A few days ago, I returned from a trip to Anglesey in North Wales, and I feel like a different person!

What a beautiful place, with its wild beaches, fields, rocky crags and long straight roads that run like ribbons through the open landscape.

I did a great deal of walking while I was there and got loads of fresh sea air. Everywhere there were beautiful natural sights, and I enjoyed spotting ravens flying overhead and looking for red squirrels in the forests.

My favourite part was the huge Newborough Forest, with its beautiful Corsican pine trees and the adjoining beach, Llanddwyn Beach, which stretches out for over a mile. It was quite a windy day, and raining a bit. There’s something exhilarating about facing the vast, raw power of the sea, with the wind and the rain in your face!

Photographs don’t do Anglesey justice, to be honest. But anyway, here are some of the wild, beautiful and strange sights I saw in Anglesey and it’s adjoining small island, Holy Island (also known as Holyhead Island by the English):

Although I’m no longer there, the feeling hasn’t left me. Anglesey lives on inside me.

I have a desire to explore more of North Wales and I’ve even started learning Welsh!

This was a break that I was really looking forward to and I believe it did me a lot of good; it inspired me.

It has reminded me of the importance of being in nature, and the good it does for my sense of wellbeing. I feel inspired to go out walking more in my own beautiful county, Shropshire.

In other news, I’m partaking in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this November, on my own terms, for a creative project that wants to emerge from my subconscious mind.

The aim of NaNoWriMo is to write 2,000 words every day for the month of November, so that by the end of the month you have a 60,000-word first draft for a novel.

I’m not sure that what I have in mind is a novel, so I’m adapting this for my own ends. I’m also not going to focus on word count, but rather focus on working a little on my project every day in the evenings.

That’s all really! That’s the update on my life.

I will be uploading another article very soon on this website about the benefits of quitting caffeine.

After that I plan to upload on a more regular basis than I have been doing, work permitting.

Bye for now!

Nicola

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