Unlocked and Uplifted

Hello, thank you for calling in.  I have something exciting to share with you: for the first time since 2019 I HAVE BEEN AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

This is the second week of our Easter school holiday and as the covid restrictions were due to relax a bit on Monday the Best Beloved and I planned to take a few day trips but on Tuesday last week, when the Welsh government confirmed that the border would be opened to visitors from outside Wales on Monday 12th April, the Best Beloved suggested we go to Anglesey for a few days.  I got straight onto our favourite glamping site and booked us in for two nights.  

We began the day with breakfast in the park because the cafe was putting out tables and chairs for the first time this year.  To be honest, I was a little disappointed as there was no china or table service so it was basically operating as a takeaway with seating, but the sun was shining, the food was good and my spirits were high at the thought of going to the seaside.  Whoop whoop!  We went back home and I threw a few things into my bag: knickers, woolly socks, gloves, sunglasses, book, map, crochet project, fairy lights...what else does a girl need for a couple of nights away??  We decided to drive the scenic route and enjoy the journey, and it was a treat:  the sky was blue, the mountains were snow-capped and the fields were green and full of lambs, lots and lots of lambs, possibly thousands of lambs.  We arrived on the island at about 2pm and drove straight to Waitrose to buy some provisions - not our usual grocer but we wanted to indulge ourselves after so many months at home.  (This branch of Waitrose used to be a Co-op but Waitrose took it over...after Prince William and Catherine Middleton moved there in 2010!)  We arrived at the glamping site at 3pm, as arranged, and settled in to our pod.

On Tuesday the sun shone again and after a leisurely breakfast of poached eggs and smoked salmon on toast we drove out to Traeth y Gribin where we stayed for the afternoon.  After a walk along the strand line with my head down (seaweed, little dead crabs, cockle shells, limpets and painted top shells) I sat down to watch the light on the water change as clouds drifted across the sky, read my book and watch the birds.  As the tide receded, mudflats were revealed, punctuated by the small rocky ridges which give the beach its name as "gribin" means "serrated ridge", and to my delight, wading birds appeared.  Meanwhile, the Best Beloved went for a longer walk and then took a nap.  It was a perfect afternoon, even though I was wearing my big coat, a scarf, gloves and a hat.  This is exactly what I had been longing to do for months, you can stick me on a beach in almost any weather and I'll be a happy bunny for hours.  That evening we had fish and chips for dinner and watched the sunset through the glass doors of our warm and cosy pod. 

 

We left the pod at 10am the following morning.  The owners allow five hours between each occupancy to enable the pod to be thoroughly cleaned and we were asked to strip the bed and leave the doors and window wide open.  The communal kitchen is closed but a toaster and microwave oven had been added to the pod, which already had a kettle and a fridge, and we took a small, portable camping stove with us.  We were entirely self-contained and I felt very safe.  If you'd like to have a look, click here to see where we stayed.  

Before leaving the island we went to another beach.  Again, the sky was intensely blue and so was the water but it really was too cold to sit out so we sat in the car for an hour or so and enjoyed the view, carefully storing the memory in my mind because I don't know when I'll get to the sea again.

I really needed this break.  I was feeling very low beforehand, almost as flat as a pancake, finding it difficult to drum up enthusiasm or energy for almost anything at all.  This lockdown has significantly depleted my mental reserves but Anglesey air has blown the cobwebs right away and cleared the fog from my brain.  I was sad to leave the island behind but I have brought home with me a spring in my step, a smile on my face and some beautiful memories.  I am ready to face whatever the next few weeks bring. 

See you soon.  Stay safe and take care.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x 

Back to Anglesey to find a Hero

Hello, thank you for calling in.  It's lovely to see you here, especially at such a busy time of year.  I feel that we are thundering down the road towards Christmas and that I am running out of time to get everything done.  I know that I'm not, I planned well, began early and I'm on track, but I feel that I am fraying.  It's 5.30am and I have been awake for two and a half hours, my mind whirring.  This is absolutely normal for me at this time of year but it's still difficult to manage.  So, in an effort to gather myself together and find some serenity, I have been thinking about my little break in Anglesey last month when the sun shone, the sky was blue and the Best Beloved and I spent some quality time on our own together without the distractions of work or tiny people.

