after a digger) and a huge polytunnel. He even makes coracles.

The house is a rambling old mansion that he's upgraded over the years. He's also working on renovating two old cottages in the grounds to use as bed and breakfast accommodation. He inherited the place from his parents and lived there as a kid.

After having gone out for an excellent meal at The Nag's Head in Abercych (well recommended) and polishing off one bottle of red, the owner waylaid me with another bottle of red and kept us chatting till gone midnight.

Before settling on this place we tried another, but shortly after booking it the lady of the house phoned us to say she'd done the AirBnB thing without consulting her husband, who is an artist, and he had a meltdown, so she had to cancel. Poor, sensitive soul. Worked out well for us though, else we wouldn't have found this place.

Visited some nice beaches - we seem to have a penchant for finding secluded beaches that are off the beaten track for most people. Our secret is to scan Google Maps in satellite mode, looking for just the right beaches that are somewhat harder to access for people with kids.

This one following is Traeth Mwnt.

And this one is Barafundle Bay.

OK, so the fact it was raining contributed to them being deserted, but I can't see them being filled to capacity with kids at any time due to the access.

We were going to have a look at Monkstone Beach, but ran out of time as we were chatting with our AirBnB hosts too long.