"Land of my Mothers"

Rather late in the day on Sunday we decided to drive to Porthmadog and Borth y Gest - it was another lovely spring day - and it was after 4 o'clock when we were on the beach at Borth. It was so quiet and peaceful there; just the sound of the seabirds, a few children still playing, and sail boats slowly chugging back to harbour.

Of course I took lots of photos and scrapped some last night. I'm always attracted to and admire the pages of scrappers who design with small images surrounded by lots of empty space - but I can never bring myself to scrap that way myself. I want to cover my pages with photos - they are after all almost always a record of a place, a day, a person, or a memory, so for me the image is the focus rather than the space around it.

The big photo on my scrapbook page captures the distant Rhinog Mountains, Moelfre, the dip that is the entrance to Cwm Nantcol, and the village of Dyffryn Ardudwy - birth and burial place of many ancestors on my Mother's side of the family. And below Moelfre (pictured on this old postcard) is an ancient farmstead - Hendre Waelod, where my great grandfather Hugh was born in 1862, the eldest of 12 children belonging to Evan and Elizabeth Pugh.
But Hugh did not stay on the land - he married Ellen, a distant cousin, and crossed the bay to establish a "High Class Grocery and Provisions" business in Criccieth High Street. Hugh died at the early age of 37 and Ellen took over and later handed on the business to his children and grandchildren. Its still a going concern today - though sadly no longer in the family.Yesterday's visit to the "land of my fathers" - or mothers in this case - has certainly brought me into a family history frame of mind again and I can feel some more heritage pages coming on!