A Grand Weekend.

One of the strangest things about the goldfish bowl of Aberystwyth is its ability to instill cabin fever in almost anyone. Probably even hermits. It has indisputably been time to get away and go visit friends (even that does entail a trip to terrible Bridgend), scoring bonus points for being at home for Mother's Day and thus negating the need for a stupid, waste of money, bad for the environment, enslaving of the masses, card. I'm a heartless monster, I know.

What's more the sun has had his hat on! Hip, hip, hip, horray. In fact it has been sunny enough to provoke general panic buying of disposable barbecues and burger buns, and for me to twitch about whether last year's suncream would still be okay to use. The glorious sunshine and gentle breeze stirred all sorts of latent feelings. But for want of any better options I was struck with the desire, nay - the compulsion, to go visit the Merthyr Mawr sand dunes - a magical place where I can change colour like a limited chameleon who only does anaemic white or clown nose red.

The sand dunes are just outside Bridgend, and are part of the largest dune system in Europe, so look impressed. The tallest dune stands at 80m above OD (Ordnance Datum), and on their edge is a small fortified manor that is slowly being swallowed by the shifting sands. There's also all sorts of multi-period archaeology that turns up in the area. So not just a pretty picnic spot.

On a sunny day the first thing you notice is that the dunes are riddled with children on plastic sleighs riding around, kicking sand (need I add at you?), screaming and not so surreptitiously weeing in bushes. To transport all the irritating, ball throwing, temper loosing, skuttling, skidding, urinating children, the parents obviously need big cars. Said cars are then driven as quickly as possible along the tiny country roads. It spoils the walk through the chocolate box village of Merthyr Mawr, but does add quest like peril to the day out.

Despite it all the dunes still seem like the place to be. There's a certain rightness and dogged adversity that a sunny day causes you to embrace - especially when you get to your chosen spot and the chilling breeze makes you to realise it isn't quite as warm as you'd like. The optimistic linen skirt admittedly proved to be a school girl error. Nevertheless there I was amidst the great outdoors; the sun shone down, whilst the wind (which wouldn't stop picking up) whipped the tiny sea grasses into papercut-giving machines. There was good company, sandy hummus and gritty champagne. In keeping with the desert atmosphere, Radio 3 World Routes was the only thing the radio would tune to; no bad thing - it provided funky accompaniment with fusion tunes based on ancient Persian music. I was expecting Lawrence to ride over any minute (the dunes were used as a location after all).

I had a really great time.