We have been visiting the island for more than twenty-five years and of course we have favourite places but each time we go now, I like to seek out a place we haven't been to before.   There are two bridges linking the mainland to Anglesey and this one is the Britannia Bridge, built between 1846 and 1850.   I had read about a statue which stands down here on the Menai Strait and I wanted to see it so on this beautiful November Sunday morning, after attending the Act of Remembrance at the cenotaph in Lanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch (which we call Llanfair PG) we drove to St Mary's Church, which is tucked away almost right under the bridge, and left the car in the car park.  We followed the path down through the churchyard.  Now, I have to say that if you like poking around churchyards, as I do, this one is delightful.  There are many different styles of headstone, some rather grand, and there is this monument which commemorates those people who died during the construction of the bridge - not just builders, but their family members, too.  It's an interesting story and you can read more about it here.  The most recent names were added in the early 1970s when the bridge was reconstructed after a devastating fire.
 

This was fascinating and we looked all around, reading every name, but it wasn't what we had come to find so we carried on and picked our way carefully down the path to the Strait.

I caught a glimpse of him from the path so I knew where I was heading.  The Best Beloved went ahead of me across the seaweed and the mud and through the very shallow stream to make sure that the route was safe and I followed behind.  Here is the hero. -

And just what is Horatio, Lord Nelson doing here, looking out across the Menai Strait?  An art lover and sculptor called Lord Clarence Paget, a younger son of the Marquess of Anglesey, lived beside the Strait at Plas Llanfair.  He had been experimenting with concrete to create statues in the grounds of the estate and liked it because it was cheaper than marble and more durable outdoors so he decided to create a statue of Neptune to stand down on the shore.  However, he was persuaded that the statue's subject should instead be Lord Nelson,  who regarded the Strait as "one of the most treacherous stretches of sea in the world" and said that "if you can sail the Menai Strait you can sail anywhere".  The Admiralty was surveying the Strait at the time and suggested that if Paget erected the statue in a slightly different place to the one he intended, it would serve as a navigation aid to sailors, marking the entrance to The Swellies, and by the time the statue was unveiled in 1873 it was already marked on the naval charts. 

 

We lingered here, it was so very peaceful.  Then we strolled back to the car and on the way, I stopped for a while to enjoy the trees.  I know, I'm a bit odd, but I like trees, especially in the autumn.

Back in the car, the Best Beloved was keen to drive off the island into Snowdonia because it had snowed the previous day and he wanted to see the mountains.  It was a very picturesque drive and we stopped at Llanberis to take some photographs.

On the right at the back, under a snow blanket, is Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales.

It was a beautiful and memorable day.  The following day, the sky was grey and overcast but we were not deterred - we are British and we dress for the weather!  So, we wrapped up well and went to Porth Trecastell, Cable Bay, so-called because the first telegraph cable from Anglesey to Ireland was laid from here.  This is one of my favourite places and we walked along the beach recalling the many happy days we have spent here - our children paddling in the shallow sea and poking about in the rockpools when they were small, the time we found a line of stranded jellyfish all along the shoreline, our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary when the sun beat down and I danced in the sea in my party dress, the time Storm Bryan washed up a dead leatherback turtle onto the beach, and watching wild waves and brave surfers.  This was not a day for taking photographs but we recalled many of the snapshots we hold in our heads.  Here is a photograph I took there in July 2017.

 

Then we moved on to another place we have visited before, St Cwyfan's, the Church in the Sea.  Of course, the church was not built in the sea, it was built on the land in the twelfth century but the sea has eroded the land around it and would have taken the land beneath it too had a protective wall not been built in 1893 after some of the graves fell away.  I think the church looks as if it is perched on top of a hatbox and when the tide comes in, it is completely cut off.  I have walked along the causeway at low tide and climbed the steps up to the church, but this was not the day for that.  The wind had become bitter and our visit was brief but rather wonderful.

