Road to Porthgain

I spent most of that afternoon in Porthgain pretending to be the sort of person who sits in pubs and sketches confidently.

I ordered a coffee in the pub and sat by the window with my sketchbook open, hoping no one would notice I hadn’t drawn a single thing. Every few minutes I’d add a line or two, just to maintain credibility. The woman behind the bar gave me a polite nod that suggested she’d seen this sort of behaviour before.

Later, I wandered down toward the harbour with my sketchbook still under my arm, just in case. The road curved away, the sun was dropping straight into the water, and everything had that very Welsh, end-of-day feeling. Nothing dramatic. Just the sense that the place was finished for the day, whether I’d managed to capture it or not.

I didn’t paint it then.
But clearly, it stayed with me.