The flooding of the narrow valley by the sea that caused the isolation of Anglesey from the mainland long, long ago produced one of our islands' loveliest marine landscapes. From the hanging woods west of Beaumaris, where daffodils now glint with primroses above the Menai Bridge road, to the exposed dunes of Abermenai Point (Anglesey's southernmost tip), this sinuous waterway is littered with pretty prospects. Unfortunately there are sections of these Menai Straits where no public footpath exists because large, historic estates come right down to the shore - as at Plas Newydd on the Anglesey side and Vaynol Hall on the mainland opposite.

We may, in normal times, rue the dearth of footways above the tideline here but they would be out of bounds now, anyway. The other day we took the only sensible alternative and climbed the narrow public road beside Beaumaris cemetery to tread the knotted network of hidden lanes that pre-date the coast road created by the Bulkeleys only two centuries ago, between this loveliest of Welsh towns and Menai Bridge.

Gulls were arguing in the air above the tiny lake near Pen-y-parc; a wren lurked in the crannies of a mossy wall as we went by. Further along, new sprouts of wall pennywort brought the promise of pale, bell-shaped flowers in a couple of months. Up here on the crest of the steep drop to the Menai Straits you can catch grand glimpses of flashing blue water, of a white sail here and there near Bangor pier, and away to the green foothills that are the precursors of the high country beyond. And as we went along we got an even better view. As we entered Llandegfan, with its old windmill and towered church 300 feet above the shore, we could see the entire northern flank of Snowdonia, from Penmaenmawr to Yr Eifl in the far off south-west.

With a line of shining fracto-cumulus clouds floating above the high tops of the Carneddau, it seemed that a flock of freshly dipped ewes was wandering there in the palest of blue skies, quite immune to any earthly disease now affecting their mortal sisters and their lambs not far away across these fields. West of the Carneddau the crumpled mountain frieze had no white crown of cloud; Y Wyddfa and her satellites and the Nantlle hills pierced the uncluttered firmament. Roger Redfern.