From a lofty hilltop two hundred or more feet above the sea at North Anglesey, we could smell the sea air. Wave crests were breaking into spindrift and salty spray was funnelled up gullies in the cliffs below to fill our lungs with ocean gale.
The clouds were changing by the second as they raced overhead, casting wonderfully animated shadows of strange figures on the sea below. Apart from the solid headland of Holyhead Mountain in the distance, the only other constant was the brilliant intensity of spring sunshine, shimmering on the millions of waves fetching across the bay. This was real exposure to the elements and from this high up, standing right at the cliff edge, it felt as though we were flying, carried by thermals almost literally lifting us off our feet.
On the horizon a ferry noses out of Holyhead Harbour, beginning its three hour voyage upon choppy open waters to Southern Ireland seventy three miles away. I'm with my brother who I haven't walked with for many years, but we used to climb together, sail together and drink together; near inseparable until our late twenties. As we continued our cliff-top ramble, both clutching our walking poles and grumbling about the state of our threadbare knee joints, I realised that the only thing as eternal as the movement of wind, waves and tide, was the love between us brothers, all of us brothers. Although our separate lives are racing by faster than we would like, and that we will become just someone else's memories, these beautiful, wild, universal elements will be there for an eternity, bringing similar humbling joy to others in the future.