Climbing mountains

Not a lot has happened since I last wrote. England had its “freedom day”, when all restrictions lifted, lost the Euro’s (football), and gained more Covid cases. Par for the course really, considering no one has to wear masks anymore, and people can gather in tiny places by the hundreds, of not thousands.

We have been lucky enough to escape it all, for the most part, venturing out to the Forest of Dean and Snowdon before the summer holidays began and the children ran wild. It’s a strange sight to have the shops full again, most people choosing not to wear masks, and having the holiday makers descend upon the city.

Unfortunately I have been plagued with injury and ear infections, and have spent much of the recent “heat wave” lying on my bed with a fan directed straight at me, but now that the sun has gone away again, I appear to be back to full (ish) health.

We were lucky enough to have a lovely couple weekends away, making the most of the warmth to camp in Wales, and explore the area. We stayed in the Forest of Dean for a weekend, and, in true weakness, we decided against braving the rain, and instead explored Cardiff for a day. It was Euro’s time, and of course that meant that the laptop accompanied out camping trip. This couldn’t be missed.

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The Following week was a lovely one near Caernarfon in Northern Wales, at the base of Mount Snowdon. In true “us” fashion, everyday was cloudy on the mountain, but we bit the bullet and walked anyway. A beautiful scramble and some amazing yet fleeting scenes later, we reached the peak and looked out into the greyness. What an experience! But the campsite was incredible, and mostly quiet until the weekend arrived, and so too did the hordes.

I may have bought a new phone with a super camera – can you tell?

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We were lucky enough to be able to explore a little while we were in Wales, and visited the Beaumaris Castle, the greatest castle never finished. Started about 1300, it was captured and recaptured may times, but never finished. It is a beautiful piece of architecture, and would have been grand in its time, albeit not quite complete. We also popped over to Penmon Lighthouse and looked out over Puffin Island, somewhere that is definitely on the list for later adventures.

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For now we are back home, and although I have lots of leave to take, there appears to be little respite from the workload. Fingers crossed we will get some more travels in before summer is over, and even more so as the world opens.