Back ache and blue skies

I finally made it to Gower on Monday. I took the cat to the PDSA in the morning, and had a very weird experience on the way. I got off the 145 bus by the old Colliers Arms pub, and the car yard. I crossed the main road, and had just started to climb the hill, when a white transit van pulled up beside me, with the driver waving and beckoning me. "Not bloody likely", I thought, as he was a total stranger to me.

I tried to speed up the hill, but as I'd pulled my back hauling the cat and her steel cage up the garden steps earlier, I was having difficulty moving. Well, this creep jumped out of his van and followed me, insisting I spoke to him. He was foreign, Polish or Estonian, possibly, but definitely East European. He spun me some line about wanting a cat for his daughter. He then asked me to sell my cat to him. By now, I was getting really panicky, as this guy had stopped, got out and followed me, and had then made a bizarre request. I mean, no normal person sees someone taking their cat to the vet and asks if they can buy it, right? Especially some scrawny little bag of bones that is very clearly an elderly, ailing cat. I made it clear to this guy that his approach was unwelcome, as he was really freaking me out. Just then, a couple of cars came down the hill, so he made his excuses and left. Creep.

Anyway, we were in and out of the PDSA pretty quickly. After taking the cat home and grabbing some food, I hopped on the 118 to Rhossili, as I had a day ticket to use up. It was an unbelievably sunny day for October.





In fact, it was quite bizarre to find myself walking around the cliffs in summery weather, whilst Rhossili Down blazed with autumn colour. Autumn is one of my favourite times of year for visiting Rhossili, as I love to see the hillside ablaze with russet tones.





The cliffs had their own autumnal touches, too, thanks to the chlorophyll-depleted bracken, brambles, and red earth poking through the sheep-churned grass.





One of the first things I spotted when I got off the bus, was this para-glider, having a whale of a time whizzing over the Down, bay and village. Every time I see one of these plucky people, I really envy them. I have neither the health nor the courage to do anything like this, sadly. The view must be breathtaking from up there.









As ever, the cliffs were populated by sheep. It was quite hard to know where to put my feet, because there was a mass of stinking sheep manure everywhere. I certainly wouldn't have tried sitting anywhere on the cliffs.









I couldn't get very far along the cliffs, as lugging the cat around earlier, had given me a bad attack of sciatica. I felt, with every step I took, as if my left leg was going to give way, plus I was in a lot of pain. I took one last pic, and decided to get the bus home.



I'm keeping an eye on the weather, and the next decent spot of weather we have, I hope to get further afield than Gower. Where, I've yet to decide, but weather, health and finances allowing, I should be able to do so sometime in the next week.