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| "Not An Empty Space" © Glyn Davies 2011 |
I'd delivered a further batch of my books to the
Ucheldre Arts Centre in Holyhead, it was Sunday afternoon, it was open but empty. I went to
South Stack Lighthouse for a bite to eat, but the cafe had stopped serving food. The clouds were building and the sun had overstayed it's permit. I headed back to Holyhead where Tesco's was being expanded tenfold, cloth signs drooped with "Trading As Normal" but no one was about. I found KFC, it was empty. I ordered a banquet for £5.39 and pushed my beans around a plastic pot. Three fat late-middle aged bikers turned up on Harleys at the empty car park, and toughed it to the empty counter where they demanded lattés. Avoiding bush-bales, I walked across to the pound shop and spent £23 on loads of things I didn't really need for a pound each. The wine gums were worth it. A grey bank of cloud had established over the West coast, - and the North and East it seemed. I headed aimlessly down the A55 then just pulled right towards the West coast, before taking a last minute switch-back to the left, down a very long, very winding empty lane, empty except for a beautiful lady collecting her dog poo, in the middle of nowhere. An empty church, no more prayers, no more congregation, no more spirit, a beautiful location, lush yellow corn surrounding a deserted religious island - Snowdon black in the distance - the sound of gun shots, once, twice, silence.
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| "Bull Under a Hawthorn" © Glyn Davies 2011 |
I follow my random needs, I change direction again, I become fascinated by animals in fields. I stop the van in the middle of a tiny lane, as there in the field rocked an agitated bull. As I went to the gate he bellowed, and snorted and bellowed again, he trotted straight towards me - bulls don't jump gates do they. A series of cows rubbed noses behind a wire fence separating the next field. The bull glanced at me and went straight up the hedge wall and leaned over to rub his nose against the cows'. He kept looking sideways at me, these were his females not mine. He moaned lowly, sort of confident, now that I remained still. I left him to his paternity and drove to a lake of toxic blue-green algae, tiny torn white flaps of plastic flipped in the breeze, warning people not to enter the water or let their pets swim in the lake as serious illness and sickness would be induced. I lost the path. I kept missing my feet in the rabbit warren, and gorse and brambles reached out to trap my ankles. The sun tried to re-appear, beams piercing grey blankets, holes appearing everywhere. A funny land for a Prince & Princess.
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| "A Dark Shadow" © Glyn Davies 2011 |
As the sunlight dipped, bursts of showers sprinkled the van window, backlit by intense rays of orange light. I needed wet sand and found myself on a regular beach, familiar, comfortable, welcoming, full of positive memories. Two surfers bobbed up and down on wind chop, but no swell. They talked to each other, attempted a wave that wasn't, and then in the gathering darkness left the sea and stumbled back across the dunes. I was left alone on a totally deserted beach now - perfection, solitude, just the sound of the slapping sea - remnants of clouds hurrying anywhere across an orange pink sky. The water was warm. I was in it up to my thighs, my knee length shorts soaked and clinging to my scratched legs - shingle forced it's way into my Crocs. My tripod, typically, shifted during each 6 second exposure, due to the backwash.
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| "Dark Waters Before A Full Moon" © Glyn Davies 2011 |
I turned to the dunes and huge glowing moon was hovering in the long Marram grass. I decided at this point in the near darkness, to wade right along the warm water's edge, in the moonlight, magical, spiritual, sensual - when in my peripheral, a dark figure suddenly arose and stood tall in the sand dunes to my left, and watched me - there was no one there before! As I started to move again the figure sank back into the sand. It was weird, out of sorts for this place. As I made my way back across the dunes, I felt disturbed, as this was first hand confirmation that there is a darkness occurring at beautiful places around Anglesey at night, and it has nothing to do with lack of light.
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| "Something Moved in the Dunes" © Glyn Davies 2011 |
All words and images are strictly © Glyn Davies 2011 - All rights reserved.
Buy prints of Anglesey, Snowdonia, Wales and Cornwall here at Glyn Davies.com