 

Here's what it looked like when we were last here on Valentine's Day in 2012. 

 

 

It's a special place.  Occasional services are still held there, including weddings.

 

 

Thank you for bearing with me.  I feel much calmer now, more ordered.  It's 7.45am and time for my day to begin.  I plan to be back here again before Christmas, hopefully at a more civilised time of day.  I hope things are going well for you.

 

See you soon. 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x



More about Anglesey

Hello, thank you for popping in.  I do really love the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend, it's lovely to be free of the forthcoming Monday pressures.  The Best Beloved was away last night so this morning I took myself off to the café in the park for breakfast and sat outside in the sunshine with my book, birdsong and two pots of Earl Grey tea.  Absolute bliss, and I think I had the best of the day as the sky is grey now.

I'd like to show you some more of our trip to Anglesey.  It's a small island but there are so many different kinds of places to explore and we visited three of these places for the first time, even though we have been to the island many times.

1.  Moelfre

There is a little place by the beach at Moelfre which makes and sells ice cream.  I chose liquorice and I know that will divide opinion but I love liquorice and I've never seen liquorice ice cream before, so it had to be done.  I can report that it was everything I hoped it would be...and that it made my tongue go numb!  We sat beside each other on a bench which overlooked the sea while we ate our ice creams before going for a little wander on the shingle.  I found a stone with a hole in it for my friend, who collects them, and I'm sure you won't be surprised that I picked up a few shells as well. 

2.  Parys Mountain

Copper was first mined here in the Bronze Age but the Great Lode was discovered in the 1760s and in the 1780s the mine was the largest in the world, causing the area to become known as Copper Kingdom. It's an extraordinary landscape and you can walk all around it.  I found the colours mindblowing in the sunshine, I'm sure there's inspiration here for a yarny project.

3.  St Eugrad's Church

There is a thirteenth century stone carving of the Crucifixion in this church which I was keen to see.  The building stands in an isolated spot about half a mile outside the village of Marianglas.  We drove down the lane and into the woodland, enchanted by the bluebells and wild garlic, before parking the car and ascending the slope to the churchyard.  It felt quite magical, almost like something out of a fairytale, and I came back down to earth with a bump when I discovered that the church door was locked.  We wandered around the churchyard instead, which is oval and surrounded by trees.  It was a very pleasant place to be, listening to the birdsong and reading the headstones.  Although I was disappointed, I wasn't, if that makes any sense, because of that magical feeling.  It's a special place.  Next time I go to Anglesey I intend to contact the vicar in advance and ask if the church can be unlocked so that I can see inside (he's already offered to do that for me but I didn't like to disturb him during the week after Easter when I know that many clergy have a quiet time after the busyness of Holy Week and Easter) .

4.  Cemlyn

In the 1930s the local landowner, Captain Vivian Hewitt, built a dam and a weir to drain the saltmarshes here and form a lagoon which is divided from the sea by a shingle ridge (you can see the ridge on the right of my second photo).  In the lagoon there is an island which, with the ridge, is home to the only nesting colony of Sandwich terns in Wales - there are Arctic and common terns here, too.  Captain Hewitt was a keen ornithologist and you know how they say, "Build it and they'll come,"?  Well, he built it and they came.  He also built a substantial brick wall around his garden to provide shelter from the wind so that he could plant trees, again to encourage the birds (you can see the wall in my fourth photo).  I like the sound of Captain Hewitt.  It's still a very windy spot and while the Best Beloved walked the length of the ridge, and reported back that it's hard going on the legs, I sat in the shelter of some rocks and watched the sky, the sea, endlessly fascinating as the light changed, and the birds.  Those terns are VERY noisy so although my photos look quite serene, my ears were bombarded!  The area of the ridge where the birds nest is roped off from April until the end of the summer, so please don't worry that they were disturbed by the humans who had come to see them.  

