Three Beautiful Things

1. All week my father has been blowing on winkle shells to make them whistle 2. My aunt shows me tight-curled squills -- tiny fists that have squeezed themselves blue -- hiding in the rough clifftop grass. 3. There are no porpoises to be seen, but there is the wind thrumming on the cables of the coastguard's radio mast; and a white pony that gravely lips my open hands.

1. In a dark landing at Plas Newydd there is a row of seven chalk drawings of seven of the First Marquess of Anglesey's 18 children. They are dated 1823 (the children are in their late teens and early 20s). The pictures capture the texture of their skin and the shine on their noses. 2. We come out from under the dark, heavy leaves and the waxy red and sticky purple flowers of the rhododendron garden, into a clearing where sunlight picks out a slender waist-high bush dotted with neat white blossoms. 3. My aunt calls me over to read a love letter written by the artist to his patron's daughter. He begs her not to throw him over: 'You're such a chucker. You're the chucker queen.' Later, when I have moved into the next room, I hear other people reading the letter aloud to each other.

1. We strike out up the road, independent with a rucksack, lunch, map and water. 2. We stand under a wind turbine and hearing its whomph-hiss, whomph-hiss. I feel very small and vulnerable. 3. The copper mine is like a filthy fingerprint on the green land. Standing in the dead land (filthy ponds in the middle of the sliced off mountain top) we can see in all directions green fields between the slag heaps. 4. A slice of gooey chocolate cake. Its butter icing is gritty with sugar.

1. The gorse in glorious cadmium yellow flower toasts in the sun smelling of coconut biscuits. 2. I like to hear Nick planning how he would deploy forces if he was playing a wargame across a landscape. 2.5. We are enticed from our route by a sign that says 'Permissive Path to Shop'. It leads through a squeaky metal gate decorated with a cut-out foxglove and round the edge of a field of black bullocks. The field lush green, but the path is as studded with daisies as the Milky Way is with stars. 3. A few violets fix us with a piercing indigo gaze from the bank under the hedge.

These posts come from a holiday in Anglesey -- you can see a few family pictures on Rosey's website Through Rosey's Tinted Spectacles here , here , and here . 1. The mother across the aisle from us whiles away the journey by singing to her baby. She has a version of Row Row Row Your Boat which I haven't heard before, involving various animals and what you mustn't forget to do if you see them. 2. We bargain with my father who is picking us up so that we can get off the train at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch ... because who wouldn't want to have their picture taken under the sign. There is some irony in the fact that passengers must get off from the middle of the train as the platform is too short to accomodate the ends of the two carriages. 3. At the house, there is a cake (made by my aunt) which depicts my father lying in a hammock with a large bottle of beer clutched to his chest.