Proactive Friendship Pays Off

         It is said that men are not very proactive when it comes to nurturing their male friendships. (Those who question this assertion might be interested to know that a recent scientific paper, in attempting to quantify the apparent differences between male and female friendship patterns, provides some evidence for the credibility of this assertion.) Perhaps that’s why women often step up to help their menfolk with their friendship management.

          For example, we spent a few days last week with old friends we had left behind when we moved from Manchester to Plymouth. As two (straight) couples, we rented a cottage on the coast of Cardigan Bay – a location equally inconvenient for both parties but well suited, nonetheless, to our tastes for gentle hiking and general poking around in historically interesting places. Our coming-together was, of course, initiated and arranged by the women.

          The cottage is in the village of St. Dogmaels, a short walk from the town of Cardigan. St Dogs, as the locals call it (or so I was informed), once had an abbey, the ruins of which are bang in the middle of the village and significant enough to sustain a visitor centre that doubles up as a community café. The morning after our arrival, it was buzzing with locals and visitors who had come for the weekly craft and produce market set up in the adjacent car park. Here, we stocked up on organic veg and a chicken that had previously ranged freely but was now destined for our supper. Across the way, at the old mill – still in operation – we bought a surfeit of bread from the artisan baker. For us townies, it was the ideal village experience.

          Nor did the walking disappoint. The forecasts threatened rain but it mostly held off. Being out of season, we had little or no company, except for the couple who caught up with us on a set route that we were following from a 1993 Ordnance Survey guidebook. My Other Half and I had made a note in our copy of the book that we had completed this circuit in 1996, though neither of us had any recollection of the route and its sometimes remarkable landmarks. The text gave directions that were not always obvious, especially when stone stiles had since been replaced by metal gates, so we took a few wrong turnings. But so did the other couple, who were following the same route but using an app and GPS for guidance. We challenged them to meet us in the pub at the end but, the last we saw of them, they were heading in what was definitely the wrong direction through a wooded valley.

          We also met a Land Rover on a narrow lane and, as it slowed to let us pass, the driver, an ageing crusty with dreadlocks and a smoking joint between his fingers, leaned from the window, grinned widely and muttered something friendly sounding. I took him to be a survivor of the drop-out culture, one of those who went to live the simple, organic life in remote parts of Wales years ago and were never seen again. Later, we walked past a ramshackle farmstead littered with old machinery, vehicles and other stuff that might one day be recycled but meanwhile lay rusting. But it was the political slogans painted on the barn that made me suspect this might be the home of our latterly encountered crusty.

          We dined each evening at the cottage, wilfully ignoring the list of recommended restaurants provided by our host, for we are comfortable with the intimacies of sharing space and the preparation of meals. Our jollity was fuelled by many a glass of wine, though, now I come to think of it, we men ought to have raised one of them as a toast to the women for bringing us together again.