Sometimes, Ignorance Really Is Bliss

Recently, Ian and I packed up the two Chihuahuas and headed to Llanberis for the weekend. I knew it would be beautiful. I’d seen the photographs. What I wasn’t expecting was that I would leave a little bit of my soul behind.

We stayed at my son’s house, just a three-minute walk from Lake Padarn, with the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia) rising above the Llanberis Pass. We had to drive for three hours to get there and, just three minutes from their house, we were looking at this.

On Saturday, we headed across the Britannia Bridge to Anglesey and Newborough Forest. The plan was a walk to the tiny tidal island of Llanddwyn. A nice three-hour circular walk, according to the information. I was really looking forward to it. So much so that I didn’t pay quite enough attention to the island on an island bit.

We started the trek by cutting through the massive, fragrant pine trees of the forest and onto the beach, where a rocky, cliff-lined peninsula stretched out into the sea.

We carried lazy Lexi (our Chihuahua, who is not known for her vigour) as we scrambled up the rocky ascent from the beach, then followed the cliff path to the far tip of the tiny island and Tŵr Mawr Lighthouse.

It was a beautiful, clear day, and looking back across the water gave us a breathtaking panoramic view of the entire Snowdonia mountain range. It was one of those places where you keep stopping, looking around and thinking, how is this real?

Standing there, it wasn’t difficult to understand how a place can inspire someone to write. Wordsworth drew so much inspiration from the landscape of the Lake District, and looking out across those mountains, I could understand why. There’s something about being surrounded by scenery like that which makes you want to capture it somehow — in a poem, a story, a painting, or simply in words before you forget exactly how it made you feel.

Throughout the walk, I started to wonder why it was called “Llanddwyn Island: A magical tidal headland.” We were already on the island of Anglesey, and we hadn’t crossed any water to get to another island. I shrugged it off and continued with the walk.

That was probably the point when I should have paid a little more attention to the word tidal.

We crossed the final section of beach back towards the car park. On the drive back to Llanberis, I was reflecting on what a beautiful day it had been. Calm, peaceful and stress-free.

What I didn’t realise until afterwards was that Luke had obviously timed our walk to coincide with low tide.

Because within a couple of hours, the sea came back in, covering the beach we’d just walked across and cutting off the route back towards the forest and the car park.

Had I known this beforehand, I’d have spent three hours checking the horizon and calculating whether four people and two Chihuahuas could outrun the Irish Sea.

Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.