Scaling The Heights

The peak is behind me, as yet unscaled. (By me)

It is called Yr Wyddfa in Welsh, meaning “the tomb”. It is believed that at least 350,000 people visit it every year. It dominates the topography in North Wales. It is the highest mountain in Wales at 1085 metres. Nowhere in England is as high.

Snowdon.

Having lived in Snowdonia for over four years I felt it was about time I hauled myself up it. All these hundreds of thousands of people were finding their way to it from all over the country and beyond, and it's only 90 minutes drive away for me.

Anna had a bit of time off work so we made a thing of it, booking a tent pitch for two nights at a campsite near the base of the mountain. We studied maps. We arranged for a massive heatwave. And off north we drove on Wednesday afternoon with the car jam-packed with all manner of objects of various utility for our quest.

We stayed at Beddgelert campsite, a beautiful wooded spot with tame rabbits lollopping about. Sadly it's threatened with being turned into a posh glamping site with chalets, you can object to the ongoing planning application here!


Thursday dawned clear and hot. The sky was a solid blue. We walked half an hour through a forest to Beddgelert itself, jumped on a bus, and were carried round to the east side of Snowdon along a spectacular route with views of glittering lakes, jagged peaks and sheer slopes. At Pen-y-Pass we alighted and joined a mass of people of all ages, each one intent on climbing the same route as us, the Pyg Track. It wasn't that much fun being part of this sweating parade but Anna saw a gap and went for it, overtaking a clump of older people on a steep corner, we pushed ourselves up with our hearts hammering and pulses racing, and found ourselves out front.

From then on it was quieter, only occasionally passing or being passed by other walkers with a cheery grunt. The peak came into sight after an hour or so. Suddenly a clattering sound broke the peace, it appeared to be coming from above. Was it the steam train? It stopped, then resumed. No, it was a drum. Someone was drumming at the top. It went on and on. Finally it gave up. As we approached the summit ourselves we met a small group of men carrying a large round covered object, all wearing T-shirts promoting a Northern Irish Children's Hospice Charity. Yes, they said, it was them.

The top wasn't quite as busy as we had expected. No queues for the last little climb up steps to the zenith viewpoint. A haze obscured the furthest vistas but the panorama was still impressive.

View from the top

After a peek inside the visitor centre which seemed implausibly like a plush airport terminal plonked in the middle of the wilderness, we began the descent westwards along the Rhyd-Ddu trail, so named as this is where you end up at the bottom. It was a gentler route on the whole, and less popular with the tourists. About 5 and a half hours after we'd begun the climb, we arrived footsore at Rhyd Ddu and toasted our victory with small glasses of beer from the village's one hotel.

We had been higher in the UK than we'd ever been before, and we were down in time for the bus back. Cheers!

Spot the odd one out amongst these sacks of rocks

Bridging The Gap

The weekend just gone was a sad one. It had two leaving parties, one in Machynlleth and one in Pilsdon, West Dorset. Much as I wanted to be at both, this is not (to my knowledge) possible. I'd previously arranged to head down to Pilsdon to wish farewell to Chris and Jane, long-standing members of the community, so had to miss saying my goodbyes to Sam at a Blossom Party on the Ffriddgate field.


It was also a happy one. Several other ex-volunteers returned to Pilsdon for the occasion and it was quite a reunion. It is always a pleasure to revisit the community and catch up with my friends there. The place is in full bloom, a feast for the eyes that I rarely get to appreciate on my winter sojourns.

Heading back home again on Monday after too short a stay, we shared the driving, Anna and me. I was behind the wheel as we crossed the Severn Bridge into Cymru (Welsh for “Wales”, pronounced Cum-ri). As always seems to happen I chose the slowest queue, and we sat there watching the driver in front fail to pay with his credit card and having to call an assistant with the button.

Eventually he seemed to be waved through without paying. I nudged forward and waved the contactless card past the reader, feeling ever-so-slightly smug when it worked first time. The barrier lifted. My smugness almost instantly vanished as I found myself unable to move the car forward. What was going on? I was in first gear. The handbrake was off. The accelerator seemed to work. But the clutch pedal wasn't behaving. It refused to go down!

Very aware of the cars behind us getting increasingly impatient, there was nothing we could do. I pushed the “help” button outside the car and a woman's voice came through the speaker. I told her the car wasn't working. She thought I said the card wasn't working so it took us a little while to get on the same wavelength.

Eventually someone turned up and were very pleasant to us. “It happens once a day” they said. The cars behind us were asked to find other lanes. The Highways Agency car arrived and towed us to the side of the road, having temporarily closed all the lanes on the left hand side to allow us to cross safely. I felt a little pang of embarrassment.

