Windy Anglesey

You may remember a few years ago that BBC's Groundforce team visited the house of one of RAF Valley's flying instructors to give it a garden makeover. Both days saw the windiest weather imaginable together with the associated horizontal rain. Of course, being on the edge of an airfield the location was bound to be windy. But Anglesey is also known for strong winds at times, being almost a peninsular projecting into the Irish Sea. Alan Titchmarsh spent most of his time trying to dig and plant whilst wearing oilskins. He looked well in his souwester!

It was during our many visits house hunting that we experienced something similar. We were driving around to different addresses in the island on a foul day. On this particular day we seemed to find nothing remotely suitable. By the time afternoon was almost spent we were looking at a couple of properties close to Mynydd Bodafon. After we had looked round the properties I stood and looked across the island to where I could just see Holyhead a few miles away. The wind was blowing quite hard and suddenly the rain came down. Well, I'm not sure that down is the correct word. I think it should be thought of as falling at an oblique angle. The thought passed through my mind, "Why do I want to come and live here?"

Pauline read my thoughts and dragged me over to the car to get warm again. We had one more house to see before we drove back to Rochdale. It was almost dusk as we reached the last property in Llanfaethlu fifteen minutes earlier than the appointment time. Pauline said, "Let's have a look at Church Bay to fill in the time." We drove over to Church Bay and I stood once more looking out to sea by the bungalow at the head of the beach. I was wearing a heavy winter coat as it was January and it made no difference at all. I was absolutely frozen as the wind felt to whip the coat off my back. "Why do I want to live here?" I thought again. It really put me off.

The last house was a very nice one and not the sort we were really looking for. Pauline had noticed the room sizes which were generous. It was a very well maintained house and we began to talk about it all the way along the A55 eastwards. When I complained about the weather I was reminded that all places experienced bad weather and when that happened we remained indoors with all hatches battened down!

Since we have become resident on the island we have seen a few occasions when the weather has been a repeat of horizontal rain. In fact, as the afternoon wore on, our moving day became like that. A lot of wet furniture was brought into the bungalow that day.

There have been days when strong winds caused us to see what the coast was like and we saw a lot of surfing at Rhosneigr and Porth Trecastell. Sometimes we have seen some pretty spectacular waves on the windy days. The problem has always been that the camera cannot capture what the eye sees. The scene flattens out and loses the drama. But we have always said we love Anglesey in all weathers. Now that we live here we do.