I’m already beginning to feel warm and fuzzy. The floodgates of my mind are letting in boundless times and events and places covering the span of my lifetime all of which I’d love to revisit. The problem is, which one is my favourite place?
Most warm memories come from my early years in England. I came here, but my heart stayed there. I feel displaced at times. My half-century of life here in Canada feels like a passing moment while my English youth makes up for the rest of it. I can’t feel warm in Canada. It’s sheer vastness along with its mountains, prairies and Arctic wonders somehow preclude me from embracing any single spot as my favourite place.
I’ve travelled a lot. I’ve walked through the rain forests on the Island of Tobago; ridden on horseback in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, and touched a rainbow in Northern British Columbia. I’ve seen a mountainside quiver when countless millions of tiny crabs scurried instantly when I touched its base with my finger. Even though these places are awesome in their own way, I need something “extra special” for me to say it’s my favourite place.
There is, however, a small town nestled in a bay on the north coast of Wales. Its called Llandudno. Two promontories lie at the entrance to the bay; one on the western edge called the Great Orme, and a smaller one on the eastern side called, appropriately, the Little Orme. Whenever I go home I never fail to go there. Let me tell you why.
Although a cable car can take you effortlessly to the peak of the Great Orme, it’s more fun to walk up there if you can muster up the stamina. Once there, you can sit on the grass overlooking the splendour of the Irish Sea. Try to arrive there at five o’clock on a sunny afternoon just as the sun is setting low in the western sky. The sea unleashes a myriad of brilliant colours with blue, purple and red waves exploding into silver and gold sparkles as they break upon the rocks. It’s truly spectacular. It’s heavenly.
This is the very same spot where a wise old fisherman plucked me out of the ocean when I was a boy of ten. I was being swept out to sea by the currents. I don’t remember the fear; I don’t remember much about the exhaustion or the odd mouthful of seawater I’d swallowed. But, I do remember that fisherman coming alongside me in his small wooden row boat. He extended his arm. Then, he smiled, and said, “Give me your hand son”.
Hearing those five little lifesaving words fulfils that “extra special” something I was looking for - to truly call Llandudno my favourite place.
Most warm memories come from my early years in England. I came here, but my heart stayed there. I feel displaced at times. My half-century of life here in Canada feels like a passing moment while my English youth makes up for the rest of it. I can’t feel warm in Canada. It’s sheer vastness along with its mountains, prairies and Arctic wonders somehow preclude me from embracing any single spot as my favourite place.
I’ve travelled a lot. I’ve walked through the rain forests on the Island of Tobago; ridden on horseback in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, and touched a rainbow in Northern British Columbia. I’ve seen a mountainside quiver when countless millions of tiny crabs scurried instantly when I touched its base with my finger. Even though these places are awesome in their own way, I need something “extra special” for me to say it’s my favourite place.
There is, however, a small town nestled in a bay on the north coast of Wales. Its called Llandudno. Two promontories lie at the entrance to the bay; one on the western edge called the Great Orme, and a smaller one on the eastern side called, appropriately, the Little Orme. Whenever I go home I never fail to go there. Let me tell you why.
Although a cable car can take you effortlessly to the peak of the Great Orme, it’s more fun to walk up there if you can muster up the stamina. Once there, you can sit on the grass overlooking the splendour of the Irish Sea. Try to arrive there at five o’clock on a sunny afternoon just as the sun is setting low in the western sky. The sea unleashes a myriad of brilliant colours with blue, purple and red waves exploding into silver and gold sparkles as they break upon the rocks. It’s truly spectacular. It’s heavenly.
This is the very same spot where a wise old fisherman plucked me out of the ocean when I was a boy of ten. I was being swept out to sea by the currents. I don’t remember the fear; I don’t remember much about the exhaustion or the odd mouthful of seawater I’d swallowed. But, I do remember that fisherman coming alongside me in his small wooden row boat. He extended his arm. Then, he smiled, and said, “Give me your hand son”.
Hearing those five little lifesaving words fulfils that “extra special” something I was looking for - to truly call Llandudno my favourite place.
Originally written October 10th, 2007
2 comments:
Fabulous. A couple of the lads that I travelled with in Australia were from Wales, but they never painted a picture like yours about their homeland. Makes me want to visit for sure.
It sounds like quite a place. Your gift for writing and your description of a moment caught in time makes it easy to visualize, which means the real thing must be spectactular to see.
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