When my daughters were in the grammar school I used to like reading their set books. This is how I came to enjoy Laurie Lee's 'Cider With Rosie', which I enjoyed so much thatI read 'A Rose for Winter' and 'As I walked out one Midsummer Morning'. In one of his books, Lee says the smell of a pepper tellshim he is in Spain.

This morning, the kitchen was warmed by the scent of the tomatoes I bought in Fishguard yesterday.

I've not been to Spain, but I've been to Pollensa, in Majorca, a few times. In the market there they sell huge brutes of tomatoes, wet garlic, (large bulbs), parsley and chorizo.

Many countries have alingua franca of cooking, basic dishes which, plus or minus some ingredients, have a lot in common. Chorizo stew could be another word forCawl.

When I came home, Imade a version of Spanishstew, using chorizo sausage from Ultra Comida in Narberth, a wonderful Spanish delicatessen. (Here you can taste olives, cheeses, membrillos, and almond cakes. One morning, my daughters and I had a coffee each,toasted ciabatta and honey, plus a cup of thick chocolate. We dipped some of the bread into the chocolate. Divine!)

To make the stew Iused chopped lamb, a chorizo sausage, white pepper, salt, four or five tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic, (fresh or dried, as you like), a tin of chick peas, a swirl of olive oil. All you do is put the ingredients in a large saucepan, cover with hot water (I put a stock cube in as well, flavour is all)and simmer slowly for a few hours.

In Spain, they mash stale bread into the soup to thicken it. I prefer a thick stew, but it depends how much water has evaporated as to whether it needs extra bulk. Accompany the stew with broad beans, not overcooked, and garnish with chopped fresh parsley for flavour and sparkle.

Bay Watch on Harry and Oliver: Harry is in Whitesands today.

Last week, in Newgale, a dog named Chunky chased a seagull out to sea. Realising theHungarian viszla could not get back to land, Lifeguard Sam Ellison swam out and brought Chunky back on his rescue board. Chunky lives in Maidenhead and his grateful owners have given a donation towards theRNLI lifeguards.

Oliver and girlfriend are off to the Greek island of Rhodes next week. Hannah got a bit narky with Oliver when he kept dropping off to sleep on the settee when she was searching the web for a holiday.

She can't complain too much though, because he's doing two extra shifts to pay for it. Happy Holidays!

It was Newport, Pembrokeshire,for Harry today, who wasfeeling better after yesterday'shepatitis jabs, which are advisable for Lifeguards.

Ollie was in Fishguard,learning how to administer defibrillators. The boys have one car between them and since their starting times were different, I took Oliver to Fishguard.

Before coming home, Ibought some locally growntomatoes.

Someone once remarked that if you're educated, you knowa tomato is a fruit, but if you're knowledgable, you don't put it in fruit salad. Quite. How about makingtomato jam?

Surprisingly, the tomatoes lose their peppery taste when jammed and don't even taste like tomatoes.

Fresh tomatoes deserve to be eatenuncooked. We're having a tomato salad tomorrow with toasted rosemary bread and slices of Havarti cheese from Denmark, to give a tangy taste. But when the tomatoes are a few days' old, I'll jam them. Here's how.

Ingredients:

1kg of tomatoes

1kg of preserving sugar

2 unwaxed lemons.

Method

Skin the tomatoes. Plunging them in boiling water first willmake things easier. Quarter them, remove the cores and seeds.

Microwave tomato flesh for 5 minutes until it is tender.

Grate the rinds of the lemons and squeeze the juice out.

Put all ingredients in a very large saucepan and warm slowly, until the sugar melts. Now bring to a gentle boil, mixing all the time, so the sugar does not burn.

Keep on a slow boil for 30 minutes or so, stir occasionally, but don't leave the kitchen. All sorts of horrible things can happen if you do, like the jam boiling over, for instance.

The liquid will reduce in this time. Put a spoonful of jam on a saucer. Take saucepan off the boil.Test in 5 minutes to see if thejam is setting. If not, give it ten minutes again, when it should have set.

When cool, pour into glass jars.

The addition of a bunch of thyme, added as it cools but removed after 10 minutes, gives a savoury bite. The jam could then be used to accompany roast pork or spread in a bacon and Brie sandwich.

It was a Friday evening. The boys weren'tgoing toCardiff, so Iwas staying the night, just to make sure theyremembered to breathe in and out, eat, sleep, the usual things.

The girlfriends were coming andI was going to cook an easymeal beforegoing to bed, nice and early. Later, the boys wouldput next door's cat over the wall, switch off the computers, double lock the doors, put the chains on.

