Hang the Diet!

Saturday lunchtime, I took my bleary, scruffy Saturday self off to Milford to buy a few everyday basics (milk, coffee, bin bags …). There seemed to be a lot of traffic, so I followed it (out of curiosity)  down to the docks and found a food festival on Mackerel Quay. It turned out to be the Welsh heat of the British Street Food Awards. The place was absolutely heaving with people (and lots of dogs on leads!) but I found a (free) parking space easily enough. Having skipped breakfast (no coffee in the house!), my tummy was growling at all the delicious smells wafting around. Free entry. Oh yeah, hang the diet, let's eat!

With 15 or so stalls, including a beer tent, there was plenty to choose from. My first stop was for a vegetable Malay curry, sweet and fragrant with coconut rice. A sign for squid attracted me, but I went for their monkfish taco with a charred sweetcorn salsa and mojito dressing, which was superb. I finished my three course lunch with a very gooey brownie, which was described as chocolate and laver (the seaweed), but I couldn't detect any trace of the latter. It did contain pistachios, which I love, but I didn't like the extreme gooeyness.

I spent more time chatting than eating. There were deckchairs (including three giant ones facing the waterway, which the kids were loving to clamber onto and sit three abreast!) and benches in the centre of the stalls and it was a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the lack of sunshine. It's perfectly normal here to fall into conversation with complete strangers, and have other people join in. The general consensus was that the event should be held every year, or perhaps even have just local producers every month.

Yes, it really was that grey. I hung around for a bit, waiting for the doughnut stall to reopen. It's difficult to see on the photo, but there is a long queue. Their light, fluffy doughnuts were worth the wait, but they were having serious difficulty meeting demand.

Something I should have filmed was the rather surreal effect of disembodied masts slowly moving past the back of the stalls at the end of the quay, as yachts moved through the lock between the marina and the Haven. With the weather becoming increasingly drizzly, I decided to go, stopping to shop (coffee!) on the way home.

The Sunday was a little brighter, so I fetched a friend from Haverfordwest for a spontaneous spot of 'Sunday lunch'. I had a barley and bean 'risotto' (overpowering herbs!) while my friend had sausages in a bun (but what sausages, with onions and sauce, I was almost tempted myself!) and I treated myself to sweet chilli squid. We finished with a luscious ice cream and a cuppa back in the chaos of my place (so my friend can feel better about the state of her flat, because it's tidy compared to mine. It's all relative.) My cats proved, once again, that they are antisocial little furbags.

I could so easily have missed this event. I don't generally get the local papers, Facebook frequently doesn't bring up the local stuff I might be interested in, and I often only find out about things after the event. Overloaded with information, it's often only by looking for something specific that I catch what's on. I made a pact with myself to make an effort to get out to some more cheap or free and fun things to do. Which, I've a feeling, is something far easier said than done!