With, but not of, the shooters

 When the bus reaches Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog (destination indicator justifiably shortened to Llanarmon DC) it turns round and goes back. In fact it has no option whereas we did. Guided by satnav we came in by ten miles of cart-track high up on the ridge, barely a cars-width, dodging suicidal pheasants.

But then we were there because LDC is remote, even by rural Hereford standards. Did I mention LDC is in Wales? - Pays de Galles sauvage. It is.

The village is tiny yet has two outstanding pubs: we dined and bedded at The West Arms but it's traditional to have a pint or two across the "square" at The Hand Inn. Gradually the bar filled up with men there to shoot the pheasants we'd so carefully avoided. Some in knee breeches, some wearing shoes that may have been made by Lobb of St James. I asked one how many birds he reckoned he'd killed and he was strangely evasive. The landlord of The West Arms explained: "He probably thought you were Animal Rights activists, there to set fire to his Range Rover." I was thrilled to be thought a subversive.

The shooters began cracking very poor jokes which were marked by braying laughter. A disturbing sound and we left them to it. Another group had booked dinner at The West Arms but we ate separately, their maleness inaudible behind sixteenth-century walls. I ate Welsh crab and lamb-shanks, VR had brill. Wales does have some vineyards but there are limits to my ecumenicism. The bottle of CdP had solid worth.

WIP Second Hand (No progress; just blogging)
“The magazine was an anachronism. It dealt with general engineering whereas titles now tend to be more specialised. Its glory days were pre-war, plus a little bump of enthusiasm up to the early sixties. When I took over it had been in decline for more than two decades. Living on the echoes of its past.”