May 2010
- 12
Mountain Walking: the Welsh Arans
The first time I’d walked in this general area, it was Cadair Idris. I felt like a change, and moving on from Beddgelert where I’d been camping, and the otherwise long drive from Manchester was thus divided. I’d seen exciting pictures of Cadair Idris and these, and its name, had captured my imagination. It was a well known hill and I’d not done it: evoking not a peak bagging lust but desire for unknown pleasures…
- 26
Welsh Mountains: The First Skylark
I’m reading a novel at the moment, The Paperchase by Marcel Theroux, in which the protagonist is bequeathed a house by his uncle with the condition that he live in it and cannot sell it. The first few days he’s relaxingly adrift in the seaside isolation of the place, then he starts to develop routines and habits that give him a bearing. There’s something comforting about this, resting on its simultaneous inevitable and unnecessary character.…
- 30
Mountain Walking: Lost In Wales
Daniel Boone said he’d never been lost in all his life, but he’d once been confused for a few days. There are different kinds of getting lost. There’s the kind that is miserable, inconvenient or depressing, ruining the day or weekend trip. Staying at a Lake District B and B, I heard the tale of a group of girls who went down the wrong way (Piers Ghyll instead of the Corridor Route) and ended up…