Ten Days in Timperley

Is it really ten days since I flew in to the greenery of Timperley?

Well, yes – and the only day walk I’ve been on is last week’s ‘plod’ from Abbey Village to Mellor.

But before I got back, whilst I was supporting Ken on his 51km skate-ski Loppet, Sue enjoyed a bimble in the Peak District, snapping Paul (above) taking in the sumptuous view over the Vale of Edale, and Jenny, Phil and Sue W on the unmistakable summit of Mam Tor. 

Perhaps she’ll write about it one day!

Then, last weekend, she deserted me in favour of another little trip.

Perhaps she’ll write about it one day!

Meanwhile, back in Timperley I’ve been enjoying the spring-like weather in between planning for this summer’s outings, with Sue strapped to her desk earning the means to pay for those outings, many of which are ‘hut to hut’, as opposed to backpacking with a tent, to satisfy the needs of her neck.

So this rather mundane entry is really for my mum, Dot, who fractured her femur on the night before we left for Canada.  Within a week or so she was back home after her second ‘half a hip replacement’ within twelve months.  Sadly however the joint is harbouring a bacterial infection, so after several visits to A&E she has now been readmitted for at least three weeks to be dosed with powerful antibiotics in an effort to subdue the infection.

Being away from her computer, she’ll receive a hard copy of this posting, and all those from our Canadian trip.

Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.

Yesterday it was very spring-like in Manchester, as over the rest of the country according to my fellow bloggers.  It’s an excellent time of year for bird watching, and as I pedaled down the course of the old Warrington and Stockport railway, closed in the 1960’s but retained as a valuable recreational resource, it was a pleasure to watch lapwings in the fields and goldfinches in the hedgerows, from the tops of which the warbling dunnocks defied their drab appearance.  Lots of other birds were also in evidence, as well as jay-walking squirrels.

My 17 mile circuit on the bike takes me under the M6 motorway to Thelwall, to join the Bridgewater Canal for the return to Timperley.  It’s a delightful ride, if rather flat, and sometimes muddy.  Here’s the canal to the west of Lymm.

On return, I noticed that our garden needs some attention, but as on the canal towpath the crocuses are flourishing.

A walk to the shops in Sale took me over a really muddy section of towpath, which thankfully has dried out enough over the past week to facilitate cycling without getting totally covered in mud.

However, the section by Sale Rowing Club seems to be receiving special attention.  Very good, but we hope the other, rather muddier sections soon receive the same treatment (although hopefully the season of the towpath mud zones is drawing to a close).

Work Float No 4 still seems to be in position and loaded with resurfacing material, which is certainly a good sign.

Sale has an attractive Town Hall, fronted by an impressive war memorial.

The afternoon view along the Bridgewater Canal from Sale Bridge is always into the glare of the sun, but shows the canal running straight as a die for about two miles to Timperley.  And there’s always the option of traveling home by way of the tram line that runs just to the left of the canal.

That’s all for now.  Back to the planning (and other distractions).

Get well soon, Dot.

Wednesday 22 February 2012 – The Lancashire Trail (Part 5) – Abbey Village to Mellor

After a couple of weeks in monochromatic, if sunny, Ottawa, it was nice to be out on a warm day in the bright green surroundings of the English countryside.

14 Plodders and Maude set off from Abbey Village at around 10.30, on this fifth section of the increasingly popular Lancashire Trail series of walks.  As you can see, Maude was soon distracted by some friendly locals.

Stiles frequently hindered our progress on this walk, which took the Witton Weavers Way at times where the old route of the Lancashire Trail has fallen into obscurity, so keeping up with Reg’s cracking pace wasn’t too arduous today..

It was muddy...

...and raining...and slippery ...

For more, you’ll have to go to the slideshow link at the end of this posting, but the picture above shows clearly the gentleman from BT who latched onto us – he seemed to be walking backwards for much of the day, perhaps in search of wonky poles to Roger his way up and repair the ‘phone lines.

Here’s a stalwart of these excursions, Don – 'Mud Man' – a nickname for which he can thank today’s ground conditions!  Maybe if he didn’t have the invaluable stick he would be ‘Roly-Poly Man’?

This was one of the drier sections of the walk - we've just crossed (underneath!) the M65 motorway.

Looking ahead from the site of the previous picture, we could see down to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, with Hoghton beyond, on what turned out to be a rather murky day.

