Saturday 2 October 2021 - Kew Gardens

Today we took the District Line for an hour from Barking to Kew, near Richmond, and enjoyed our first visit to the gardens. We stayed mainly indoors in various locations as the weather was rainy.

Here are just a few of the many pictures taken until my battery ran out. I'll maybe add another posting on this subject next week if I can find time, and I'll try to add a few captions to these pictures.

These gardens, and the work being done to preserve rare and threatened species, is most impressive. We will try to visit again.

London Marathon - a trip to the big smoke

Today we enjoyed clear roads for all but the last half mile of our 206 mile journey from Timperley to Barking, where the Ibis Hotel is our home for three nights for about £200.

Traffic heading north wasn't so lucky, with long hold ups due to a breakdown and a dramatic car fire that saw the vehicle explode on the opposite carriageway as we headed south. We hope it's clear on Monday.

Once installed, we left the car in the car park for the duration of our stay and braved the London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway for a trip to the Excel centre to carry out Marathon admin such as dropping off clothing to be sent to the finish, and collecting my bibs; one for the front with my number on it (27719), and another for my back with my name and status in the 'Age Group World Championships' in which I appear to be competing. 

Not that I'll get a high ranking, despite having two timing chips, for reasons that will become apparent.

Thanks to everyone who has donated. I'm getting close to the final target so will nag people no further.

There's a Tesco Extra round the corner, and no evidence of a decent restaurant nearby, so Sue has been foraging for quiche and pasta salads, etc, duly consumed in our room.

Calgary Zoo

The donation from Calgary that just arrived for Levana has reminded me of a great day almost exactly four years ago, when Sue and I visited Calgary Zoo. This was my 82nd picture of the day, so I must have needed a rest from standing behind the lens!

Cobweb

Mist was in the air as we set off from Little Haven on 7 June 2006.

Happy Birthdays, Jessica and Isabella

Jessica was 8 on Sunday, and Isabella is one today (Tuesday).

Mike and Sarah hosted an excellent party, before Jess and crowd left to enjoy another party.

These photos were a nice touch. You need to click on the image to see them properly.

Pin the horn on the unicorn. Such games span many generations. I think we used to try to pin the tail on the donkey!

Blowing out the candle on the birthday cake. On this occasion the baby was bemused and the wind certainly assisted her in completing the task she failed to understand.

"I can feel something odd on my head, Dad, what are you up to?"

What a pleasant afternoon. Thanks to Michael and Sarah for organising it. And good luck to Sarah who goes back to work this week after a year of maternity leave.

Sunday 26 September 2021 - Wythenshawe Community Run

Sadly, during lockdown, Great Run Local ceased its Sunday morning runs in Wythenshawe Park. However, some local worthies have got together with Run Britain to organise a replacement for the 5km and 2km events. This is especially important for the youngsters who take part in the 2km runs - possible Olympic champions of the future start their running careers here. Today just a modest number of us took part in the second of these Sunday morning runs. Well done everyone concerned, and long may they continue. 

It was good to meet with a variety of folk, and I thank Richard Bacon (80) for pacing me around the course in a little under 27 minutes.

Saturday 25 September 2021 - Dolgellau parkrun

A short drive found us at a new parkrun for Sue and me. We assembled next to the main car park in Dolgellau. A river flowed gently past as 85 runners and walkers, together with numerous volunteers, prepared for two laps of a 'there and back' course along the track of a disused railway line. 

This was my training for next week's marathon. I hope I'm not as out of breath then as I was here today! Sue and I usually finish in about the same time these days, but despite being first in her age group she was two minutes behind me! And I wasn't first in my age group... and in fact I spent the first 4 km dicing for position with a five year old, Idris, before he faded a little more than I did over our final kilometre.

It took me a while to recover, then the post run coffee and cake was excellent. From a quality establishment that used to house an ironmongers shop.

Later, gin and tonics in our Timperley garden couldn't really match beers on the deck at Porthmadog that we've enjoyed this week. Never mind, it was just as warm here.

Friday 24 September 2021 - Cwm Ratgoed from Corris

Cwm Ratgoed was today's objective, accessed via the village of Corris, where there's free parking outside the steam railway museum that was closed today.

Corris is endowed with a mixture of buildings. At the top of the tree, fine constructions like that shown above, graduating to tumbledown cottages at the end of the row shown below.

A footpath through the woods next to the meandering stream, Afon Dulas, was soon located. The weather was drizzly and we had driven through cloud on the way here, but it was warm, and the damp air was slowly dissipating. My old trail shoes didn't stand up to the wet grass as well as Sue's sparkly new ones.

This view from the path shows how the cloud was down; this would have been a viewless mountain day. 

