5°C, no clouds, C=26 miles
Summer blight: Listen guys, it’s actually easier to trim the hedge with shears; it’s quicker to mow the lawn with a push-along. Switch off all those noisy machines and let’s all enjoy summer days on this crowded little atlantic island.
Here is one very poorly looking rape field. Some patches were normal looking but acres & acres look dry, brown dusty and quite dead.
Sunday, Yr Wyddfa: (Mt Snowdon, 1085m) and Yr Aran (745m): Got up when I woke (5am), then drove to The western slopes of Mt Snowdon. Started the climb at 10.30. Parked at Ryd Ddu and took the route up to Yr Aran. Pure blue skies and light winds. This day turned into a 10 hour hike.I came down from Yr Aran to the Watkin path and then climbed Snowdon. The Summit was too crowded to stay more than a few minutes, so then headed down the Snowdon Ranger track. After the drive to Wales, this was an additional 10 hour hike, I slept well that night after hotel troubles were solved.
So now I have done all of the major ascent routes of Snowdon. Those remaining are proper scrambles, but I can’t take Rosie on terrain like those.
This is rain I can live with, it is interrupted by bright sunny spells while the dark clouds brew up on the horizon. Stygian.
I ought to comment on the 19/20 politicians who have been fiddling the books in Parliament and the House of Lords too. It all seems too obviously corrupt to be worth mentioning. I can only hope they are treated in the way we would be if it were us in our jobs doing the same thing. But wait, only a few are suspended pending an investigation.
Cattle: here are the cows that chased Rosie & Bess last week. They look nice enough…
Amazed: to have escaped the worst downpours on the Long Mynd today. No off-lead romping for Rosie though- sheep everywhere. It’s a remarkably gorgeous place. We test-walked a route that our Duke Of Edinburgh kids will do soon. The surface is very easy going, even the steep bits, much of it can be run. Read that Wiki article for some interesting geology- this oft missed place has a really interesting pre-history. Nowadays, it is covered with groups performing the DofE marching ritual.
Seeen near Abbost Bromley, Staffordshire, they had their backs to the wind.
LPs: William Fitzsimmons- in vinyl is still at work, I can’t carry LPs on the bike. Looking forward to hearing that album in its entirety.
Work: going back has been a bit of a start; like a shock but less so (I’ll reserve that word for things like seeing a pheasant getting run-over on the A515). Wednesday cracked it though, after some days feeling terrible, I went to bed before 22.00. You should do that too sometimes. Now I feel normal.
Normal: actually, I don’t. Today’s 70 miles was harder than it should have been. Perhaps I didn’t eat enough yesterday to feel normal today. I was too tired and desperate to get home to shoot some photos of blooming rape against darkening cumulus clouds. I missed a pearl there (not in a knitting sense).
Yesterday: climbed Snowdon up the Watkins path. After a few thousand feet, I found myself with a delightful family who hadn’t taken that route before. They were lovely, though I would have been just as happy with the solitude at high altitude. Climbing mountains is about searching, a longing for something elusive in the distance and in these places you get closer to touching something. Talking to that family, I shall call the "howards" left less space for the first quest. The summit was a more intense emotional experience for the wrong reasons: Rosie had acquired a deep long gash on her leg which left me with blood covering my hands. I felt devestated by guilt and concern for my loyal travelling companion. My mind raced through alternative solutions that would be best for my poodle. I decided to get away from the crowds, and give rosie a rest to allow the injury to clot and stop bleeding. It did work, but I would have given anythign not to have a problem like that to solve.
The urge to climb mountains is a really tough one to explain, so I may have to re-visit this theme to articulate it more clearly.
Hotel: after a meal, there was no getting round the fact that I was too tired to drive home. Betwys-y-Coed has lots of hotels & B&Bs, it didn’t take long to check in a place that allows dogs. British hotels are grotty places, they hark back to a nostalgia for classicism, but the stuff isn’t that old but looks flaky in detail and smells of mildew. A great place for a novelist to seek material, or for me to read more of a Brautigan book. That book really drew me in yesterday- it takes me some time to get used to an author’s voice. Don’t look him up on Youtube though- he sounds like Big Bird from Sesame Street; his writing has strength.
I longed for a place that is more populated by climbers and people who do stuff outside; maybe they do exist, or maybe Wales still hasn’t caught on to that rich potential market. that is one country held back by under-investment and lack of imagination.
Quality advice here
Cycle– shortened by heavy rain showers, not a problem themselves, but the two punctures in one day is teetering on annoying.
Headaches: another approach to dealing with them is reading glasses. I almost forgot that I had them, so out of the habit of wearing them am I. So I can beat them with reading glasses, less caffeine and better hydration.
I laughed at a van today, normally they are not very funny, especially the dirty silver ones with company logos all over them. This one had on the back door:
Fight Club: watched at last. Thanks to Helen for the recommend, you are also right that the film needs repeated viewing.
Micycle 