Reg cracked on along the towpath before slewing to a breezy halt for elevenses in the shelter of a bridge.  Fudge brownies seemed to go down well.  They are so popular that some participants have started to make their own, hence some additional ‘cooking’ hints in the above link!

We then forsook the canal and headed to the River Darwen, where a massive weir was built during the industrial revolution in order to slow the pace of the river.  With today’s rain it looked a bit like Niagara.  R Norman (61) felt that it needed a human presence along its length to present the viewer with a sense of scale, so, being an obliging sort of soul (with a brain the size of a pea – he doesn’t read these reports – don’t tell him I said that!) he strolled over to oblige.

“Don’t do that at home” he announced, after being fished out of the river.

After drying Norman out, we passed under this magnificent viaduct that houses the railway line linking Preston with Blackburn.  The old brickwork shows no sign of deterioration.

Hoghton Bottoms is home to a businessman who has a selection of commuting vehicles.  Amongst his 4WD vehicles is a Microlight aircraft that he uses for commuting to work in the summer months.

It was good to see large swathes of snowdrops in flower at Hoghton Bottoms, though the delicate flowers were sheltering tightly from the rain.

"Hello, my name's Alan” announced the BMC Nuffield 10/60, in a rather weary voice. “I live in a cave."

“At least I’m out of the rain” he commented, positively.

Muddy fields featured strongly in today's walk.  The weather was 'driech' – laying siege with cats and dogs at some points, like here, near Billinge Hall, where we should have had views to the suburbs of Blackburn.

Perhaps it was just as well that it was misty!

I found it impossible to keep the rain off the lens.

We lunched on a wall outside a pub.  Anne went in, but came out again.  A long lunch wasn’t on the agenda so we made do by exchanging stares with diners in the posh dining room just the other side of our wall.  The pub has recently been expensively refurbished.  Clogs and the billycock were the favourite attire of a landlord who took over this 150 year old pub in the early 20th century. Clogs were also worn by local mill workers, and their boss or charge-hand was always identifiable by his lowcrowned wide-brimmed felt bowler hat - the billycock.

Eventually our destination, Mellor, with its distinctive spire of St Mary's church, came into view - up a final, laboriously boggy hill.

After a short lecture from the font of all knowledge on the art of passing through slurry, we consulted the back of his hand and took evasive action.  There was still one little ‘hop’ that some found challenging … but help was on hand, so to speak.

Anyway, we soon reached the pleasant village of Mellor, which is full of enticing pub signs.  Some carefully positioned cars were soon located, and after a short drive to reunite others with their transport, we were back at the Hare and Hounds in Abbey Village – by coincidence the same Hare and Hounds that we had to leave so abruptly after stage 4 of this epic adventure.

Anne proudly advertised her new sponsor, whilst the rest of us nipped in to sample the Black Sheep, etc.  Very nice it was, too.

We had walked about 16km (10 miles), mostly in the rain, climbing a modest 400 metres or so, but no particular hill as such, in around 4.5 hours.  Here’s the route we took:

Apologies for the delay in this report.  I have excuses.  And I have a poor memory and a dodgy camera, so I also apologise for any minor factual inaccuracies and insults within the text and the images.  Reg’s factual and timely report can be found on this page, and my 32 image slideshow is here.

See you next time, I hope.  The date for stage 6 is currently a closely guarded secret in an attempt to control the ever burgeoning numbers of folk coming on this excellent (whatever you may infer from the text) series of walks.

Back to Lancashire Trail Index

Sunday 19 February 2012 – The Gatineau Loppet Freestyle Event - 51km

Yesterday, the Classic Loppet, today the ‘Freestyle’ Loppet.  This involves the use of skate skies, and is a very energetic activity.

Luckily I don’t have any skate skies!

On the other hand, Santa (above) appears to have acquired some; maybe they were a Christmas present?

I went up trail 30 from Kingsmere (P7) on a lovely sunny morning and shouted encouragement to the skiers from a corner near the top of Penguin Hill, by Wattsford Lookout, which enjoys views over Ottawa.

Santa was only just behind this group of fairly elite skiers, who had taken just over an hour to reach this 20km point along the 51km course, which was the same course as for yesterday’s ‘Classique’ race.

At this point very few skiers stopped for a rest at the corner.  They powered on up the final steep ascent prior to the excellent trail to their next support point at Keogan.

