“I’ve put you down for the cabbage” said FB. “Oh that’s OK” said I. This was a little while ago – December 1987 for the pedants. GPD and I were living in Pembrokeshire in newly married bliss, working at a consultancy in the stable yard of a field studies centre. We lived in a doll’s house cottage in the countryside, GPD’s bachelor pad that we were gradually transforming into a house for two. It was an idyllic spot, unless the army was on exercise; our cluster of cottages was by a tank firing range and during the summer the Europeans would visit and spend a week or two blowing the cliff tops to smithereens. They would generally do this at night, and the windows would rattle with each deep, echoing boom. Not the sort of stuff you find in estate agents’ blurb. It’s a beautiful area nonetheless; I was back there last summer working on a beach below the range and our cottage looks as cute as ever.
Anyhow, the kitchen staff at the field centre had recently catered for some big event and were on strike, refusing to cook a staff Christmas dinner. Undeterred, we all agreed we’d do it ourselves Continue reading