Fishguard nocturne

But not yet 5pm. 
I'm standing in the entrance to the Town Hall waiting for my bus to arrive. (There's no bus shelter.) Rain is hurling around, propelled by the gale-force winds. The Irish ferry can't get into the harbour and its 87 passengers will have to spend the night at sea...

When I get off the bus a couple of miles away and head for home I find myself ankle deep in water where the stream has flooded. In the darkness the lane is booby-trapped by brimming potholes and then by a fallen branch. (Why didn't I leave this morning with wellies and a torch?)

My day included a meeting with a couple of others to discuss the information we need to provide for 'our' Syrian refugee families, before and when they arrive. (For those of you who don't already know this, a group of local people came together earlier this year to offer the chance for some Syrian refugee families to settle in the community with our help and support. Although similar initiatives are taking place elsewhere sponsored by local authorities, we are the first independent  community group to do this, directly  under the aegis of the Home Office. Several others locally are following our lead.)  

We tried to think about what the families will want and need to know about our community and how we can provide it in such a way as to be helpful for the United Nations Refugee Agency who will select and prepare  the families coming here, and also to be useful for these strangers in a strange land when they arrive at a small Welsh seaside town. Obviously we must supply information about the whereabouts of essential services such as schools, health centres, shops, libraries, post offices and public transport. (For the nearest hospital, benefits office, mosque and halal meat supplier they will have to get to the county town 15 miles away.)

 A recent newspaper report indicated that learning English is key to successful integration. We have already lined up a team of qualified teachers, some ESOL-trained,  to work with the refugees but Welsh is also in use both officially and by many as the mother tongue here. That could add another challenge to newcomers.
We wondered about including photographs within the information we  provide and I undertook to dig out, or take, some pictures of the town and its relevant features. The images to be found on tourism websites are unlikely to depict the sort of thing the families need to know about most urgently, nor the weather conditions they can expect.
In fact it may be exactly this sort of shot that best conveys the realities of a Welsh winter. If we keep on course the first family will arrive early in the New Year.