A Brit who was also in yesterday’s race, Steve Hesketh, went past in a big bunch of speedy racers.  So far as I can see, there were just four Brits amongst the 416 who completed today’s race, and Steve was by far the quickest of them.  (As yesterday, when he was an hour ahead of me and three hours ahead of the other two Brits.)

Half an hour after Santa, with the field thinning, and even a lad from Leeds, Gordon O’Neill, going past, Ken powered his way up Penguin Hill for a chat at the corner.  By this time I was chatting to many of the skiers who were finding the hill a little much to complete without a rest, and Ken also felt he had to stop and say hello!

It was a lovely day.  I pottered back down to P7, relishing the nicely groomed surface and the emptiness of trail 30.  Then a short drive to P9 at Dunlop saw me donning my old skis for the last time for this trip and heading up Fortune Parkway to the support point at Huron. 

It didn’t take long for my target to arrive, and again Ken was happy to stop for a chat…..

…and a posed shot with his mouth full of a mixture of Gatorade and chocolate covered peanuts…

“I’ve got to go now” he announced “that lad from Leeds is just ahead of me and I don’t want to be beaten by someone who has no access to any proper training facility.” (Freestyle skiing doesn’t have a large following in Leeds, so far as I’m aware!)*

So off he went, and so did I, enjoying my final descent down Fortune Parkway.  It was a lovely day, and the trail was quick, so the 20mph descent of the final long hill was a satisfactorily exhilarating conclusion to this year’s ‘adventures on planks’.

Here’s a parting shot of the Parkway, by Fortune Lake, yesterday afternoon, before the final descent to P9 car park.

That’s it from Canada for this year.  I’m shortly off to catch a plane.  Hope you enjoyed these postings.  It’s back to ‘plodding’ this week.

I will be putting up some pictures on Picasa, in particular of the images I took yesterday at Wattsford Lookout whilst waiting for Ken.  I’ll place a link here.  If you are a skier who appears in any of those images, and you would like a full size copy, let me know through the ‘Contact us’ button on topwalks.com, and I’ll send it to you.  It’ll be my pleasure.

* BTW, Ken came in 365th out of the 416 finishers, in just under four hours, nearly a minute ahead of Gordon from Leeds, who came a very commendable 366th – the second Brit on the day.  And for Ken that completes Parham Momtahan’s ‘Triple Challenge’, comprising the 160km Canadian Ski Marathon, and this weekend’s two 51km Loppet races.  Only a handful of people (less than 20) have completed this daunting challenge.  Well done Ken!

Saturday 18 February 2012 – The Gatineau Loppet Classique

Regular readers will realise that whilst there’s nothing I enjoy more than a plod in the countryside, I am up for the occasional challenge.

Today that challenge was the 51km Gatineau Loppet.  It’s only a short drive to the start, so an early rise wasn’t needed to get to P2 to meet up with Susan and Roy, who ‘collect’ Loppets.  (Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose!)  Ken, my chauffeur for the day, was also there, proudly sporting his ‘Chelsea Masters’ technical top.  You can make what you want of my gear - it’s all very old, but it works.

The ‘Classique’ is the event for ‘cross-country’ rather than ‘skate’ skiers, and today’s entry comprised 331 folk from 22 different countries.  Our group of four, pictured above at the start, represented three of those countries.  I also discovered Sophie, a French Canadian friend, at the start – she was doing a 31km version of the Loppet, the two events being arranged to start together.

We started at 9am in four ‘waves’, at two minute intervals.  The other three were deemed suited to start in the third wave, whilst I was down amongst the duffers (sorry, Sophie) at the back of the field.  Whilst there was a little aggressive behaviour after the start, when ten lanes of skiers rapidly contract to two lanes, at my end of the field everyone was pretty well behaved.

The previous night I’d helped Ken prepare the skis in an attempt to get a bit more grip and glide from the warm conditions than we had last week.  Green klister had been ironed on top of a layer of glide wax, allowed to cool outside for a while, then some magic (as it turned out) violet klister was ironed on top of everything else before putting the skis back into the cooler.

It worked, I was soon actually passing people on the hills, and was moving along at a reasonable pace.  All went well for about 7km, when I failed (yet again) to negotiate the turn from #5 down #26 – where Helen is pictured in yesterday’s posting.  This time I bashed a thumb, which though not life threatening, remains swollen and  mildly painful.

