then we hit Wales

Pem­brokeshire, Pem­brokeshire, we could have spent WEEKS there, vis­it­ing one gor­geous cas­tle ruin after anoth­er. Alas, we had just one day-ish. It’s hard to believe that a place as beau­ti­ful as Lam­phey, Wales could exist just a few kilo­me­tres from the evil fer­ry port, but it’s true. We drove through the small­est, nar­row­est roads I’ve ever seen, bound­ed by enor­mous hedgerows of a solid­i­ty that belies envi­ron­men­tal reports of their demise. And fog!

We arrived at the Lam­phey Court Hotel, a beau­ti­ful old pil­lared coun­try house that was lus­cious­ly lux­u­ri­ous even in the rather aus­tere bare­ness of late Octo­ber. Sur­round­ed by sheep, as you see! Avery and I had just been say­ing that we missed only two things in Ire­land: good walk­ing spaces and sheep, and there they were! Although in my com­muning with them I attract­ed the atten­tion of their farmer lady who rode up on a trac­tor and made me promise not to wor­ry them. They did­n’t look wor­ried to me, but I was good and left them alone. So we vis­it­ed the adja­cent Bish­op Lam­phey’s ruined palace instead, a place of inde­scrib­able calm and peace, and a quite won­der­ful scrap of medieval win­dow left. Just gorgeous.

We all set­tled down to read and relax, me with Lady Diana Coop­er’s third vol­ume of her mem­oirs, Trum­pets From the Steep, and what a queru­lous, brave, fun­ny, spec­tac­u­lar­ly social lady she was, with fas­ci­nat­ing tales of the blitz, wartime farm­ing, meet­ings with princes and lords, and her sep­a­ra­tion from her son as he was raised in first Long Island and then Cana­da, to avoid a kid­nap­ping and black­mail temp­ta­tion for her hus­band’s polit­i­cal ene­mies, if you can imag­ine. Such a good read.

A cosy if unre­mark­able din­ner in the hotel’s restau­rant and up the next day to head back to Lon­don. The heav­i­est fog you can imag­ine, com­plete­ly obscur­ing the fields on either side of the tiny roads our quixot­ic Sat­Nav insist­ed we fol­low. It was amus­ing to hear her try­ing to pro­nounce the Welsh names! Final­ly we reached Kid­welly Cas­tle for a last ven­ture back into the mid­dle ages, and even on a rainy, fog­gy, unpre­pos­sess­ing day it was LOVE­LY. Rather intim­i­dat­ing­ly tall with creepy dark wind­ing stone stair­wells and a mossy cir­cu­lar bit of chapel. It’s well worth a vis­it, and we planned to see sev­er­al oth­er cas­tles on the way home, but sud­den­ly were ready to be home, and three or so hours lat­er we were, with kit­ties very glad to see us.

Real life beck­ons now, or will do on Mon­day. Tomor­row is Avery’s birth­day! Hav­ing learned from last year’s insan­i­ty, and with the hap­py coin­ci­dence of a birth­day dur­ing half-term, we will not be host­ing 27 gulls here in house. Instead, we’re tak­ing Avery and Anna to the Viking strong­hold of York by train tomor­row, for a relax­ing trip to tourist-land where some­one else can be in charge of the enter­tain­ment and infor­ma­tion. So my brief today is to pro­duce a dish of lasagne suit­able for the return­ing war­riors tomor­row evening. I think I can han­dle that.

Extra Cheesey Lasagne for a Birth­day Girl
(serves at least 6)

1 box lasagne sheets
2 tbsps olive oil
5 cloves gar­lic, minced
1 white onion, minced
1 pound beef mince
2 soup cans peeled plum toma­toes, crushed by hand
2 tbsps Ital­ian seasoning
dash red wine
2 balls mozzarella
1 cup grat­ed ched­dar cheese
1 cup mascarpone
1/2 cup grat­ed pecori­no or parmesan

Saute gar­lic, onion and beef mince in olive oil, then add toma­toes, sea­son­ing and wine and sim­mer until thick and NOT juicy. Set aside.

Cook lasagne sheets. Spray a deep dish with non­stick spray and place in bot­tom one lay­er of pas­ta. Spread with beef mix­ture and sprin­kle with ched­dar, then one lay­er of moz­zarel­la slices. Top with anoth­er lay­er of pas­ta sheets, over­lap­ping if nec­es­sary (you want to use the whole box, 10 sheets or so). Top with more grat­ed cheese, more moz­zarel­la and the whole con­tain­er of mas­car­pone. Top with more lasagne sheets and the remain­der of the meat mix­ture, fin­ish­ing with a lay­er of cheese and sprin­kling with pecori­no or parme­san. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Absolute heaven.