Last week, I went for a holiday in Mumbles,[1] an unusually named district of Swansea at the southern tip of Swansea bay. My sister’s husband’s mother (shout out to Meryl) has a caravan there, and we’re welcome to use it any time it’s available, which is very kind. This is the second time we’ve visited.

A map of Wales showing Mumbles in the South. As with last year, non-Brits might enjoy this map

The journey there was pretty straightforward. We met half-way with my sister, her husband, and their kid — who were on their way back from using the caravan themselves — got lunch together, and exchanged the keys. My wife and I took a leg of the journey each for driving. Mine was pretty fun, trying to keep our little 0.9L car at speed on a brand-new dual-carriageway across South Wales with a loaded roof box.

On arriving we grabbed some basic supplies from Co-op and got the boys settled. Mr Four was quite bothered by everything he could hear from inside the caravan, but he was soothed by his Yoto player (a little kids’ audio player). The first day was mostly getting set up. Getting a proper shop in, wandering about the town, and so on. We also went to the park next to Swansea University, where there was that Sausage and Cider festival I mentioned in my Digest.

It was the day after that we went to Rhossili beach, a marvellous beach we’d never been to before.

Two little boys in shorts and t-shirt, looking over a cliff onto a large bay. My sons looking out to Rhossili beach

Rhossili itself is up on cliffs above the beach. Horses live among the cliffs, though they weren’t having such a great time while we were there, owing to the drought.

A horse or pony at the top of a cliff overlooking a beach. It is grazing on some very dry grass.
A group of ponies, including foals, looking hot and tired outside a building. Some are lying down. Parched ponies

At one end of the bay is a headland called “Worm’s head”, but in the sense of “Wyrm” or sea serpent.

A peninsula shaped a bit like a long serpent with a protruding 'head' at the end. People often get stranded by the tide out on Worm's Head

Unfortunately I didn’t get to enjoy being in the sea much, as Mr One has developed a rather independent streak and thinks he can do anything without the aid of Mummy and Daddy — even go out to sea. So I had to mostly keep him well up on the beach out of any trouble. The few minutes I did spend in the water were pretty cool though — hermit crabs everywhere you look, which I’ve not really seen before[2]. We did the usual beach things — sandcastles, tried to fly a kite (quite unsuccessfully),[3] and looking for shells. We liked this beach so much we came right back the next day, and this time got ice cream as well.

Next day we took the boys to a big softplay. Not much to report here; it was a big softplay!

After that, we spent some time in Mumbles itself, which is a lovely town really.

A steep narrow street with multicoloured painted cottages down one side.
Many of the houses in Mumbles are painted different colours.
We went to Joe's, a very popular ice cream parlour (that has a vegan option), looked around some shops, and let the boys play on the playground.
The facade of an ice-cream parlour called Joe's with blue signage.

The following day, we took the Swansea bay land train along the promenade.

An image of the engine of a red land train on a promenade by the sea with a bicycle speeding by.
A front view of the land train.

At the other end is an outdoor pool and playarea called Blackpill (yeah, really) Lido.

An outdoor kids pool with sprinklers and such. Ignore the drought, come and enjoy the pool.

Just across the way from there was a lovely botanical garden where we walked and then had a picnic. The rest of the day was just watching the little man in the pool.

At the end of that day, we took the boys up to Mumbles pier. This pier, which houses the lifeboat station, we still in a bad way after a big fire a couple of years ago.

A pier with a lifeboat station at the end. The pier is in a state of disrepair.

Thankfully, the fish and chip shop that does a vegan tofu “fish” had reopened. I took the boys up on the big wheel to look at the pier and the lighthouse.

alt-text
alt-text It is speculated that "Mumbles" may be cognate to "Mammaries" after the two breast-like rocks visible in this picture.

On the last day, we went to a nearby forest called Penllergare Valley Woods, which was beautiful, and had a cool waterfall, and surprising amount of bamboo.

A small waterfall.

Finally, my wife and I got a Japanese takeaway from a cute restaurant in the Mumbles to round off the holiday.

Then we just had the journey home. We stopped at Hay-On-Wye, the world’s first so-called “Town Of Books”, which has, well, a lot of bookshops and literary attractions, as well as just being beautiful in itself. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get any nice photos as Mr One was acting up again. Mr Four was an absolute angel the whole way home and dealt with Mr One’s tantrums very well… someone might be getting treated to his first cinema trip to the Paw Patrol movie this week as a reward…

  1. Or sometimes “the Mumbles”. ↩︎

  2. I mean, I’ve seen individual crabs in pools before, but not a sea-floor littered with them. ↩︎

  3. The kite also gave me dozens of splinters from the cheap fibreglass frame. I had to use hair removal wax strips and tweezers to get them out later. ↩︎