It was another warm, sunny day, clouding over later with snow flurries.  Lovely.  At the back end of the field most participants were enjoying their day out, the only ‘race’ being with the cut-off times, which quite a few were worried about.  So I had some nice chats along the way and soon realised that given the excellent waxing of the skis, being ‘cut-off’ was not really a worry.

I carried a few spares in a bum bag – clothes, two pairs of gloves, waxes, first aid kit, food, etc, but it never got opened, the drinks and food being provided by the six or so feeding stations along the route being more than adequate.

It’s not a flat route – there’s about 900 metres of ascent, including several steep hills that have to be ‘herring-boned’.  It was after one of these hilly sections (trail 15) that we emerged past Pink Lake onto Gatineau Parkway and down to ‘The Notch’, where there’s a support point.  Here, after just 15km, I spotted Susan and Roy, just ahead.  They remained that way for the remaining 36km – a target – though they never saw me or heard my shouts of encouragement from just a few metres behind them on a couple of hills where I was quicker.  I just didn’t have the technique to keep up with them on the flatter sections, and they eventually finished just a few places ahead of me.

We all met Ken coming the other way where there’s a little loop in the route around Huron Cabin.  He was nearly 30 minutes ahead of us at that point and finished even further ahead, in a very commendable (for an ex-pat Brit) 4 hours 17 minutes.

Whilst the klister was great for going up hills, mine was affecting the downhill glide over the last few km, but not enough to do anything about it.  I’d expected to take about 6 hours for the 51km, but by some miracle came in just under 5 hours.  I didn’t see any of the other Brits in the race – one finished an hour ahead of me and the other two were two hours behind.  So if there had been awards by nationality I’d have got a silver medal!  As it was, we all got a Buff.

For my own benefit as much as anything, the Loppet website is here, the results are here, and my Garmin gadget’s data is shown below:

The Gatineau Loppet Warm-up Loop

Today’s continuing ‘heatwave’ failed to deter Helen and me from a little adventure onto the sloppy snow.

We chose the Loppet warm-up loop, from P2 car park, where tomorrow (Saturday) some of the world’s finest athletes, and Ken, will hare off down the 51km course, hoping to finish in a little over two hours.

Today it took Helen and me nearly an hour and a half to ski the 9km warm up loop.  We were passed several times by two friendly chaps, pictured above, who were setting signs for the various Loppets taking place over the weekend.  The 51km version is the longest; there’s also a 31km route.

The sun shone, as usual on this trip, and the scenery was delightful.  Here’s Helen swooping down trail 5.  To her right is the corner at the junction with trail 26 that I failed to negotiate a few days ago.

Back near P2, an international medley of finely honed athletes was involved in a recce in advance of tomorrow’s exertions.  They all looked very fit.  I hope Ken doesn’t get mown down in the melee.  Nor Susan and Roy, who are starting with Ken in ‘Wave C’, for that matter.

The Loppets start in five ‘Waves’ – A to E, in the latter of which the duffers are set loose, 8 minutes after the elite group.  That means the duffers have 8 minutes less in which to reach the aggressively timed cut off point after 24km.

Oh dear!

Susan and Roy - Loppeteers

If someone who enters a ‘Loppet’ is a ‘Loppeteer’, Susan and Roy fit that description.  Today they had me up at the crack of dawn for a 20 km ‘whizz’ around the Parkways of Gatineau, to record (see pictures above) their final training session for Saturday’s 51 km Classic Ski Loppet.  I have opted out of their final training session tomorrow at the Spa, principally because Roy has borrowed some essential equipment for that pursuit.

A Loppet is a ski race.  They are held all over the world.  Where there is snow, obviously.  Ottawa’s weather system is preparing for the weekend’s events by way of … a rainstorm.  It’s lashing down outside.  So conditions could be interesting.

Today’s Parkway circuit followed a route that I took last year.  Then, with my blistered heels, I timed it at about two hours.  Today I was fitter, but the route took an extra 30 minutes.  Not because Susan and Roy held me up – the opposite was true – but because the conditions were… a little sticky.  For example, on moving out of the groomed trail to take the above photos at the top of Fortune Parkway, I found that about three inches of ice had glued itself to the underside of my skis.  Even Susan and Roy’s waxless wonders were behaving as if threading their way through an ocean of white glue.