By midnight, they'd be in their rooms above me, ready to start exerciseson the wooden floor, go downstairs, put all the lights on again, trip loudly on the stairs, unlock the kitchen door, make protein shakes, creak their way back up the stairs, shower, accidentally drop a few files on the wooden floor, move their office chairsback and fore,(no, I don't know why, either) this way and that, then jump into their beds, knocking the headboards againstthe walls.There is comfort in routine, if you think about it.

Well,this particular evening, when I arrived the front door was open, never a good sign.I caught a kip of a skateboarder (a "friend") going around the corner. Inside, about fifteen others (guests,as it happened, but I was a bit slow on the up-take) were scattered about the house. One of them was scootering up and down the kitchen andTrish and Dex, nice pair butnot met them before,were huddledover the computer, too busy to look up.

Icalled Harry and Oliver. 'I didn't know you were having company. How long are they staying?'

'You can't tell with parties'.

'Is this a party?'

'No. No'. Oliver was thinking on his feet, walking and chewing gum at the same time, as it were. He likes to keepeveryone happy. 'We're just having a take-away.'

'Yeah. That's right. Just a take-away.' Harry looked admiringly at Oliver, silently congratulating him on his quick thinking.

'When you go to parties, dothe parents mind when there are a lot of you in the house?'

'No, they're fine, just fine. They're easy about it'. (Harry).

Notwantingto spoil things,I rang my daughter, who seemeda trifle irritated with me.

'Mum, you're the adult. You tell them what to do. Send them home if you like. Ididn't know they'd asked a crowd over.'

I felt at a loss, a bit like the Queen who twiddled her thumbs in an agony of indecision whenasked by alittle girl what her name was. (She could have tried 'The Queen' or 'Queen Elizabeth', but said nothing).

Notwanting to spoil everyone's enjoyment,I stillwanted theparty guests to go home.(It's not that I don't want the friends, but I don't want them, but I didn't put it like that, quite).

When the scooteristwent to the toilet, Igrabbedmy chance and dumpedthescooter in the basement.After he came back, he appeared to be looking for something.

Trish and Dex stirred at the computer: Theorder for theChinese takeaway was all sorted. DidI want anything? I'd wondered whatwas engrossing them so much.

'No, I'm fine', I replied, keeping my voice even.

Trish called everyone to attentionas shechecked if enough fried rice, egg rice,dim sum, dumplings, duck, pork, noddles, seaweed, battered this, fried that, had been ordered.Three hundred pounds had to bechecked and ready to pay the delivery man.

I felt my head jerk- (I live such a sheltered life). What was this?A banquet? A bacchanalian food fest? Heavens, I knew people whose wedding breakfasts had cost less than what they were spending on a take-away.

I jumped to my feet.'I can make food', thewords came out in a rush.

'Chinese?' (Oliver)

'Yes, but not now.I'll go round to the chippie and get a few things.'

Harry smiled at me indulgently.

'No worries.Once they've got the order, the food'll be here in half an hour'.

Two guests hadn't ordered. They were catching the 'bus for Newport, Pembs.

'Make sure you getthe 412. The other onegoes only as far as Fishguard'.

(I knew this because Harry's girlfriend livedin Newport). 'You'll have to be quick.' It left in ten minutes' andit wasa brisk ten minute walk to the 'bus stop.

I held the front door open for them, praying they hadn'tforgotten anything.

'We'll come back if we don't catch it'. My heart sank.

Trish and Dex lived in Llandescwt, a place so isolated it might have been bandit country or an area of the Navajo desert.

'What time were you thinking of leaving?' (Afterthe Chinese, obviously. I'm not totally insensitive).

'My Nan is picking us up at ten, whenshe's had her treatment in hospital'.

Alarm bells went off. I couldn't see an elderly patientleaving the hospital at ten o'clock at night and driving to a remote area. The last bus for Llandescwt left at nine o'clock.

My face must have registered some emotion they understood. 'It's ok. We can always sleep here'.

I was in bed when the delivery came.The boys came up to see if I wanted a taste, but I was fine. There was a quiet lull for the five minutes it took them to eat everything, so I would say it was a success.

Some time in the wee small hours, doors closed, opened, toilets flushed, people laughed, shrieked, mattresses were pulled across landings but, day must dawn and it did.

The sun was shining and the house had the silent rhythm of people sleeping deeply.

I tip-toed downstairs, I don't know why, because it takes a whole lot of something to wake a teenager.

Well, to cut a long, long story short, I was thinking of theseweekendsI've spent with the boys and their friends the other day.

You see there's somethingI haven't told you. The boys are going to the school of art, as you know. What you don't know is that I'm going, too. Yes.The three of us have had unconditional offers.

At my interview I was asked a number of questions. I remember the last one best:

'How do you think you'll get on with your fellow students,teenagers, that is?'

