Christmas Day
Christmas day dawned grey and mild. As I clean my teeth I can see the church in Llandanwg, exactly a mile away in the dunes on the beach. The church, dedicated to St. Tanwg, is very small and very old. It’s said to date from 435AD, which would make it the oldest church in Great Britain by a couple of centuries, and though local pride urges me to believe this, it seems unlikely that Christianity’s first footfall on these islands was on the deserted sandy shores of Dyffryn Ardudwy.
I know of one other church dedicated to St. Tanwg, and that’s a mile up the road the other way in Harlech. In Welsh the T mutates to a D after an N, as you know, so Llan (the church) of Tanwg becomes LlanDanwg. Welsh orthography should adopt the CamelCase.
We walked down the hill for the 10:30 service. It’s calm and mild, and mist is rising from the sea and rolling down from the Rhinogs. It is very beautiful. The tiny church is packed, standing room only, and the old stone flagged floor preserves the cold most efficiently. I lose the feeling in two toes in my right foot after about 20 minutes. Stephanie the Vicar (one day I will get used to it) announces 12 minutes into her sermon that she’s not going to give us a sermon today.
When we come out of church the sun has broken through the mist lying on Y Maes. It is truly magical. A lovely Christmas morning.
Back at the house I discover a different form of epiphany: the finest sherry I have ever encountered. Sherry’s OK in general; it’s not my drink of choice, but I can appreciate its subtleties and I’m never going to say no to a glass. But this raised any pleasure I have ever taken from sherry to undreamed of heights. It was (still is, there’s a drop or two left) fabulous, unparalleled, exquisite. The nose was rich, full, sweet and complex, an almost overwhelming melange of spices and flavours. I’m not going to say cinnamon and honey and woodsmoke because that’s not only pretentious but wrong. I can’t begin to describe it.
Then the big surprise was the taste — when you smell sweetness that’s generally what you’re going to get, but this was gloriously dry, vanishing in the mouth but with all the flavour remaining, like swallowing an organ fugue. Believe me, it was sensational. So if you ever find this particular sherry, get it. I cannot praise it highly enough.
Here are the details: it is a Gonzales Byass Finest Dry Oloroso, Anada 1964 Vintage Sherry. It came with a letter from El Capitan, Don Mauricio Gonzalez, Marques de Bonanza (that’s the title for me) to say it was bottled in 1995. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I think it might cost you a bob or two, though.
Incidentally St. Peter’s-on-the-Wall, Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex, claims to be the oldest church building in England, dating from 654AD. Nice to know our local church was already 219 years old before those heathen Saesneg got the picture.