The river tumbled down over a series of rapids and small waterfalls. Sue spotted some good swimming pools, but today was not the day.

The area has been home to slate mining since the 14th century, and there are countless derelict reminders that the mining heyday of the 19th century is long past.

As we strolled through the wet grass we passed a tree that held hundreds of apples, each not much more than an inch in diameter.

What looked at first to be just another carcass of a mine building turned out to be the remains of a chapel, with a stained glass window still vaguely intact.

We passed extensive ruins at Ratgoed Hall, where a more modern building is also crumbling.

A little further on we reached our turning point in Cwm Ratgoed, where a conveniently placed picnic bench overlooked Dolgoed, which looked to be a fairly idyllic, if rather remote, working farmhouse.

Today's lunch of crisps and chocolate was somewhat hampered by a manky apple that Sue had chosen to bring along, and by the excellent cheese and cucumber sandwiches that I had contrived to leave behind in Porthmadog! We observed tits in the trees enjoying their lunches - they seemed to be finding lots of insects. Buzzards toured the skies.

Our planned route back down the other side of the valley was clearly out of bounds due to very active forestry workings. We didn't need to continue to inspect the inevitable sign. So we retraced our route for a little way before rejoining the planned route on a narrow road where a massive load of timber rumbled past. On the way, we got a good view from a walled pathway.

Before retracing our outwards route back to Corris, we entered woodland at Foel Friog, where we finished our tea at a picnic bench in the empty car park. We saw no other walkers today.

A signposted route in red, using forestry tracks not marked on our map, is available from here.

Our route is shown below in blue (click on the image for a better version), it was about 15km, with 200 metres ascent, taking a shade over 4 hours.

This concludes our walks in Snowdonia for this trip, during which we've been blessed with fine weather. I won't miss the cumbersome manner in which these postings, using (no WiFi available) just a mediocre phone signal, have to be composed, each picture taking several minutes to load.

We'll be back in November...

Thursday 23 September 2021 - Two Walks from Bethesda

Today we enjoyed two separate walks from the free car park in the centre of Bethesda. 

The first of them started past an impressive Town Hall building and crossed the Afon Ogwen to enter the woods of Coed-y-parc, where sunlight rippled through the trees on what was otherwise a grey day.

We soon found ourselves on a good path around the bottom edge of the Penrhyn Slate Quarry, with a good view back across the town. 

We seemed to be walking below a wall of slate. This is the bottom end of the vast quarry, from where slate has been extracted since the 16th century. Its heyday was in the 19th century, but the site is still in operation, as various hooting sounds confirmed today.

Our path left the vicinity of the quarry and at one point we walked between a stone wall and one of many slate fences that grace this part of the world.

The fence marked a high point of this walk, with good views despite the greyness of the day.

On return to Bethesda we admired some graffiti and enjoyed elevenses in a community garden. We learnt from an information board that there were once 27 chapels on the local Penrhyn Estate, where alcohol wasn't allowed. However, on non Estate land, public houses were built - 40 or so hereabouts.

Here's our route. 5km with no difficulties, and a good way to spend an hour and a half or so in this area. The paths were quiet apart from a couple of dog walkers and a dog runner who assured us that his dog would not be taking part in the Lleyn ultra marathon for which his master was training.

After our short tea break we set off again, this time from the other side of the main road, past the Jerusalem Chapel and a stone commemorating the great strike of 1900 to 1903.

The first section of this 'there and back' walk up to Cwm Pen-Llafar was along a lane through the hamlet of Gerlan, from where there were good views across the valley to the area in which we had been walking earlier.

We eventually left the road and continued on a good path up into the Cwm. Four Welsh hikers studiously avoided eye contact with us.

Lunch was taken near the Afon Llafar, where across the river are the remains of an old dam. Nearby, a shepherd was sounding more and more hoarse as he zoomed around on a quad bike trying to gather some sheep.

The mist was down, but a Navy helicopter flew manically around us, eventually practising landing in a nearby bog.

We got to our high point at around 500 metres - the end of the path. Sue went a little further and claims to have got a better view. 

I watched as another couple and their dog slogged their way up a steep slope that may have given them access to the main Carneddau ridge in the vicinity of Carnedd Dafydd.

After that, for us, it was all downhill on the well graded path.

We noticed several feral ponies in the Cwm, which was also inhabited today by a lone heron and a large number of crows.

During the day we noted various wild flowers, including several that we'll have to identify later. There were swathes of Himalayan Balsam at one point, and elsewhere St John's wort, various ragwort type flowers, etc - as well as loads of berries, chestnuts, and rose hips.

Here's our there and back route - 11km with 350 metres ascent, in about 3.5 hours.