Ihad thereply on the tip of my tongue: 'Fine. Just fine. No worries'.

And I mean it. I'm going and I'm looking forward to it, and theteenagers willgive it a plus factor.

Want to party? Come on down, then,to the Preselis.Yes, that's right. Forget La La Land. The Preselis is where it's at, believe me. Bring a sleeping bag and you canboogy woogy with the best of them, every Friday and Saturday night, all year round.

Glandwr, Hermon, Hebron, Rhydlewis, Pentre Scagal, Penybont, Rhydyybont, Cwmscwt.Lay your head under any convenient kitchen table, or on someone's settee- (chuck the cushions on the floor and presto! double the sleeping accommodation, a bit like the Great Bed of Ware, in which fifteen people were crammed; they were twtsin those days.)

Well, the examinations are over, you see, not that they've hinderedmy twingrandsons when it comes to the weekend jollies, no, not at all. They're Party People. Regular Fries.

They've sailed through their course work and examinations, dim trwbwl o gwbwl,if you listen to them, that is.

Take the course work. Meant to be spread out over a few terms,it so happened that one day, by happy chance,one of them remembered there waswork they'd forgotten about.It had to be in by

1 o'clock the following day.

'How much is there leftto do?'

'Quite a lot.'

'Quite a lot?'

My voice wenta bit squeaky. I wasasked what I was stressing about. There were twenty four hours left, after all.

'What about bed?' I enquired,only to be met withamused looks.

(That old joke about the doctor who failed his examinations because they werea day early came into my mind. But we were talking late, not early.)

The boys commandeered the kitchen table, one at each end. At eleven o'clock the weary parents were told to stop fussing and ordered to bed. My grandsons had puta mattress on the floor, and were going to take turns in having a rest;the cat was already stretchedout overhalf of it.

11.10 pm anddisaster struck. The Pritstick(glue) ran out. The front door had to be unlocked, unbolted, unchained. The boysranto Tesco.Back by 11.30, they'd boughtsandwiches and Red Bull to keep them going. The door was locked, double bolted, chained again.

Next morning,9.30am when I arrived, things were still on-going and hope hadn't faded, not with Harry and Oliver, anyway.

'No worries, we'll get it in'.

My daughterlooked hollow eyed and kept asking 'How did this happen?', over and over again,but otherwise showed remarkable constraint.

Iwas showna receipt for computer cartridges. Tesco again, 4.20 am.

I looked at the two of them. They read my thoughts. The door, the locks, the chain. . .

'We climbed over the back wall (ten feet high) so wedidn't disturb Mum and Dad withthe front door'.

'How did youclimb back in?' (The drop the other side is steeper). One 'hwped' the other up and hereached down and pulled his brother up.

Incidentally, the work got in on time.

'What did your tutor say?'

'She seemed surprised'.

'Incredulous, youmean?'

'You worry too much.'

'Ie, siwr'.

My daughter gave me a piercing look: 'D'you understand now why I feel tired?'

'They're Genius', I replied. 'They could havehigh-powered jobs. They've demonstrated they can work under pressure without cracking'.

'Mum, are you mad? You're alwaysexcusing those two. They need to do some work.'

Never mind. They're off to art school in September.

Pob lwc, bois. Somehow,you'll manage.

I've had my binoculars trained on the Pembrokeshire beaches this summer.I'm watching out for someone. The Prime Minister's cousin, Harry Mount, no less. He swam in Freshwater West last summer. Advisedpolitely by a Lifeguard that he wasin a dangerous part of the sea, he rather took the huff.

Sending a letter to the 'Western Telegraph' he explained that, as the 'Prime Minister's Cousin' , he did not need informing that the sea could be dangerous.Furthermore, Mr Mount had noticed that the Lifeguards swaggered around the beach as though they were angels of mercy. They wore sunglasses(!!!) probably to make themselves more appealing to girls.

I, and many others, e-mailed the paper.

I declare an interest. My grandson is a Lifeguard and, like all the otherswho patrol the beaches in summertime, undergoes a tough monthly swimming test.

They are trained in the basics of Health and Safety, including wearing sunglasses to protect the eyes, suncream to protect the skin, how to administer oxygenand so on.

I know from reading the paper, that my grandson has been involved in rescuing a 65 year old who panicked in his kayak. Without stopping to ask him his lineage, two of them swam out, fixed ropes aroundhis vessel and their boards, and swam back to shore with the kayak in tow. They gave the man oxygen and a cup of tea. He was gracious in his thanks.

Last yearthe Pembrokeshire Lifeguards alerted the Coastguards to people stranded on rocks, dealt with heart attacks and strokes, re-united parents and lost children, administered emergency first aid andvarious similar situations.Most of them areaged eighteen to early twenties. They are making the beaches safer places. Let's support them.

