I went to Benllech Beach weekend before last (Saturday October 15th) and it was absolutely glorious.
Golden sand, blue sea and it was warm, t-shirt warm, and some brave kids were splashing about in the low, gentle and rolling surf.
Most wiser heads with memories of the long walk to find decent swimming depth at Benllech Bay chose to sit on the promenade to drink tea and lick ice cream bought from the Wendon Café off their knuckles.
LAST DAYS OF AN ANGLESEY SUMMER
Sadly this memory-laden cafe will be closing for the season on Sunday October 30th 2011
Over the years the Wendon Café has remained aloof from sophistication. I suppose if it’s leased from Anglesey County Council the motivation to spruce it up is a cost you can’t risk if it’s a bad Summer.
Nonetheless, I ventured inside the Wendon and forty years fall away to those days when my Dad would bring us kids and Mam there for the afternoon, as he went back to work after lunch.
He’d pick us up after work and we’d go home bringing half the beach with us in our socks and towels.
LAST DAYS FOR A BEACH ICE CREAM
When the Wendon Cafe closes then it’s Winter. That’s how significant it is for my emotional calendar.
No more cups of tea and inappropriately large ice-creams until Spring next year.
Beautiful Winter and Spring days would be so much better armed with a cup of tea and a tray of chips from the cafe.
My aunties worked in Wendon in the early 1960s so a visit to Benllech and into the cafe brings back images of my Mum talking to Aunty Jane from Dolafon, Llangefni.
No matter how crowded was the counter it was ages before we got back to the beach.
We were always worried that someone would come and steal the holes we’d been digging all afternoon. Digging holes to find water was a serious job. No time for sandcastles my brother and I.
My baby brother didn’t join in. He was always busy eating sand. He was a kid. That was his job.
Right, gentle readers who love Benllech and want to hang on to Summer as long as you can, you’ve got this weekend and that’s it. It’s over.
WINTER TEABAG HEAVEN & GROTTY SEAGULLS
From this weekend onwards you’ll have to bring your own flask of sour tea or find somewhere discrete to throw your teabag.
Sandwiches are never the same without greedy fat seagulls in attendance.
From this weekend onwards you’ll be shadowed by soggy and dirty looking seagulls too stupid to go and look for a torn rubbish bag. It’s not the same!!
Get down here to the beach this weekend!
The temperature is going to be 25 Degree Celsius!
All the ice cream has to be eaten up!
Otherwise it’ll have to be rendered down to make prunes.
Remember, the Welsh for a cup of tea is ”Panad, please”.
Care To Share A Thought?
Dear Reader,
Would you care the share a thought or make an observation.
