A Cathedral of Sound

and the still, small voice.

Friends,

It was sunny. This is true. I was there . . .

Last weekend I managed to get away from the rain sodden hills of the borders to a usually even more rain sodden place: Pembrokeshire. There’s a a ridiculously large road sign at the side of the A40 west of St Clears which welcomes you to the county. I have never passed it in anything but torrential rain - except last weekend when it was blue blue blue. And, even better, with virtually no wind. The sea was flat calm. The views were for miles. There were nesting seabirds, yachts floating idyllically in impossibly beautiful coves. I walked, I took notes and hundreds of photographs of one of my favourite places on earth: St David’s Head, a wild strip of moorland on the western edge of Wales, a place of stone, air and water. I’m now sifting through my notes and putting a short series of essays together inspired by the place.

This first piece is about the tiny city of St David’s, more specifically about the very ancient environment surro…