A Pilgrimage
Yesterday afternoon, Tom and I pulled into out over night spot we found on Brit stops and as I was making coffee, I watched a guy with no shirt on and a massive eagle tattooed on his chest disrespect the hospitality of this place by dumping a load of his branch cuttings in the woodland at the side of the lot. What a thug, I decided. I bet the eagle was some sort of supremacist statement – treating the whole world like he owned every inch of it, disrespecting others, disrespecting nature… He probably had a bunch of crisp packets and dead bodies mangled up at the bottom of the bag he was emptying.
A minute later, there was a knock on the door of the motorhome… My heart sank. Tom was conducting the ‘switching of the sim card’ dance to honour the God of wifi in order to get it to work and had missed the behaviour of Mr Massive Eagle Chest Tattoo. I suppose I had a weapon in my hand with a kettle of boiling water but God, I wanted a coffee… Perhaps i could attack him with the teatowel instead? Spin it into a whip and flick it at his eyeballs – a trick my sisters and I used to attack each other with when we were left unsupervised cleaning up after Sunday dinner as kids. Problem was, as a child, my tea towel only worked as a whip probably one in fifty times – and I hadn’t practised this torturous skill in years. I knew the general science of the move (it’s all in the wrist) but could I manage to execute it? The question came down to this: Did I feel lucky?
Lucky? What I felt was that I just wanted to drink my coffee.
Tom squeezed past me and went to the door, blissfully unaware of the menace that lurked behind it and the epic brawl that was about to begin. I hovered in torturous indecision: what was it to be? The boiling water that would deny me a coffee but would ensure a spectacular attack on our assailant – or the tea towel which would require an act of God to bring it off successfully?
As Tom opened the door, Tess let out a single, half hearted bark. She was tired from a big walk earlier. I shot her an exasperated glance: she’d be absolutely useless in the fight.
As Tom stepped out, I peered around the side of the van… And Mr Massive Eagle Chest Tattoo had disappeared. In his place was a friendly looking man wearing a peach coloured tea-shirt with a cartoon bird on the front.
”Hi, I’m Rob, he said, I own this place.”
So whilst Tom and Rob chatted about the set up he had going and what he planned for the place, I internally berated myself for being so shockingly judgemental and also wondered if I needed to get my eyes tested. To make matters even worse, he showed us the flattest place to park and welcomed us to breakfast in the cafe the following morning.
What a thug.
After a brilliant and free night’s sleep in a cafe car park, Tom and I headed back to Anglesey. The motorhome was finally working in the way it should and I managed to drag Tom away from his new friend at First RV Leisure. We decided to go to Pen-lon as Tom had read somewhere that you could walk out to an Island at low tide. I was definitely up for that!
We parked in the Newborough Nature Reserve, a vast expanse of piney forest with soft sandy floors and red squirrels, and walked down across the beach towards the Island.
Llanddwyn Island was a place where thousands came in pilgrimage to be blessed at the holy well on the island. It is named after the Welsh patron saint of lovers, St Dwynwen.
I rather like the story of Dwynwen. She begins as the usual female victim trope: cruel father, forced marriage, secret lover who became jealous… When the secret lover attacked her, he was frozen in a block of ice as punishment. Part of me wonders how they did that, in Wales, before electricity – but perhaps it was an unusually cold winter? Anyway, Dwynwen, rather than elated to be out of this abusive relationship, was heart-broken and ran away to the forest. I liked the sound of that and as the closest forest was probably Newborough Nature Reserve, I bet she had a lovely time living there.
In the forest she met and angel who granted her three wishes. This angel sounds much more like a genie to me, but I guess the angel is more in line with the story of a saint. She wastes the first wish on her lover, asking for him to be unfrozen. Surely he’d be dead by now if frozen in a block of ice, also… girl, he attacked you! However, she had been living in a forest for a while now and all the feasting on red squirrels had probably made her a bit nuts (See what I did there?)
Her next wish was to help people who were unhappy in love – much like a marriage counsellor. Finally, and this is what I find interesting, she asked to never WANT to be married. So does this mean she did want to be married but never felt that ‘want’ because of the wish? Either way, she was grateful to the angel for granting her wish and decided to live as a nun on the island where she had a magical well with enchanted… eels.
Tom, Tess and I took our pilgrimage there today. We crossed to the island as the tide came out and I was horrified to see jellyfish lying like great globs of snot in the sand. I walked on that sand with bare feet! Happily, there were no eels today in situ although we did find the well.
Heading towards the ruined church in the distance.
The island is incredibly beautiful and well kept. The sand dunes rise from the sea, vibrant with the yellows and purples of wild flowers. The paths are made of crushed White Sea shells and guide the visitor to the sites of the island. In the middle, the ruined church stands, the stone floor worn smooth by the feet of thousands of pilgrims over centuries. A vast window stands, looking out at a herd of wild ponies who grazed on the grass and eyeballed us with disinterest.
Tessie looks out of what was once the church window.
Steps led up to a disused lighthouse and from the top we could gaze across the turquoise water to the giants of Snowdonia in the distance.
Snowdonia rises in the distance
We spent some time on a tiny pebbly beach where Tessie had a play in the sea. The waves were lively here and battered the little beach, pounding the pebbles on it into fine fragments. The smell of the sea, the roaring of the waves and the wind whipping our hair into our faces made this an incredibly invigorating experience.
Tessie playing in the sea
We headed back to a local campsite which is small and quiet and has views of Snowdonia. Tomorrow we will leave Anglesey and head towards the mountains where I am looking forward to some more hiking and to visiting a place that I’ve wanted to visit since I was a child. More on this next time.
