Manic weekend. Worked quite late on Friday in Skem, then that evening over to the Prince William for Bez’s leaving do. Good night, excellent company, good to catch up with TT, Shaz and Janey-woo plus the Bez. Probably the last formal do I’ll go to with LHS staff I guess. Shame.
Slow day on Sat, dropped papers into Brighouse Wolff for the new bungalow, went to visit the Gran as she’s pretty ill at the moment, stopped round at the parents for dinner, then over to Welsh Wales.
Got to Nant Peris in pretty good time (although in crap weather), ditched the car and walked up to the cottage to find Dave and Tracey. No-one in, so back down to the Vaynol, sopping wet. Nursed a beer til they arrived with a most individual Heather, and met one of Dave’s Greenland compadre’s. Grabbed food, then legged it to the cars and down to the Quality Inn in Llanberis.
Merseyside Mountaineering Club (mates of Tracey & Dave) were having their formal do, so we had a beer or two waiting for them to finish, then sloped into the venue downstairs where they were having a Ceilidh. Good night of dancing (not too much like a loon, very reserved) and quaffing of ales. Played tunes with the guys til silly o clock at the cottage. Very cosy, most ace, great times.
Awoke on sunday, feeling not that clever. Checking the time, I realised that my phone had died and I’d slept through the non-existent alarm. Swearing to myself, I stumbled through the cottage reclaiming bits of clothing/attire/body parts then got to the car and got round to Ogwyn damn fast to meet Marting Matt & the cast of DESA V.
The decision had been made to head up to Snowdon instead of climbing, so over we headed. I took a group up Crib Goch – excellent day, bit of snow on the top but none on the path itself – all the feel of a winter trip without any slippy bits! Clagged up which was a shame – none of the kids got to see what they were walking on.
Topped out, and found from Matt that the miners/pyg track was a bit dodgy with some slushy snow on the slabs – reconsidered and decended down the railway path to Llanberis, ringing Les & getting to meet us there.
Back to their bunkhouse to settle up (Matt having left the finances at home), realise that I’d left Dave J at Little Tryfan for part of the day wondering why the hell I wasn’t there with a group of kids (oh bugger), and then to fire back up to Preston for a Greenland Presentation run through. Consumed pizza at people, dropped bbq sauce everywhere, found out I was due to speak on Friday and then ran away.
Excellent times. Oh, and on the walk down I overheard part of a conversation the explorers were having – the previous day they’d been discussing the walk, and me turning up to lead it. Someone didn’t know me, and they were trying to explain me to this person. The final summation of that conversation ended up with me being described as :
“Ash is an enigma ; a state of mind”.
I’m not entirely sure what that means for me as a person, but it certainly sounds odd enough!
