Anglesey

2025 Favourites: Looking Back To Ynys Mon

We didn’t go far last year, but we did spend a week on the North Wales island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn). We often go for Christmas, but this time we were there in late March. As ever, the view across the Menai Strait to the Welsh mainland came with its own enthralling light and shadow show, from the sublime to the mistily mysterious. It was hard to tear ourselves away.

Serenity ~ Inside And Out

There are vistas that manifest serenity – at least as seen through human eyes. (I mean who knows what fervid biological imperatives are playing out beneath the calm surfaces of things).

This distant view of the Great Orme from Anglesey was shot on a late December day, the air so still there is barely the hint of a tide. No clouds either, and the sun warm enough to go coatless and believe the seasons have fast-forwarded to June.

Another ‘still waters’ scene. An end-of-summer sunset in Kalamata. I watch a naked man wade into the rose-tinted shallows of the Messenian Gulf, talking on his cell phone.

And a third sea-serenity scene: another December, this time long ago, a tropic summer afternoon on the Manda Strait; Lamu, dhow captain Mzee Lali dreams.

Then there are things that induce a sense of serenity in me. This unruffled cloud for instance…

The close-up view of hawthorn blossom and the scent of lilac…

The gentle fragrance of bean flowers and pleasing thoughts of beans to come…

And the all embracing company of trees…

…whatever the season…

Lens-Artists: Serenity This week Egidio at Through Brazilian Eyes sets the theme. Please pay him a visit.

Breaking the rules: more by accident than on purpose…

I’m not sure what was going on when I took this photo. An unintended composition, methinks: camera aslant; subject leaving the scene; shooting into the sun. An all round combination of errors, but then I also quite like the end result.

Here both the camera person and the subject were on the move, in other words, me snatching this shot of an uphill cyclist through the car windscreen; caught on a bend in the Llanberis Pass, North Wales.

Next at Plas Newydd, Anglesey in late December, taking a photo when there wasn’t enough light and leaving a twig in the way:

Taken on Newborough Beach back in March: too much negatives space; subject out of focus and also leaving the frame. But then that’s kite-flying for you.

And camera on the wrong setting for a winter’s day on Seaton Beach, Cornwall. It seems to have created an oil painting effect:

And last but not least of strange creations:

It took me a while to work out what I’d done here. Basically it’s a photo of a frosted spider’s web stretched outside the window of other half’s old Wenlock shed. But you can see both the shed interior and the reflection off the window which seems to show neighbouring rooftops and some of the garden.

Lens-Artists: Break the rules This week Ritva tells us to break the rules. See her post for some inspiration.

Weather’s Untamed Ways…

…from heavenly ethereal to eerily supernatural:

Herewith some recent views across the Menai Strait – from the island of Anglesey above Beaumaris to the Welsh mainland.

We’ve just returned from a week’s stay on Ynys Mon. It was our first March visit to the island, our usual time-slot being late December, and our arrival coincided with both the spring equinox and a spring tide. In fact we had never seen the low tides so low. When the sea went out, sand banks never glimpsed before, became exposed.

You can just make them out in the first photo. This reminded me of the tales of the Roman invasion of Anglesey around 60 CE and how Governor Suetonius Paulinus equipped his army with flat bottomed boats to deal with the uncertain depths across the strait. But it is possible, too, that there are/were low-tide paths, known only to locals. Perhaps Suetonius Paulinus found himself an informer. The conquest anyway was bloody: the object to smash the power of the Celtic tribes’ druid priests who made their last stand on the island.

There’s more about this at an earlier post: Island of Old Ghosts.

For the mystically or meditatively inclined, you can see how weather watching can enthral; you never know what may happen next; all the elemental forces conspiring: the ever changing light, coastal winds, cycles of convection and condensation, the lunar-solar ebb and flow of tidal waters.

So much weather in a week on this tiny corner of the planet. We had hot sun, biting winds, cloudless blue skies, deep gloom, rain (though not so much for Wales), drizzle, mist, stormy and glass glittering seas.

Late one afternoon we watched, with some sense of awe, as this white cloud moved low along the mainland shore, spilling out like dry ice till it reached the Great Orme headland.

And then one evening…

At other times the mainland looked gauzy. It could be a mirage. Or there again it reminded me of the magic painting books we had as children – the wash of colours emerging from the empty page.

Lens-Artists: Wild This week Egidio at Through Brazilian Eyes wants to know what wild means to us. Go see what wild means to him.

Breakthrough

Day two of Becky’s month of squares. The themes are burgeoning, move forward, reconstruct, renew to interpret how we will. The only rule: the header photo must be SQUARE

Sometimes to move forward you need a flash of inspiration: the kind of serious ah-ha moment that brings clarity, or a shift of focus. Not always a comfortable process, mind you, but if it sparks momentum, then that alone can be salutary. Or as Tom Petty put it “if you don’t run, you rust.”

This photo was taken one Christmas afternoon on the lane to Penmon Point on the island of Ynys Mon (Anglesey). The view is of the North Wales mainland across the Menai Straits. These extraordinary light shows over the water are a local feature, and so I tell myself that it’s not surprising that the island was the Druids’ last stronghold in the face of the Roman invasion, or that early Christian hermits settled here. (See Island of Old Ghosts.

