It was still incredibly foggy outside, we still didn’t have a view of the sea and the foghorns continued to sound every 30 seconds. It was most definitely the soundtrack to our Christmas holiday, this eerily sounding solitary blast that emanated not only over the sea but over the surrounding countryside. We shall certainly miss it when we’re gone. Today is our last day here at Mumbles and we’ve got plans. Other than our usual daily admin, daily yoga and breakfast, we are going to walk into Mumbles for one last time and go shopping, clothes shopping that is!
Using yesterday’s leftovers from supper, breakfast was a rather tasty affair. Fried potato cakes infused with truffle cheddar cheese, veggie sausages and tomatoes roasted in the oven, tossed in olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper and chilli flakes. Oh, yes this was no ordinary breakfast, this was as M&A inspired breakfast and it was delicious. Of course I had to be extra careful with putting things in and taking things out of the oven, making sure I used the ‘oven mitt; and not my fingers like what I did last time! You see for some unknown reason one evening at home I grabbed a baking tray from a very hot oven using only my bare fingers! As you can imagine, they hurt, a lot. Having doused said fingers in cold water for an hour then, according to Google covered them in Vaseline and cling-film I took myself off to bed hoping all would be well in the morning. Alas, I awoke to three huge blisters which necessitated in a trip to A&E where said blisters were de-roofed (don’t ask). I then had the indignity of wearing what can only be described as three condoms on one’s fingers for the following three weeks. Never again, I said, never again. So the moral of this story is, if you don’t want to wear ‘condoms’ on your fingers, always use an over-mitt!
The ‘alarm’ sounded at 9:25 am and the three of us gathered together on the sofa in anticipation of our 9:30am FaceTime call with Jane. Woe betide us if we missed this one for any reason. We caught up on what we’d all been doing over the past few days and the conversation turned to what we were all doing today. We told Jane we were going to walk into Mumbles and a) have a cocktail at the Gin & Juice bar b) wander around the shops to see if we could bag any bargains and c) complete our final day in Mumbles with a final visit to the Gin & Juice bar for our daily cappuccino. We could see the cogs whirring in Jane’s brain and some thought process was going on and then she spoke and gave us some wise words of wisdom. ‘I would strongly advise you’, she said, ‘to go for coffee before you go shopping, because knowing you two so well, having an alcoholic beverage before you hit the shops could be a catastrophe! You would throw caution to the wind and probably spend, spend, spend’. Ha ha, as if we would! We gave this some thought and realised she was right, so we are now going for coffee first, then shopping, then for cocktails after.
We set off on our last walk to town at 11:00am struggling a little with trying to get Winston to walk down Plunch lane but when we told him we were headed off for coffee he soon quickened his step. We’ve never known a dog to embrace the coffee culture as much as Winston, he absolutely loves it. Whenever we go into town back home he always ‘races’ off to Coffee #1, his favourite cafe where he’ll sit on one of three laps, Maice’s, Jane or mine and watch what’s going on, he’s so nosey. I digress. We arrived at the Gin & Juice bar at mid-day and were surprised to find we were the only three in there! It’s a great venue for dogs as they’re allowed in until 7pm in the evening. After coffee we had a successful trip around the shops ending up in Twice as Nice, a consignment shop that sells mostly designer labels. We loved it last time we were here and we all purchased something then. Today we purchased nothing, de-nada, tipota, zilch! Oh well, think of all the money we’ve saved that we can now spend in the sales back home. You see, there’s always a silver lining!
Winston was such a good boy throughout our shopping trip and was a hit with a) all the shop keepers and b) all the customers, getting lots of treats and pats on the head. Oh what it is to be Mr Popular! Back at Gin & Juice we ordered two special Christmas cocktails and one portion of chips. Maice went for a ‘Die Hard’ and I went for the ‘Angry Grinch’. Omg they were to ‘die’ for, so to speak. Maice’s was made with bourbon and chambord, cranberry and lime and garnished with raspberries and two large sprigs of Rosemary. Mine was made with Tequila, lime, honey, Tabasco and chillies and although it sounds absolutely revolting it was gorgeous, even though it did make my lips tingle. We think our chips were the truffle flavoured chips which were really tasty and lovely and crunchy.
It was starting to drizzle and was quite cold when we walked home. We were really looking forward to our final piece of apple cake and final glass of salted caramel rum because after today there’s none left. Must add that to the list of ‘admin’ duties……order more rum! We gave Winston his waggle wiggle wobble ball who proceeded to drive us crazy for the next fifteen minutes before we confiscated it. Next time he can play with it will be at his home, on a carpet, so it will be less noisy. Probably still as frenetic but less noisy!
We watched Gavin and Stacey on TV which we throughly enjoyed then Maice headed off to the kitchen to prepare our last supper. This was no ordinary last supper, this was an M&A inspired last supper…extra large pasta shells topped with Franca’s puttanesca sauce accompanied by freshly baked bread rolls to mop up the sauce. It was absolutely delicious.
We retired to the lounge and watched our final film, Jumanji where we both subsequently fell asleep finally taking ourselves off to our beds at 9.30pm. We’ve a busy day tomorrow as we’re leaving Mumbles and need to pack, tidy up, hoover, sort out the recycling and pack up the car. Thankfully we’ve eaten and drunk most of what we brought with us so the car won’t be so overloaded…..!
On that note it’s Nos da from us…
M&A and Sir Winston xxx
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