It’s March 2017 and I am seventy. It’s the first birthday where I’ve felt my age – not that I feel old, but I’ve become conscious of age. Many decades ago a good friend got in a panic at turning thirty (I’d passed that a couple of years before) and I was totally confused. What was the problem? Why the panic? Since then I’ve been waiting for the Big Birthday that would impact upon me in the same way that thirty did on her. Well, it’s now happened. I am seventy and it means something. 
It means that I am now well into retirement and, I hate to admit it, slowing down a bit here and there. It’s time to sort out that bucket list. I guess a big issue here was the fact that my driving licence expired and I had to apply for a new one – which runs for only three years! No one told me it was time-limited. So all of a sudden, at the age of seventy, I’ve embarked on time-limitations.
At or near the top of the bucket list has to be travel. So what better way to start my seventies but with a travel project: to drive around the entire coastline of Great Britain. As far as it’s possible, of course. Keeping to good B roads and not using tracks or dodgy roads about to crumble off the top of cliffs into the sea. That calls to mind a road across the clifftop at Southerndown on the beautiful South Glamorgan Heritage Coast. It became part of a landslide some years ago and is no more. But they’ve built a new one so you can still reach the beach and rocks. How long will it last? Only the sea knows the answer to that.
My coastal project started on my actual birthday when my daughter and I drove across to West Wales and the stunning coastline of Cardigan Bay. It was a gloriously sunny day, the sea sparkled and in little harbours like Aberaeron, boats bobbed around and tinkled in the breeze or lay lazily on the mud. West Wales has so many inlets so the journey is convoluted and fascinating. 
At times you are at sea level, at others high above the rocks on a road winding around hills and cliffs. And all around you are birds, large ones wheeling above your head – red kites in particular have made a comeback to Wales 
– and small ones darting in front of the car and sitting on fences watching humans.
We purposely took the longest route possible – hugging the coast wherever we could and passing through lovely towns like Machynlleth, Dolgellau, Barmouth and Llanaber. The scenery was stunning, the weather perfect – what a day to turn 70!
Crossing over the causeway at Porthmadog where the little train climbs up to Ffestiniog, we continued round the coast to Abersoch on the Lleyn Peninsula. More boats, sheltered harbour, windy one-way road through the village – or is it a town? We managed to park up and find a cafe with views over the harbour, and sat, with blankets over our knees, basking in the late afternoon sunshine. Being March, it wasn’t warm, but it was invigorating. 
Retracing our steps to Criccieth with its castle ranging out into the sea, we arrived at our hotel, a monster of a stone Victorian building, where we settled in before going for a wander and a curry. An end to a lovely day, and a brilliant way to start my new decade. A great way to start my new project.
So now I can colour in that stretch of the coast on my map of Great Britain. Of course, I’ve covered many other bits during my lifetime, and they will get coloured in too; it’s a case of covering the bits in between. This is going to be fun!
Patamateria 