It was slow going.  I broke another basket (the thing at the end of the ski pole that helps with traction) – it must have become glued to the tacky surface.  Another repair for Ken to help with.  He won’t be happy!

We certainly earned our Hot Chocolate at the cafe in Chelsea.

A Hot Ski to Lusk Cabin

After the previous night’s indulgencies at Woodroffe Towers, it was 10.30 by the time Helen and I had rendezvoused with Susan and Roy at P19, the most westerly of the ski trail car parks.

The trip to Lusk Cabin is one that we’ve enjoyed many times over the years.  The header picture shows Roy and me outside the cabin on Wednesday lunch time, admiring the view across the lake, and pondering the whereabouts of the Ghost of the Lost Skier of Lusk Lake.

It was warm – around +3C, with snow flurries.  With a couple of centimetres of fresh snow, which was rather wet, this made the skiing conditions…. ‘interesting’.  After setting off along trail 51, Helen flew off ahead (unusual) with her waxless skis.  Susan and Roy soon returned to their car to change into their ‘waxlesses’.  I don’t have any such skis, so I floundered on, slithering slowly backwards on the slightest of uphill gradients, and bizarrely failing to get any glide on the downhill sections.  It was like skiing on slippy wet putty, though I’d never want to try that!

Violet wax was supplanted by purple wax, but it didn’t make much difference.  After a while, Helen left us to take the direct route to Lusk, whilst the three of us soldiered on around the picturesque ‘Taylor Lake Loop’.

Light snow and the difficult trail didn’t do much to spoil our enjoyment of this beautiful woodland trail, though.  After a steepish hill, the trail passes a canvas ‘yurt’ before emerging at the eastern end of Taylor Lake.  Here Roy posed for me (see below) with the lake in the background and a new yurt to the left in the shot.  These yurts can be hired for overnight stays by private parties, as can Lusk Cabin and one or two others in this section of the Park.  Most of the cabins in Gatineau Park are, however, for use by day visitors only, and they don’t cater for overnight stops, though many are used as destinations for evening ski trips and are often found full of folk enjoying mid-week cheese and wine parties.

A little further along our slither, we skirted Lac Renaud, where despite the unseasonable warmth, nobody was found sunbathing on this judiciously positioned bench.

They were all enjoying their lunches in Renaud Cabin, in front of a roaring fire…

After establishing that Helen hadn’t decided to stop at Renaud, we scooted on to Lusk to join her for lunch.  Part of the 3 km cul de sac trail to Lusk was recently washed away, but a good attempt at a diversion has been made, and we were pleased to make it to that characterful cabin.  It was hot inside.  Very hot.  A backwoodsman turned up and opened a window.  Nobody complained.  It was hot. Rather above freezing. That’s very unusual at Lusk at this time of year.

On the way back to Philippe and P19 car park, I discovered that ‘special red’ was the wax of the day, and after applying that I was suddenly and surprisingly able to more or less keep pace with Susan and Roy!

A Day out with Susan and Roy

Readers may recall that we met Susan and Roy on the TGO Challenge in 2008.  We’ve subsequently become good friends and occasionally meet up, albeit they live in Connecticut, some distance from Timperley.

Anyway, they happen to be in Ottawa for Saturday’s Loppet, and are staying in Chelsea.  So with Ken and Helen both at work, and Sue safely tucked up at home in Timperley, they were the obvious choice of companions for me today.

We duly went to P11 – a car park by Meech Lake - and enjoyed a slither along trail 36 to Herridge Cabin, which was deserted apart from a roaring fire.  Two French snowshoers eventually arrived.  It’s unusual to have this popular cabin, only 5 km from P16, to oneself.  The icy trails must be putting people off – it hasn’t snowed properly for about a month, and the trails are showing it.

Old snow, and ice crystals, tend to remove any wax applied to your skis fairly rapidly, and today Susan and Roy had to re-wax three times (see picture below) during our 20 km pootle.  At least there were sunny intervals, and we had the trail to ourselves.

That’s it for today; Ken is having a little celebration, and guests are expected, so the big silver button on this contraption will soon be pressed…

An Icy Afternoon in Gatineau Park

The good news is that Ken returned home last night with a gold bar, having completed the 160 km Canadian Ski Marathon.  Sadly, Michael just failed to make it to the final checkpoint before the cut-off time, so he ‘only’ did 147 km.  Very impressive, nonetheless.  When Sue and I have tried this event we have felt chuffed to manage much more than 100 km over the course of the weekend, and that’s without carrying packs.

