Today was a short 12-mile walk into Pembroke, taking in two oil refineries, a dock and a power station. I was tired from the day before, and the scenery didn’t look inspiring, so I thought of a steady plod and a welcome day off.
And so it went until a few miles outside of Pembroke. I met a young lady and her Labrador walking the Coastal path to Angle.
She was pretty upset and explained that I might want to change my route because of the cows. They had chased her and the labrador across a field, and in getting through the gate at the end, she had cut her hand quite extensively. Sensibly she carried a first aid kit and had patched it up but showed me photographs of the original injuries and, indeed, the offending cows.
I explained I’d been bought up on a farm with cattle, so I wasn’t over-worried.
“Are you a cow whisperer? “ she asked.
“ more of a shouter”, I replied.
I didn’t want to ask if the Labrador was part of the problem as she was upset and blaming her by implication wasn’t a good move.
I tried to cheer her up by showing her pictures of my troubles with goats the day before. This, oddly, seemed to help. We said goodbye and I set off to confront the cattle.
I found them near Pembroke lying peacefully in their field. By the time I had stopped and taken a photograph of them, they were all on their feet and gathering around the gate.
On a closer look, they were youngsters and clearly looking for a game.
I shouted at them, and they pulled back enough to let me open the gate.
I walked across the field, followed by about 50 young cattle. Periodically I’d hear a scuffle behind me, and one would canter past snorting. I shouted at them, and they backed off.
I reached the other gate unharmed. If I had run, it would have been a different situation as the cows would have run too as part of the game they wanted to play.
I reached Pembroke and my very interesting hotel, more of which later.