5.  Trwyn Du (Black Point)

If you read my last post, this is the beach we drove to from Penmon Priory.  I have a very happy memory of a family picnic held here on a gloriously sunny day in 1998; there were fifteen of us, aged 3 months to 88 years, four generations.  It is the south-eastern tip of Anglesey and that island you can see is now called Puffin Island but it's Welsh name is Ynys Seiriol, Seiriol's Island, because it is where St Seiriol retired to towards the end of his life (there are monastic ruins there, too).  The lighthouse stands to warn shipping traffic that treacherous rocks lie beneath the waves and tolls a bell every thirty seconds.  I am delighted to report that The Pilot House Café sells the most delicious mint choc chip ice cream I have ever eaten, with generous shards of real dark chocolate.  So, if you can spare another eighteen seconds, here is a little film of soothing waves lapping onto the beach and, towards the end, the sonorous bell of the lighthouse (I've had a bit of trouble with this so please let me know if it doesn't work and I'll replace it with a still photograph).

I hope you can understand some of the reasons why I love spending time on Anglesey.  I can barely wait for my next visit! 

See you soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

Penmon Priory

Hello, thank you for calling in and thank you for your comments on my last post.  I am very happy indeed to have discovered that some of you are ABBA fans too, especially with Eurovision on the horizon (I am already planning my menu).

After Easter, the Best Beloved and I went off to Anglesey for a little glamping break.  The last three months have been a bit of a struggle for me so this was supposed to be a restorative treat and I am happy to say that it was exactly that.  We arrived on Tuesday in 24 degree heat and sat on the little terrace outside our camping pod drinking chilled wine and eating bread, smoked salmon and little salady bits and pieces as the sun set over the field; then we lit a fire and stayed outside until the cockchafer beetles began their invasion attempt.  Have you ever had a close encounter with a cockchafer beetle?  You might know them as May bugs and that is the point - they are supposed to emerge in May, not on 23rd April!  They are huuuuuuuge, well, about 5cm long, and you know they are near because they buzz very loudly.  They fly towards the light but they are a bit clumsy and when one landed on me I yelped and demanded that the Best Beloved remove it, which he did, to the other side of the field.  Then a second one appeared inside the pod and had to be kindly but firmly evicted with the aid of a glass and a postcard before I locked the door very firmly, closed the curtains and turned on the fairy lights.  This was my second cockchafer encounter in the last seventeen years and I still haven't really recovered from the first so I don't wish to have any more, thank you very much!

The following morning the weather was still warm enough for us to sit outside on the terrace as we drank tea, ate croissants and planned the day.  I was keen to visit Penmon Priory, a place we hadn't visited before, so off we went.  I had done my research and knew that there were a ruined priory, a medieval fishpond, a dovecote and a holy well to be found there and if you've been reading here for a while, you'll know that that's just my kind of outing.

St Seiriol (St Cyril in English) is said to have come to Penmon in the sixth century and, finding a spring of clear water pouring out of the cliff, settled there as a hermit.  However, his brothers, who were both Welsh kings, didn't think that a little hermitage was good enough for such a high-born man and so they came and had built for him a wooden church and a monastery was established there.  The spring water became known for its healing powers and a well was built around it.  Four hundred years later, the Vikings attacked Anglesey and in 971 AD the church was looted and burnt down (pillage and plunder!). 

In the twelfth century a new church was erected a short distance away from the well, this time built of stone.  This church was a "clas", run by an autonomous religious community, and in about 1220 AD this clas was reorganised as an Augustinian order of canons, which meant that new buildings were added to the site: a refectory and dormitory, a place for the canons to eat and sleep.  This large block was built opposite the church, the space inbetween becoming the canons' cloister, and another building, the Prior's House, was probably built to link them, forming the third side of the rectangle.  (There is a more modern Prior's House there now which is not open to the public.)  Can you picture this?  This photo might help, taken from the fourth side of the cloister where there are now about twenty steps to take you up to visit the church - there would have been a range of buildings here too, but that's long gone.  It's quite a small complex and, I think, really quite charming.

The Priory did not survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries and was abandoned in about 1537.  Eventually, the land and buildings passed into the possession of a leading local family, the Bulkeleys of Beaumaris, who enclosed the land as a deer park and allowed the church to fall into ruin.  They also built a magnificent dovecote which enabled them to breed pigeons for food.  In the 1850s the church was repaired and the chancel rebuilt as it became the parish church.