Dal ati, bechgyn! Keep at it, boys.

Rhianne and Swansea Jack have set me thinking about the song, 'Myfanwy' . It has been sung by Bryn Terfel andRhidian, the Morriston Orpheus choir, Donny Osmond and many others.

What is it that makes this song so enduring?

The words are thatof a lover, addressinghis dear one, Myfanwy. Hewants to know why she is angry and the sadness in the words is echoed in the strains of the music.It isabout romantic love that encounters misunderstanding.

Not everyone believes in romantic love. It is a concept full of difficulties.In the Age of Chivalry the troubadors travelled around castles serenading fair ladies who sighed with longing when they heard them. This wascourtly love, not beastly or carnal, but romanticised.

Shakespeare said that 'love is not love that changeth when it alteration finds', but I disagree.

Idealised love cannot admit reality. Everyonechanges, sometimes causing their loverto leave them. The problem with romantic love is that lovers fail to see each others faults at first. Later, whenthingssag and creak, love can change to hate.

In 'Starburst' I have described this situation:

'Love is a jewel', you sighed, splattering

Crystallised blossoms, emerald on the grass.

Diamond dew drops, my lips glittering

As I lie, whispering: 'All things are brass'.

I love, you love, we love love, love you, too;

Clasped in lovers' knots and forget-me-knots.

Sapphires pledge fidelity, berry-blue

Eternity, when stars are merely dots.

I tossed the diamonds into the bin.

If I stop loving you, it ain't no sin-

You've got to learn: the moon is only tin.

Sour cherries, sour cream, sour dough.

Love is a jewel, by now I should know.

In the early years of the twentieth century,the High Street in Haverfordwest offered a wide selection of shops.

Although'ready- to- wear' clothes were becoming moreavailable, many ladieshad their garmentssewn by skilledseamstresses.

J. Llewellin Phillips soldchildren's and ladies 'undergarments' as they were euphemistically called.

Corsets were expensive, but essential for the 'hour glass' shape that many young and not-so-young ladies aspired to.

By 1913 the motor car, open-topped then, was becoming popular with the more affluent.

Lady passengers oftenkept theirwide brimmed hats on their heads by securing them with ribbons. Thehats sometimes sported veils that came over the face to protect the eyes from dust.

Miss Flora Phillips ranamillinery business from 29, High Street and other milliners in the town included Miss Emma Simlett in North Street and Mrs Kate Llewellin in St. Martin's Place.

The 'Pembroke and County Guardian' of 18th July, 1914, caught a hintthat fashions in Londonwere adapting to the new mode of transport.

West End milliners were making soft little hats for summer, with or without a motoring veil. The brim had shrunk to 'a mere nothing' andthe prettiest models were in a 'flattering shade of mole, lined with exquisite delphinium blue'.

Mr Tom Davies,ran the 'County Clothier' at the top of the High Street, selling men's clothes. Lower down, atNumber 16, Arnold Abraham had bicycles for sale at 4-10 shillings. Most young boys, and many girls, yearned for one, but only the richer people could afford them.

The architecture of the High Street is varied and elegant. Prosperous merchants lived in some of the houses during the eighteenth century and County families also had homes here, enjoying extravagant balls and parties during the winter months. W.H. Smith traded from a building which had survived from the sixteenth century.

The High Street is steep and tinkers often beat their sick animals when they could not pull heavy loads up the hill. This resulted in prosecutions, reported in the local papers.

I was walking in Hill Street, Haverfordwest, recently. Gwen and Augustus were educated in College House. Nearby is a mounting block, whichriders could climb to get on their steed.

A few yards further on is the 'Green' (now a car park).

In his book 'Chiaroscuro', Augustus relates how he and Gwen enjoyed going to the May and October Fairs, held on the Green. They were warned that gypsies stole children and he wondered why, considering they had so many of their own, they wanted more.

Gypsies held a lasting fascination for John.Theylived outside the conventions of the strait-laced Victorian societyin whichJohn had been brought up.

As an adult, away from Pembrokeshire, Augustusadopted a bohemian lifestyle, too, and Gwen lived in Paris for many years.

If the brother and sister had returned toHaverfordwest in the early years of the twentieth century, they would have seen changes in transport occurring.

Sir Hugh J.P. Thomas was the first person in the town to own a motor car. In December, 1903, he was given the registration DE22. The speed limit in the town was set at 20 mph.

Ten years later, in 1913, Pembrokeshire County Council, recognising an increase in motor traffic allowed 40 p.a. to be spent on keeping the approaches to the County Bridge in good repair.

Roundsmen like bakers and milkmen continued to deliver their goods driving a horse and cart, often into the 1940's.