A Birthday Memory to Cherish

A Birthday Memory to Cherish.

I was hoping that the café, by the sea, was open – especially in the current Coronavirus climate.

As I parked-up, having had a pleasant, un-eventful journey, I saw someone through the glass – it was a positive sign.

I was armed with £20, so I could realistically have had anything I wanted, especially as I eyed the rectangular cakes, which looked so appetising; finally deciding on a fudge one.

[Thinking about it now, on this Monday morning, I should have stayed. Stayed in the hotel over-looking the beach. It was the last chance to be anywhere sort of normal. To have escaped. I regret it now that I did not and will continue to regret it in the coming days and weeks when the country will no doubt go into ‘Lockdown’].

Coffee was ordered and I said, ‘I’ll have that cake and treat myself’, adding, ‘as it’s my birthday’. And it was too. I was determined to have done something with it. To make it a tad memorable amongst this growing un-certainty.

There were comfy chairs – well mini sofa ones; which were ideally placed to look out to the grey sea and tide, which was going out, continually revealing the long, sandy beach.

I knew I had made the right choice.

A couple sat opposite. They were from, as I established, ‘Cwmavon’ not ‘Carmathen’, as they told me Cwmavon was only about 2 miles away. I can’t recall their names at the minute but he, say ‘Bert’ was a Postman and this was the third week of his holiday. The day before they told me that they had been to ‘Verdi’s’.

‘Yes, I know where that is’ I said, thinking of being there with a former girlfriend – in fact, it had almost been our last date. It over-looked the same sea but from the end of Mumbles, near Swansea.

‘They were cleaning all the time there’ said the wife, who resembled Pauline Colins.

They were a lovely couple.

‘When he rings me up from work, he doesn’t ask anymore how am I, all he says is what’s for tea?’ the wife said, laughing, with her husband grinning in acknowledgement. ‘All he does is eat! Mind, he walks it off every day, walking between 10 and 14 miles’.

Then she told me, that Bert’s favourite was ice-cream and when they had gone to a café in Spain, they could go up and get as many re-fills of ice cream as they wanted. 

‘Oh no, not him!’ she shrieked, ‘he went and filled his bowl right-up, so much that the ice cream kept on coming out, that it went everywhere and in the end they had to switch the electric off in the shop to stop the ice cream coming out!’.

We were all laughing at this – how amusing…I had the image of all long lines of ice-cream spreading everywhere like foam from a fire-extinguisher!

‘He loves cakes too – cinnamon and lemon ones.’ He was a typical man who loves his food.

‘Businesses will be going to the wall’, she said at one stage, adding more than once, ‘it is what it is…’

How true – this horrendous thing is really beginning to bite home now. Italy and Spain are in lockdown and I truly believe that this country will be before the week is out. What is it 280 plus deaths now? Also, I feel it is going to get worse before it gets better. No one knows how long this is going to last…

I spoke to them about the football and being worried if Liverpool will ever win the League – as a decision was being made on that day to try and at least play the current season out at some point, which was a snippet of good news amongst the continuing doom and gloom.

‘I’ve got a ticket to see Wales and Scotland’ as Bert explained that he had almost begged his boss to have that time off and now he did not know when and more importantly ‘if’ he would be able to go to any re-arranged game. ‘I scratch his back – he scratches mine’ Bert said, as he explained that he worked a lot of overtime. I hoped that he would eventually get to see Wales, especially as he had forked out nigh on £100 for the day.

Sometime along the way my phone went and it was my mum. She had been worried about me and sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to me which made me smile. I was still loved by someone then. She guessed where I was, if not who I was with! Then I explained that I was meeting my cousin Christine later on and she was happy to hear that, as I was ‘down home’ as she calls Aberavon.

Remarkably the lady who I was talking to told me that she had once lived in the street, opposite the rugby ground in Port Talbot, and it backed onto my mum’s old street. She did not know a Dorothy Sporne or Passmore for that matter – once I had correctly recalled my nan’s maiden name. Just imagine if she had! Small world anyhow.

I could tell that Bert had itchy feet. Just like my dad would have. He could not stay in the same place for too long either. I felt that the lady could have just carried on chatting. That’s just it, they were so warm. I did not feel like a stranger. It was like I had known them for ages and had just bumped into them.  This is what people are going to miss, this is what I am going to yearn for. Interaction with people – even people I don’t know or now will never know.

She waved goodbye and I tried to eek out my coffee and contemplated getting another one but there was the beach, getting larger all the time as the tide went further out on the horizon. I could have a coffee anytime at home and try the crossword but the beach – well, it just called to me.

I had about an hour and there was only one thing to do.

Within five minutes I felt the wind in my face and threaded my way onto the sand, picking-up a random shell on the way and videoing the tide and the seasons of the sea, as winter was becoming spring. I was sure in the coming days, weeks and months, it would be a Birthday memory to cherish…

1085

23/3/20