NEWS: "People don’t wear clothing to keep warm any more".
This rings true, and has been a cause of friction in this house over the years. It strikes me as obscene to switch the house heating on before you have started to add layers of clothes to keep warm. Today is supposedly "Central heating day". Sounds like media nonsense to me, but I have known this happen. Can’t forsee switching on until after October though.

Planning another jaunt to Wales this time without Rosie, that means Tryfan is a possible climb, but not going if the cloudbase is less than 2,000ft. Otherwise it’s Rhinog Fawr.

Viewed from Rhinog Fach. I don’t know how I am going to approach this one yet. Wish me luck.

Damn, this has been a strange day.
Dry cough and me in this bull-suit. Keep out of Crockery shops for best results.

It started with such virtue. Yours not understanding.

It’s been a week since a post, that’s what happens to brains befuddled by a head-cold.
A lot has happened though. Last weekend’s fabulous camping escape; crossing the Glyderau; beach day on Fairbourne with a new friend; school things, jarring recollections of the distressing side-salad incident.

I’ll never forget that salad- it was an emotional experience.
Below: the Glyderscape, is this a real place on earth that we visited?

…

Above: Snowdon is in the background

New books to tease me while I finish the current one.there are too many here- nice problem to have. Brautigan has a fine voice, it’s a plain melody to listen to while reading.

Approved of by the English department, they want to use them to teach short story analysis. what a great conversation that started- went so far that we want to take kids up Yr Wyddfa in bad weather and take turns reading and thinking romanticism. No it’s nothing to do with boy+girl stuff, this is just as big but ignored by city folk. stop and listen to the quietness and it’s just as loud- it has a big voice.

Tide in. All the photos are in my memory, it was too wet to get the camera out this week. The grass, channels and clay-slip mud banks. What a contrast to those raw frightening but sublime summits of the last few trips.
Am I getting worse?

Why is climbing mountains such a draw?

You meet the most remarkable people on these mountains. As long as you stay off the honey-pots, the other areas can be quite remote (in feel). It’s the feel that is so important in this, on those wilderness places, there is some kind of magic that builds a certain ‘feel’ inside. Mostly in your chest, but it does sometimes clamber up inside and reach your throat. It’s also a very physical experience, though that can’t really be separated from the sensations outside and inside. They are all woven together. I am comforted by the fact that I can go on long enough for the experience to be engrossing and no passing nuance. Some of those walks were ten hours, though mostly more like eight. I took time to shoot photos, to eat, to tend to my poodle and to look and to see.there were streams for Rosie to drink from, ponds/lakes for me to wash and rocks to injure myself on. Once walking across a flat grassy plane, all squelchy marsh but harmless looking, I plunged my foot down into an unseen cavern up to my knee. That hurt enough to justify using the F word. You can never be off your guard out there.
That’s nothing compared to getting lost on the Glyders in the cloud & rain. It took over 2½ hours to find a route down and that was on the wrong side of the mountain down a very steep heather covered slope. A slope that took nearly two hours to get to the bottom plus a six mile walk back to camp. I was very close to phoning for mountain rescue up there. I felt trapped but remembered something once read- keep making decisions, don’t give up making decisions.
That was one stressful day but I got happily back to camp before dark. Sunset is late this time of year though, a valuable safety net.
Relief.

The marshfield in the Rhinogau with hidden traps. Tread and squelch with caution.

Rushed out to watch the sunset at the river confluence.The clouds were obliging someone else this day. I like this place, Rosie does too but I fear for her safety there. The railway is not fenced off, so she can trot up to the embankment.

English grammar is in my thoughts around this time- we’re writing reports at work. Add to that a discussion underway on FSDeveloper‘s website and my mind wanders- especially when on the bike. Some of the discussion looks at the differences between British & US English. Consider this:
The Question "Have you got a ticket?"
A British person answers: "Yes, I have."
An American says: " Yes I do" which sounds peculiar to British ears, but why?

The clearest explanation I can think of goes like this:
My answer is shortened from " Yes, I have got a ticket?
So we assume that the US version is shortened from: "Yes I do got a ticket", which is absurd.

It seems that there could be two explanations for this: one is that the American version is wrong. The other is that the Americans could be in the habit of asking the question differently:
"Do you have a ticket?"
However, we don’t always hear that style of question, so that is not a strong hypothesis:

Found a clearly written site that explains a technique for questioning those grammar posers that you have an odd feeling about but aren’t exactly sure why.
Dodge the grammar traps. I like the idea of removing parts to sentences to see if they still work. There are other tests to help trace the problems. Useful.

After "My life in verse"(BBC2), TS Eliot is fresher. Reading "The love song of Alfred Prufrock" now.
Best approach this like a song, go over it time and time again, let it grow in my conscience like good music does:

Great start.