We called in at the church of St. Patrick, Llanbadrig, which is said on the dignposts to date back to 400 AD, but was much restored following a fire in 1884 by Lord Stanley of Alderney, Bertrand Russell’s uncle and the first Muslim MP.   The church occupies a wonderful site on headland with weatherbeaten slate tombstones, but annoyingly wasn’t open even though a notice on the door said it would be:-

After a few grey days, we decided to go on a giro to the north of the island, to Cemaes Bay, a small harbour town, now dominated by a view of Wylfa power station.   We ate fresh crab in the High Street:-

The Village Hall, which once had a concert hall and smoking room, has good terracotta detailing:-

I thought I had already posted a picture of the signal box at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (I hope I have transliterated it correctly), but apparently not.   I like the way that British Rail (presumably the London and North Western Railway which operated the line from Euston to Holyhead) has taken the trouble to print an English translation, even in spite of the fact that the full name is bogus, the invention apparently of a local tailor:-

On the front of the box, the village name has been abbreviated, using commas in place of full stops:-

The second church we went to was SS. Afran, Ieuan, and Sannan in Llantrisant.   It was of truly spectacular remoteness, down a farm track, across a field, down another track, and there it is:-

Inside is L-shaped, bare apart from box pews, but with two unexpectedly fine wall monuments, a baroque one  with cherubs and a neoclassical one in slate:-

Instead of going to the Anglesey Show, we went in search of redundant churches.   First on the list was St. Figael in Llanfigael, north of Bodedern.   It’s a very nice, simple interior with plain box pews, fitted out in the eighteenth century by the local squire who was called William Morris:-

We liked the travelling font:-

In pursuit of Anglesey gastronomy, we went to visit E.T. Jones, the prize-winning butcher in Bodedern, which I had read about online.   No salt marsh lamb, but they have their own abattoir, as well as home-made Scotch eggs and pork pie:-

I have been trying to take convincing photographs of the great and beautiful expanse of Llanddwyn beach, so far not completely successfully.   Yesterday I crossed the dunes near Abermenai Point.   The clouds look better than the beach:-

In the evening, we go down to the other end of the beach when the families are packing up and going home:-

I was brought up not to like pine trees, regarding them as non-natives, too fast growing, invaders.   This was particularly true of the post-war plantations of the Forestry Commission which were all over England and particularly in Wales.   There was a sense that they were too regimented, too dark, too immune to changes in the seasons.   But as Newborough Forest, which is a classic example of its type, first planted in 1947, has been gradually thinned, allowing a bit more light and variety, I find myself liking it more, as I did walking through it this morning:-

Another very beautiful evening:-

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Stimulated by the correspondence about oysters on my Comments page, I ordered a copy of Drew Smith’s book Oyster: a gastronomic history.   Here I have learned more of what I did not know:  that oysters have a heart;  they are bisexual and can change sex during the course of a single season;  they feed on plankton;  food arrives through their lips and is extruded through their rectal chute; and the nutritional value of a dozen oysters is equivalent to that of a steak.   The presence of oyster beds was crucial to prehistoric trade and over a million oyster shells were discovered while Silchester was excavated.   Pepys ate oysters out of a (small) barrel and Dr. Johnson fed oysters to his cat.   By the eighteenth century, there was a small industry round the oyster trade, particularly north of the Thames estuary, in Mersea, Brightlingsea and Mersea and, to the south, Faversham and Whitstable.   But in the nineteenth century, when they were cheap, the oyster beds were destroyed by overfarming and, in the twentieth century, by disease and pollution.   So, it’s good that the trade is being revived.