Menai Straits

The Blissfulness Of Blue On A Winter’s Day In Wales

We have spent several Christmases on the island of Ynys Mon, otherwise known by its Viking name of Anglesey, in North Wales. The weather in December always throws up surprises. On our last trip this was one of them – a perfect, windless, cloudless day with warm sunshine. We wandered on the Menai Straits beach, looking out at the Great Orme peninsula at Llandudno across the water. I found myself watching this young man and his little  boy, so absorbed in their play, the sun catching winter-white faces. No sound but the call of an oyster catcher.

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That day in that place, we felt the universe had just given us a gift.

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Lens-Artists: Blue

Cloud shadow: contrasts II

 

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The light, the clouds, the sun do extraordinary things over the Menai Straits, the narrow sea channel between the island of Anglesey, Ynys Môn, and mainland Wales. This photograph was taken at midday in late December.  I was standing on Beaumaris seafront and looking towards the mainland. To the southwest the mountains of Snowdonia were frosted with a light cover of snow. It was all very dreamlike. And it made me think that  it was no accident that the Druid priests of the ancient Celtic tribes made the island their sacred stronghold, or that after the Romans withdrew from Britain, the early Celtic Christian missionaries established their sanctuaries and churches on the island. Whatever your faith, or even if you have none, such glorious vistas surely speak straight to heart, spirit and soul.

For more images of Ynys  Môn see my earlier post Island of Old Ghosts.

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© 2014 Tish Farrell

Weekly Photo Challenge: Contrasts