Most men would prefer to drive for miles out of the way and waste a litre of petrol rather than ask somebody for directions – wouldn’t they? My Chris is of that ilk. It happened again when we were staying at Nefyn, North Wales, last weekend.

We fancied fish and chips for dinner but our hosts couldn’t recommend any fish and chip shops in the area.

“We’re a bit funny about fish and chips these days,” said our host (also a Chris) in his Yorkshire accent.

After much head scratching, he came up with a place about thirty miles away, which is quite far when you’re in the hills, and neither of us even attempted to assign the place name to memory. In fact, all the driving about we did was simply to find the local fish and chip shop down the hill in the centre of the village.

There was no sign of any fish and chip shop on the main road, or on the beach road, or any of the side roads we took.

“Let’s ask them,” I suggested as we sped past a group of tattooed and chained bikers walking on the pavement.

“What about these girls?” I asked ten minutes later as we passed three tattooed teenagers with prams on the same pavement, but facing the opposite way.

“Why don’t we just go back to the Spar store we keep seeing on the main drag and buy some bread, butter and jam for tea?” Chris said wearily (he must have been sick of driving).

So we went into the Spar store and, whilst Chris ran around picking up the items for our simple tea, I made a bee-line for a sensible-looking lady member of staff and asked for directions to the local fish and chip shop.

Now I like to think that I have a “good ear” but I have to admit that I’m unaccustomed to the North Wales accent. The lady replied, not with a pretty lilt (as expected) but with funny sounds from the back of her mouth suggesting a great deal of spittle – as if she wore ill-fitting dentures:

“Go up to the crushed toads…”

“Pardon?” I interjected.

“Go to the crushed toads…” the lady said a little more slowly but with even more spit.

“Hold on a moment,” I looked around for Chris and called out, “Chris..?”

At last he joined us and she was relieved to be able to get her sentence out:

“Go up to the crushed toads, turn right and it’s on the right.”

“What did she say?” I asked when we were on our own walking back to the car.

“Go to the cross roads…”

“Ah, well you would understand as you’re a quarter Welsh I suppose,” I laughed.

 

Up at “Gwendoline’s Chippy” a few minutes later we encountered those tattooed bikers, some tattooed older ladies and The Illustrated Man. (I thought there must be a very busy tattooist in Nefyn but Chris thought the customers were tourists from England.)

Chris and I are a bit funny about fish and chips nowadays. We thought our hosts’ chickens might enjoy our fish and chips that tasted like crushed toads but Pamela eyed the package suspiciously and placed it in her bin. Perhaps she, too, had an idea of what crushed toads tasted like. We had toast and jam for tea, which was delicious.