Conditions were tough.  There are many tales to be told.  But not here, for the time being.

We enjoyed dinner at ‘The Pub’ in Chelsea with Susan and Roy last night, but today was Sue’s appointed rendezvous with United/Continental  Airlines for the purpose of returning to Timperley to win some of the bread that’ll be needed to support our travel plans for the year ahead.  She managed to ski nearly 150 km during her stay, though, which isn’t bad for a ‘Beach Holiday’.

So having dropped Sue at the airport I got a late start for a 23 km ski from P2, covering the eastern section of the Gatineau Loppet route.  It was fairly warm at just minus 2C, but the tracks were icy and my blue wax soon dissipated, leaving me with a rather slithery experience along tracks like trail 15 in the late afternoon, pictured above on the way to Pink Lake.  Which is white at this time of year.

En route to the undulations of trail 15’s twisty course, the trail passes under a series of huge pylons.  Not even Gatineau Park is protected from such monstrosities.

Later, the low sun lit the trail beautifully.  I was passed by these two ladies on a short incline.  I wasn’t the only one finding the ice a little slithery – normally we’d all be scooting quickly up this short hill with our skis in the prepared trail, but today even a small rise proved hard work.

After wiping out at an innocuous junction (my first proper ‘crash’ of the trip) I found my way back to P2, via trails 26/29/27.  On Saturday and Sunday mornings this coming weekend, several hundred athletic skiers will be racing down the track pictured below, just yards from the start of the Classic and Freestyle (skate skis) Loppets – 51 km races around some of the Park’s excellent trails.  There will be much competition for the leading positions, whilst at the other end of the field people will be straining every muscle to avoid being ‘timed out’ at the cut off points around the course.

Another Ski Weekend

This is the weekend of the Canadian Ski Marathon, which Sue and I have taken part in on several occasions, as has Helen.  But this year we have left the heroics to Ken, Lester and Michael, who are aiming to complete the full 160km in two days, including an overnight camp at around minus 20C, for which they must carry all the gear for the full distance.

No sooner had Ken left the house on Friday afternoon …. when the cat’s away ….

Saturday saw Helen staying at home to digest her lobster, whilst Sue and I embarked on our traditional trip to the Fire Tower, from P12 by Meech Lake, up trails 40 and 24 to Ridge Road, and on to the Fire Tower.

It was cold – around minus 16C all day, but as you can see from the header photo, we made it to the Fire Tower.  This is the western limit of Gatineau Park’s groomed trails.  Those who wish to continue have to bushwhack from here.  The Fire Tower served as an observation post for fire rangers for around 30 years, from the 1940s, until it was succeeded by more sophisticated methods of fire prevention, such as air patrols and lightning detection.

McKinstry Cabin lies 2.5 to the east of the Fire Tower, so it provided shelter for a tea break, then on our return journey, for lunch.

There’s no bird feeder at McKinstry – perhaps it’s just a bit too far away for the re-supply vehicles.  But there is a good fuel store for the wood burning stove.

There’s also the regulation outhouse.  We couldn’t manage without these essential buildings!

The trails were fast today.  This is what can happen if you take a corner at excessive speed.  Luckily, no lasting damage was done.

As has been the norm on this trip, the sun shone virtually all day from a crystal clear sky.  Below is a skier on his way along Ridge Road, at the point where our route heads down to the left along trails 24 and 40, back to Meech Lake.  In today’s icy conditions, care was needed on the final shaded sections.  Despite the grooming it can be icy in places after a prolonged period of not so cold, sunny weather with no precipitation.

Sunday, saw us (me, Sue and Helen) back at P3 for a short ski in cool minus 10C conditions.  Here’s one of the few images I took, this one whilst rattling down Gatineau Parkway over a motorway bridge, on the way back towards P3 and Ottawa.  The image, like most taken on this trip, doesn’t adequately convey the impression of steepness.

Sue sadly has to leave for home tomorrow, but Susan and Roy should have turned up in Chelsea, and hopefully by the time we get back from Sunday Dinner with them tonight, Ken will have returned victorious from the Ski Marathon, sporting a ‘Gold Bar’ in recognition of his achievement.