Early morning above Beaumaris

#squares-renew

Moving Water, the Wales Edition

Whenever you visit Wales, you can always be sure of plentiful H2O. Whether it’s tumbling down mountains, as here at the foot of Cader Idris…

Or filling rivers as in the Mawddach Estuary near Dolgellau…

… and the River Glaslyn at Porthmadog (Wales’ tallest mountain, Snowden, in the background…

Or on its sea shores…

at Harlech, North Wales,

Broadhaven

…Newport and Fishguard, Pembrokeshire:

or on the island of Anglesey

Or simply dropping from the sky…

You can tell we love visiting Wales, can’t you? Though usually best to take good rainwear.

Lens-Artists: water in motion This week Sofia inspires us with some wonderful compositions. Go see!

2023 Began Beside The Sea

When last year began we were on the island of Anglesey in North Wales – gathering with family for a belated Christmas celebration. It was good to soak up some blue tranquillity. At the time, we were fretting over the sale of our cottage, plus trying to find a bolt-hole to rent while we looked for a new home to buy. All unnerving in all sorts of ways; nothing straight forward.

Finding a house to rent proved almost as hair-raising as selling the cottage (Huge demand, few available properties). Only by the skin of our teeth did we secure a place in time for moving day in early March. And then it snowed – for two days, an unexpected blanketing that closed most of the roads. Snow – of all things. The Farrells had not factored that in. Still, a day later than planned, and by devious routes, the removal lads came through. We were re-homed.

Then more unforeseen happenings.

View from one of Broseley’s many country paths: bright and cold in March

By the time we moved to Broseley (East Shropshire), we had already set our house-buying sights on Bishops Castle or points well south-west of the county. For one thing, we wanted to be nearer to my sister, and I’d anyway dismissed Broseley as a final destination. I’d known it from an earlier chapter in my life and always thought it a plain and unalluring town.

Just shows what I know. I didn’t expect to fall in love with the place. It began with finding a maypole at the end of our street; and from it a sweepingly magnificent view above the Ironbridge Gorge. And it began with finding beguiling footpaths that meandered in and out of town and took us to some wild, wild places that seemed slipped out of time. And most of all it began when I discovered the network of thoroughfares and alleyways that belonged to Broseley’s ancient industrial past, the wonderfully named jitties, that to my mind suggested jetties, or things that jutted like prows of ships. Exploring them on our cool summer days felt like voyaging – through time, space, the imagination.

Go HERE for the jitties posts.

Here is one of many favourite finds: some historic re-purposing of discarded artefacts in an old wall on Gough’s Jitty. It’s been built from saggars. These earthenware boxes were once used for the packing of clay pipes, then stacked in a bottle kiln for firing. There were several factories in the town from the 17th century onwards. They exported their wares around the world. In fact clay pipes were often referred to as ‘Broseleys’.

Apparently the spot for some illicit fist-fighting back in the day.

Lodge Lane became a favourite walk. Once there would have been the heavy rumble of trucks hauling coal from Broseley’s mines, an area still called the Fiery Fields due to the old coal pits’ erstwhile tendency for spontaneous combustion.

Broseley sits above the Severn Gorge, directly across the river from Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale, so-called birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The town evolved from an early 17th century squatter community of immigrant miners. Coal, clay, ironstone and limestone were plentiful. There was timber for construction and for the making of charcoal for fuelling furnaces and forges. And there was the river for transport down to Bristol. The wealth of local resources attracted the likes of ironmaster-pioneer, John ‘Iron Mad’ Wilkinson, who lived here from 1757 in a very fine mansion opposite the parish church.

I loved these views of multi-period, multi-layered habitation.

And likewise across the River Severn on the opposite side of the Gorge:

Broseley’s neighbours – Ironbridge and the Iron Bridge (1779)

I suppose if the little house in Bishops Castle hadn’t cropped up, we might well have stayed in Broseley. The folks were so friendly there. As it is, it’s good to think of our brief sojourn, even with the little pang of loss. Strange, how things turn out.

But now we’re here in an ancient agricultural town, where the folks are also very friendly. Clearly there’s many a tale to unravel here, or will be, once we’ve sorted out the house. This may take a while. For one thing, come spring there’s a new extension in the offing: this to remove an old conservatory and transform the space into a bright new kitchen with doors onto the garden. Apart from this, every room needs some serious attention, plus two chimneys to rebuild, and maybe the roof to replace. And then there’s the garden…

So all is in flux and not a little confused. But even so, with the turn in the year, it’s beginning to feel like home.

Lens-Artists: Favourite photos of 2023

In A Winter Light

This week Amy at Lens-Artists wants us to show her contrasts. Here are some of mine from winter sojourns on the island of Anglesey in North Wales – a favourite destination for family Christmas gatherings.

And a favourite place for photo-taking too. The combination of solstice sun, cold air, mountain weather and light off the sea creates some striking effects, especially along the Menai Strait between island and mainland.

Lens-Artists: Contrasts Amy sets the challenge with some fine contrasting compositions. Go see!

The Day The Sun Fell Into Henllys Woods And Other Light Shows

It is said that the Druids faced their final battle with the Roman Army on the North Wales island of Anglesey in 60-61 AD. According to Tacitus, things did not end well for them and their sacred oak groves. [See my earlier post Island Of Old Ghosts]. Early on in the invasion of Britain, the island had become a refuge for resisting Celtic warriors, doubtless assuming that the Menai Strait would present an obstacle to the legions. (It didn’t).

But for the Druids – the seer-diviner-lore-keeper-law-makers of the community, I tend to wonder if it wasn’t the island’s more extraordinary characteristics that they drew on. The quality of the light for one, and especially in winter when the sun over sea and strait and mainland mountains creates some mesmerizing effects, even when caught in monochrome.