Dolly is sitting on the doorstep swearing at the rain. It’s quite amusing, really.
I’m glad I let myself be persuaded to buy my new waterproof coat. It’s lightly quilted so it adds a degree of snugness that’s really welcome on a grey rainy day. It may be that we’ll have gentle, warm rain before the season finishes but there’s a distinct chill to it now. A sign of things to come, I suppose.
There’s a traditional Welsh café in the Neath covered market, warm and snug and redolent with the smell of cawl and faggots, sitting in iron pans and steaming gently through the day. Used to be thick with cigarette smoke, too, but those days are gone, even in post-industrial Wales. I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed it then.
Graham doesn’t enjoy it now. He loathes cawl with a passion, and has a deep dark suspicion of these little old poky cafés. So when I have a fancy for a winter warmer I indulge it while he’s off shopping or whatever. And then burp cawl at him gently when we meet up once more. Nothing new about that. He hates sausage-inna-bun taken at burger vans, too, and leaves me to enjoy my evil appetites while he rummages through timber and building materials in the local DIY stores.
I do admit that you need a sound digestion to handle these things, though. It’s a family tradition where I come from. A plate of pie-and-mash in the Borough market still figures in my dreams. I don’t recommend the jellied eels, though. They’re strictly London.
Talking about it with Graham this morning, in advance of my scheduled trip to the doctor’s for my meds, he strictly forbad me doing the traditional Welsh café side trip. ”Have a breakfast in Morrison’s,” he said. ”You’ll be fine with that.”
Isn’t it good to be looked after so nicely?
~~+~~
heavy mist over the hill
silence drifting over all
long Welsh morning
~~+~~
