Bit of a last minute decision, but S and I ended up going to Dolgellau in North Wales this weekend with two friends who were up there to do some mountain biking at Coed y Brenin.
This is absolute heaven for the three of them; the only time I get on a bike is when the terrain is dead flat and there are no cars, people or other bikes in a five mile radius (ie: hardly ever). So whilst they were throwing themselves down rock faces, getting soaked in streams, and generally having a whale of a time, I got into Serious Hiking Mode. Since my usual weekly classes have stopped for the summer, I’ve been feeling a little unfit of late, so I decided to burn some calories by pounding up and down Welsh hills. With a borrowed iPod that was chocka of cheesy pop, I did a two hour walk across some of the loveliest countryside I’ve seen for a long time. Luckily there was hardly anybody else around, so I wasn’t embarrassed by other people overhearing me singing along to “Holding out for a Hero”. Well, it’s Bonnie Tyler, isn’t it? And that’s appropriate for Wales. I was also in Stock, Aiken and Waterman heaven with Kylie’s entire 80’s back catalogue – and let me just say that “It’s Never Too Late” has a fantastic beat for walking fast to.
We undid all the good work of the day by having curry and beers in the evening, followed by more beers sitting in the glassed-in office of an old ironmongers that’s now a bar. S beat me at Othello, but I don’t hold it against him.
By the end of the weekend, I was also 300 pages into Vanity Fair, which as a double English graduate, I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read before. It’s excellent – why hasn’t someone sat me down, thrust it into my hands and insisted I stay put until I’ve got through at least five chapters? I will do the same to the next person who confesses that they haven’t read it. Becky Sharp has to be one of the best characters ever written. Go, read, now! And let me know what you think.
This is absolute heaven for the three of them; the only time I get on a bike is when the terrain is dead flat and there are no cars, people or other bikes in a five mile radius (ie: hardly ever). So whilst they were throwing themselves down rock faces, getting soaked in streams, and generally having a whale of a time, I got into Serious Hiking Mode. Since my usual weekly classes have stopped for the summer, I’ve been feeling a little unfit of late, so I decided to burn some calories by pounding up and down Welsh hills. With a borrowed iPod that was chocka of cheesy pop, I did a two hour walk across some of the loveliest countryside I’ve seen for a long time. Luckily there was hardly anybody else around, so I wasn’t embarrassed by other people overhearing me singing along to “Holding out for a Hero”. Well, it’s Bonnie Tyler, isn’t it? And that’s appropriate for Wales. I was also in Stock, Aiken and Waterman heaven with Kylie’s entire 80’s back catalogue – and let me just say that “It’s Never Too Late” has a fantastic beat for walking fast to.
We undid all the good work of the day by having curry and beers in the evening, followed by more beers sitting in the glassed-in office of an old ironmongers that’s now a bar. S beat me at Othello, but I don’t hold it against him.
By the end of the weekend, I was also 300 pages into Vanity Fair, which as a double English graduate, I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read before. It’s excellent – why hasn’t someone sat me down, thrust it into my hands and insisted I stay put until I’ve got through at least five chapters? I will do the same to the next person who confesses that they haven’t read it. Becky Sharp has to be one of the best characters ever written. Go, read, now! And let me know what you think.
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