Cabbages are feeling safe from butterflies under this netting

As it was Anna's car, it was her breakdown recovery we had to rely on. After 45 minutes or so a chap turned up, winched the car onto his truck and drove us to the nearest service station where he spent quite a long time banging things inside the engine. If he couldn't fix it, Anna's insurance wouldn't cover anything else so we were facing the prospect of spending the night down here in a hotel and trying to sort something out in the morning (when Anna should be back at work).

Relief flooded through us as the repairman informed us he'd fixed it, although he didn't offer a 100% vote of confidence in the repair. “You'll probably be alright getting back” he said, “Just stay in fifth gear if you can”. So we drove the last 100 miles of the journey using the clutch as little as we could and were mighty glad to get home. 

The first runner bean plant to find its pole

Three Steps to Heaven

The "Show Allotment" in town. Anyone can pick the veg for free

The nice people at Three (my phone network) must have known it was my birthday this week and decided to give me what I always wanted - 3G on my land! Ever since I arrived here four years ago I have been making do with 2G, the old-fashioned network that allows just calls and texts.

Like all the best gifts, it was a total surprise. I was just going about my watering of seedlings, it being as dry here in Wales as the rest of the nation, when my phone made this little bleep that wasn't a text or an event reminder. It was a Facebook message notification. Facebook requires internet. Internet requires 3G. I got it out and checked the screen. There was the icon at the top of the screen, and next to it the signal indicator with a telltale H, short for HSPA (the souped-up 3G, no less.)

My hotbed in the polytunnel has tomato seedlings, sweetcorn, basil, cucumber, patty-pan squash and more

OK so it's not 4G. I'm not quite up there with you city folk yet, streaming Netflix videos whilst you Snapchat each other clips of your pets falling off things. But 3G will do me just fine. I'll be able to check emails from my caravan, or research how much to water asparagus, all there and then on my phone.

Hang on though. It's not going to be the same, is it? I'll be less off-grid now, and more contactable than I have been for some time. If I'm going to be interrupted by some inane status update as I plant out my bean seedlings, what passes for my train of thought will be broken and I'll lose that zen-like serenity I've been so carefully cultivating.

Runner bean "Lady Di"

I will need to tweak the notification settings to a massive OFF to ensure Facebook is put back in its place, a simple app that will only speak when it's spoken to. Ditto with the mail app. Or I could go all-out and do the unthinkable: switch the darn thing off.

The gamekeepers came today and fixed the garden's fenceposts that were broken or leaning in

Swing Low Sweet Chariot

A giant radish from my polytunnel

For the first time ever I am living in a swing seat.


Since I've been old enough to vote, here is where I was for each General Election:

1997 : Fylde (in Lancashire). Safe Conservative seat.

2001 : Hampstead and Highgate. Safe Labour seat (Glenda Jackson)

2005 : Vauxhall. Safe Labour seat (Kate Hoey)

2010 : Camberwell and Peckham. Safe Labour seat (Harriet Harman).

2015 : West Dorset. Safe Conservative seat (Oliver Letwin).

Whichever party I voted for, my vote had a negligible impact on who actually became MP.

In this happy-snappy General Election of 2017 I happen to be living in Wales in the constituency of Montgomeryshire. (I was in Wales in 2015 too of course but not yet on the electoral roll owing to the fact that my caravan has no address.)


Montgomeryshire has a long history of voting Liberal or Liberal Democrats. Lembit Opik was the MP here from 1997 till 2010 when he got pipped to the post by a Tory, Glyn Davies. That must have been annoying for Opik since 2010 was of course the only time the LibDems have managed to get into government in any form (albeit in league with the Tories.)

Glyn Davies kept his seat in 2015, trouncing the LibDem candidate Jane Dodds by getting 45% of the vote against her 29%.


However I think the seat is still entitled to be labelled “swing” as it is just about conceivable that the LibDems might snatch the seat back from the Tories. Jane Dodds has announced she will be standing again. The other parties trailed abysmally in 2015 - UKIP on 11%, Labour 6%, Plaid Cymru 5%, Greens 4%.

Although I couldn't attend, I heard all about a packed meeting in Mach last Wednesday on the subject of Tactical Voting in Montgomeryshire. Things apparently got very heated as arguments let fly over the pros and cons of voting tactically. Do you vote for the party you want or against the party you don't want? Are the LibDems on a terminal decline, or do they stand a chance?


Whatever happens, my vote will at least have a little more weight than in all previous General Elections.

Some of my tomatoes are in the ground, and two in a homemade growbag