So that's the history of this special place.  The Best Beloved and I set off along the lanes and soon arrived at the car park where we happily paid the £3 fee as the site itself is free to visit.  The sun was shining and the temperature was a pleasant 19 degrees.  First we looked inside the ruined refectory, which would have had three storeys: cellars, a dining room above and a dormitory on the top floor.  The monks used to eat in silence while one of them read aloud from a window seat.  "Go on then, read to me," the Best Beloved said.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," I said and he laughed.  Standing in front of the wall is a 12th century gravestone, as tall as I am, which had been used as a lintel over the doorway.  I placed my hand flat upon it for a few moments to imagine the echoes from centuries past. 

Then we climbed the stairs to the old cloister and sat on a bench, looking at the view.  It was a very pleasant spot.  (That large domed structure is the roof of the dovecote.)

Then we went inside the church and found ourselves in the chancel, which looked quite ordinary.  I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. 

Then the Best Beloved, who had wandered off with his camera, called me.  He had gone through the door and was standing at the entrance to the south transept, clicking away.  The sight just about took my breath away, it was so beautiful.

The rebuilding of the church has incorporated the arcading, which dates from 1170.  There is a stained glass window, made in the 19th century but including fragments of glass from the 15th, which depicts St Christopher, the Christ Child and St Seiriol himself.  It is the only image I found of St Seiriol in the church.  Standing in the transept is a large stone cross which dates from the 10th century, one of two which probably stood at the entrance to the old monastery which was destroyed by the Vikings.  This cross is missing one of its arms as it was removed to be used as a lintel for one of the windows in the refectory!

Leaving the south transept, we entered the nave of the old church, where stands the other 10th century stone cross, which stood in the deer park until 1977, and a font which may well be the base of a third cross of a similar age.  There is also a very small font dating from 1150 which was used until the big one was installed.  I really don't know how you could dunk a baby in it!  (I did wonder if it were a piscina rather than a font but then I remembered that I saw a very similar font in a Norman church last year.)  I sat there by myself for a while, it was so very quiet and peaceful. 

When we left the church we decided to head down to the beach and look at the well on our way back - the Best Beloved was very keen to have an ice cream and after all, we were on holiday, and the holiday rule is that you have an ice cream every day!  There is a £3 toll to drive down the road to Penmon Point but if you have paid to use the car park, you don't have to pay again.  We went to the beach and ate our ice cream in the car because the temperature had dropped to 11 degrees!  We did get out and have a little wander, which I'll show you next time, but soon it started to rain.  We got back in the car, drove back to the Priory and parked up, by which time it was raining consistently, but we are a bit daft when we are on holiday and a pilgrim like me is not to be deterred from finding a holy well by a bit of rain!  First we ran inside the dovecote - WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"It's like something out of Game of Thrones!" said the Best Beloved.  The pillar in the middle was a ladder which enable the pigeon keeper to climb up to the birds.  There are spaces here for 930 pairs of pigeons and the squabs would be killed at four weeks old, so plenty of meat for the Bulkeleys.

I'm sorry, it was really difficult to photograph but I wanted to give you a sense of its scale.

Then we found the footpath leading to the well, which took us around the fish pond which had been built for the monks.  Fortunately, some overhanging trees provided a bit of shelter from the rain, which was becoming heavier.  Apparently, lots of people miss out this bit of the site but really, it's worth the few minutes' walk, even in the rain!  The water in the well is still crystal clear.  The little brick "house" built over it dates from 1710 but the rest of the stonework is much, much older.  The Best Beloved must love me because he stood in the rain to take these photos and he really isn't very bothered about holy wells at all.

We strode back to the car as quickly as we could and fell into it.  I was soaking wet but happy because Penmon Priory is a very lovely place to visit, even in the rain.  Of course, we could have avoided getting wet by visiting the dovecote and the well before going to the beach, and that would have been very sensible, but then we wouldn't have walked on the beach, and I can't ever regret a walk on the beach, especially when there is a delicious ice cream and a lighthouse.

See you soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x