IT’S half nine at night on the summer solstice.
The light is doing the golden hour thing it only does in June, and my four-year-old is scattering dragonflies as she launches herself into the cold water.
“Can we go in the ‘cold pool’ again?” she asks the next morning. Again. She has asked roughly 200 times this week.
The pool in question is the natural swim pond at Tanylan Farm, on the coast road between Ferryside and Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire.
We stayed in Ty Llo (Calf House), one of a handful of holiday barns on site — and the pool was the single best thing that has ever happened to my daughter.
Rain or shine, morning or night, she was in it.
There was a sauna next to it for the grown-ups, a private hot tub outside our holiday cottage, and the beach was 400 yards down the lane.
My wife and I, our daughter and baby son had travelled by train to Swansea then picked up a hire car and made our way to Carmarthenshire — that bit of Wales everyone drives past on the way to Pembrokeshire. Their loss.
On day one, the sun was out so we visited Pembrey Country Park — 500 acres of woodland backing on to Cefn Sidan, an eight-mile stretch of sand that was the first beach in Wales to win a Blue Flag.
The sand is absurdly fine and the water so shallow that by mid- afternoon it had warmed up like a paddling pool.
For small children, it is close to perfect.
The park itself is the showstopper, though.
There’s a dry ski slope, a toboggan run, crazy golf, a pirate adventure playground and miles of flat, traffic-free cycling on rental bikes.
We arrived planning to stay two hours and left after seven.
Next day, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, just over half an hour’s drive from the farm, was one of the most relaxing family days out we’ve ever done.
Monty Python fame
Think Eden Project but at a size you can easily get round with a buggy and a pre-schooler.
The Great Glasshouse, packed with plants of six Mediterranean climates, sits in the landscape like a dropped raindrop.
We ate our picnic sandwiches in the “Canary Islands”, with the smell of cedar and lavender.
Outside is 568 acres of restored Regency parkland, lakes, waterfalls — and a Gruffalo trail themed on the kids’ book character.
Kidwelly Castle, of Monty Python movie fame, is a 20-minute drive away.
“Let’s climb to the top, Daddy,” my daughter begged. So we did — and the views over the Gwendraeth estuary are worth the effort.
From on high, I told my princess-obsessed daughter about a real one, Gwenllian, who rode out from this castle to lead an army into battle against the Normans.
I left out how it ended (head lopped off) and she was suitably impressed.
Our final stop was the British Bird of Prey Centre which recently moved to a purpose-built site at Idole, near Carmarthen, after years at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
It flies golden eagles, red kites, owls and peregrines, with three shows a day and an indoor arena for when the Welsh rain sets in.
We did get four days of rain but it barely affected our week’s getaway.
There was always a glasshouse, a castle, an indoor flying arena — or that cold pool.
We’ll be going back for more — she’s already asked.