Welsh Treasures

Hello, thanks for popping in, it's so lovely to see you here.  Today I am linking up with Amy at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday, even though it's Saturday and I am chasing my tail again. 

 

So, this week was our half term holiday and like most teacher households, we have spent it catching up with the things we don't have time to do during term time.  We have helped our daughter and her husband with a bit of garden building, spent some time with my parents,    caught up with a good friend and done some admin and chores at home.  I have been with my lovely Holiday Husband and it's been relaxed, sociable and very satisfying.  However, in an unabashed bout of selfishness, we snuck away to the seaside in North Wales for a couple of days at the beginning of the week.  The cloud was so low that we didn't see the tops of the mountains - in fact, sometimes it was so low that we couldn't see the mountains at all - and the sun didn't shine once, but we didn't really care. 

 



We spent hours on the beach, walking, sitting, looking down on the sand and the stone and looking out at the waves and the birds.  We came home with earache,  aching legs, faces encrusted with salt and grinning from ear to ear.  Here are five things we saw while we were there.

 

1.  Welsh National Dress

 

 

St David's Day is fast approaching and it is customary for young children to wear traditional Welsh costumes to school on their national day.  We saw these hanging up at the front of a large supermarket - entire costumes, complete with hat and fabric daffodil.  For little boys, there were white shirts with red and black checked trousers, waistcoats and bow ties, the waistcoats adorned with a printed leek.  I have it on good authority that older children simply wear their national rugby shirts!

 

2.  A Mermaid's Purse

 

 

We have a saying in our house that whenever we go to Anglesey, I find a mermaid's purse, the eggcase of a shark or ray.  In fact, I found this one at Dinas Dinlle on the mainland, west of Caernarfon, a beautiful specimen.  It's curly tendrils, which attach the case firmly to bunches of seaweed, told me that it came from a shark rather than a ray and its large size and thick edges identify it as a nursehound case.  However, I think I prefer to believe that it belongs to a mermaid, who might keep her shiny little shells in it.

 

3.  A Spider Crab

 

 

I found this dead juvenile spider crab on Llanddwyn Beach on Anglesey.  It was very small and looked absolutely perfect.  Some people apparently think it's odd to take photographs of a dead crab but it seems quite reasonable to me!  Twenty-first century beachcombing.

 

4.  Brent Geese

 

 

As we arrived at LLanddwyn Beach, a small flock of Brent Geese flew in and landed in the shallows.  I spent quite a long time watching their comical behaviour - and Barbara, I thought of you! 

 

5.  St Trillo's Chapel

 

 

Tucked away on the promenade at Rhos-on-Sea is St Trillo's Chapel, one of the smallest churches in the country.  It's so small that we drove past it twice before we found it, despite the fact that we knew almost exactly where it was!  It is a little gem and deserves a whole blogpost of its own, but our visit was as much a part of this trip as the beachcombing and birdwatching so I wanted to share it with you here.

 

Happy weekend, everyone.  It's grey and gloomy here again.

 

See you soon.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x