A staycation in West Wales has many benefits — decent beer, cake, bracing wind and waves, the impression of being 5ins taller than you are in southern England — but drama is not usually among them. Each year is pretty much like the last: bucket and spade on a sunny day, driving around aimlessly when it’s raining, laughing at the dual language road signs. This summer, however, one mishap after another has livened things up. Hackney was never so exciting as the past 15 days in Pembrokeshire. And it ain’t over yet.

First we had the pilot rescued by round-Britain rowers in the Irish Sea. Then a trawler caught fire in St Bride’s Bay. Next day there were unconfirmed reports of a drinkable cappuccino in St David’s, and next morning we woke to the Hackneyesque sound of a helicopter circling overhead. Turned out a car had failed to negotiate the tight bend below our cottage, plunged down a gully and made it halfway to the beach before coming up short on its roof in a stream. The fire brigade and ambulance service were on hand.

Of the occupants, no sign, hence the chopper, scouring the gorse with a thermal imager. The doors had been dutifully locked, somewhat unnecessary given the vehicle’s location. What was going on? The mystery kept us in conversation for days, after which we returned to speculating on the likelihood of a Somali pirate attack on one of the tankers off Milford Haven.

Cake whole

I mentioned cake: surely Wales could lay claim to being the cake capital of the world? Sponge, shortbread, sticky toffee, lemon drizzle, those flattened scones the Welsh go in for, call it what you will, it’s all basically cake, and the stuff is everywhere. A friend overhears two local ladies discussing their dinner plans in a petrol station. “I don’t think I’ll have any food tonight,” one reveals. “I’ll just have cake.” (Repeat in a Welsh accent for full effect.)

Off-roader

Back behind the wheel, it’s a hazardous business, driving in these parts. A friend picks me up from the spanking new gym in Haverfordwest, and on our way back to the coast we come across a VW Sharan leaning drunkenly into a hedge. The couple standing next to it have pulled over for an oncoming car to pass, only to discover the hidden ditch that you always suspect might be there, really is. Rather unsportingly, the car they have made such a generous amount of room for has vamoosed.

My pal and I give the wife a lift to the nearest farm, where a tow is negotiated. All sorted, and a mere ten-minute detour for the good Samaritans. The perfect good deed: virtuous yet convenient.

Town meets country

Usually, observing the etiquette of the single-lane carriageway is more onerous. You tend to spend a large chunk of each day chugging along at 3mph behind horses, or tractors, or reversing to the nearest passing place.

It can be tedious, yet the upside is a chance to study the fascinating sociology of the single-lane salutation. Generally speaking, the farther one has journeyed to be here, the more effusive the gratitude. Ruddy-faced locals, understandably tired of the routine, favour the nugatory flick of the hand. We tourists, delighted to escape potentially lethal similar stand-offs in the city, beam and grovel and kowtow and flash our headlights in an excess of no-please-I-insist-you-first zeal.

Indeed, for all the hoo-hah about Broken Britain, I’d guess the biggest bottlenecks on these lanes are caused when two incomers meet, both desperate to be the one to yield. A peculiarly British impasse is the result, each townie keen to show the other how well we have taken to what we imagine to be the rural way, but, in fact, isn’t.

On my wavelength

To keep people guessing, I have developed a wide variety of acknowledgements to other motorists. My stock greeting is either the royal wave or the Stan Laurel headscratch, yet I like to mix these up with the military salute, either correct Trevor Howard British or casual John Wayne American, both work well.

Sometimes I wait until the last possible moment, when the oncoming driver is right alongside, the two us inching between drystone walls, cars a mere finger’s width apart, at which point I unleash a stern Leninist clenched fist and a muttered “Thanks, comrade.” That usually gets a giggle. My favourite, however, is the theatrically cheesy thumbs-up accompanied by lavish wink, Fred Pontin meets Bernard Matthews.

It’s all good clean fun, it passes the time, and you couldn’t do it abroad.

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