Quelle surprise!

Good friends go to inordinate lengths to bring pleasure to your life. Such it was last a few days ago with my better half, Snip (her nickname from our schooldays). We were heading away from Glastonbury up the M5 towards Bristol, when she announced that she had a surprise for me. Given Snip’s surprises are always real surprises I was filled with both excitement and a certain level of trepidation. As we were closing on Bristol I was rather startled when she ignored signs for the M4 to London and took the M4 in the opposite direction instead. I was still protesting that we’d taken the wrong turn when minutes later we plunged into a deep hole and shortly, as Snip always travels at break-neck speed, we emerged from the said hole into another hole. Perhaps that was being a tad unkind, we had emerged in Wales where all the road signs are in both Welsh and English. Despite this linguistic challenge we were now heading west in the opposite direction to London. Snip’s investment in ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ literally ate up the miles and soon we were passing the grimy blast furnaces of Port Talbot with the next big town Carmarthen. By now my mind was cycling through all the possibilities with that exquisite excitement that ‘surprises’ always induce. Skirting Carmarthen I began to smile knowingly. We were going to Laugharne the home of Dylan Thomas I decided. Snip knew I was an avid fan of Under Milkwood . However when the time came for us to turn off the trunk road and head South down the River Taff I was startled to find we were still heading West. I hate being wrong and Snip’s smug expression didn’t help as she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to Paul Simon’s latest album So Beautiful or So What . My mind was now running out of possibilities the only the place this road went to was Fishgaurd and the only reason anyone went to Fishgaurd was to catch the ferry to Ireland. ‘We have to get back to London by Thursday,’ I reminded her. She shrugged and smiled. Shortly, she left the road for country lanes heading away from Fishgaurd. Wrong again. The road rapidly narrowing to a single track with occasional passing places, the road-side grass was now rubbing both sides of the Audi. I was completely stumped. We were now completely off the beaten track.


Shortly we stopped in a tiny village of picturesque cottages adorned with roses.


So primitive was it that some people could only afford straw roofs.

‘Dinner’ Snip reminded me setting the Audi into sleep mode with her remote control and headed for a small country pub advertising dressed crab. I prefer my crabs stripped, but what the hell, increasingly frustrated I followed her. Inside the menu looked surprisingly good and when Snip returned from the bar with two pints of Theakston’s Yorkshire bitter I knew my day was looking up. Give Snip her due, when she organises something she does it with military precision. So good was the beer that I was soon wearing a well torn trail to what the Americans for some unknown reason call the Rest Room. Passing the bar I abruptly stopped in my tracks. A large framed photograph caught my eye. I felt a pulse of excitement in my lower stomach. Les petits macareux!! That’s why we were here……….. but how did Snip know about my life-long fascination with these hilarious, clown-like little creatures? I smiled, I hate not knowing. The trick now was making sure that Snip didn’t realise I’d tumbled her surprise. They had been on my ‘must-see’ for so long that I was consumed in excitement.


The next morning I was woken at 6.00am by Snip brandishing two packed lunches. Outside the sun was splitting the sky. ‘we have to get down there early,’ she explained. 'Tickets for the island will be sold out by 8.30 am.' Five minutes later we were contemplating a tiny inlet which had been adapted to form a harbour.


We queued patiently and an hour later a small blue boat nosed its way through the swell.


On board it would be fair to say the conditions were intimate. Everyone seemed to be sporting serious cameras, the guys brandishing huge telephoto lenses… what is it about guys and big appendages? …..either way it was a tacit reminder that all I had was a little Panasonic compact in my pocket. My heart slumped…………. ah well adapt as my father always says….


Ten minutes later the island came into view, home to hundreds of thousands of sea birds a large proportion of which live underground along with the rabbits.


Once we’d scrambled up the steep path we assembled to be addressed by the warden. It was important not to stray from the path she instructed. The island was like a huge piece of gruyere cheese honeycombed with burrows. Not only was there the danger of disappearing waist deep, but also crushing several families of birds too.


Once the steep cliff had been scaled the island was mainly flat. In the foreground can be seen the hummocks made from hundreds of years of burrowing.


The island had an incredible wild grandeur about it.


The cliffs are home to thousands of guillemots and razorbills…….


….birds occupying every precarious foothold……


There were gulls everywhere their raucous clamouring almost deafening….


….but of my quarry there was no sign. Then suddenly I squealed with excitement as one popped it’s head out of a burrow. My exhilaration was only matched by profound disappointment at not having an adequate camera with me. Snip nudged me. Delving into her backpack she hauled out one of my father’s cameras. She laughed and kissed me. This surprise had clearly been in the making for some while.

Suddenly the it had the makings of being a perfect day…..

(to be continued)