Pencilled in my calendar for the first weekend of June was a camping and walking weekend with Abi. Obviously 2020 has been busy ruining everyone's plans over the last few months, but the easing of lockdown guidelines meant we were able to go for a small group walk.

Bredon Hill is about half an hour away from Gloucester, and though I've cycled up it a couple of times I've never walked there.

Our route was taken from the Cicerone 'Walking in the Cotswolds' book, and clocked in at about 15km. 

We all met up outside the church in Overbury (can go walking -... continue reading »

Here's a GPS trace of most of "Y Wal" at Afan.  There's a bit missing because at that point I took my coat off (with gps logger in the pocket) and shoved it into the depths of my backpack where it couldn't lock on to the satellites. oops.  I realised this mistake, and moved it to somewhere more sensible at the next stopping point!

Anyway, yes. Red mountain biking - probably not my normal choice for a weekend's activity, but this was a bit of a uni reunion type thing, involving many keen bikers.  Plus a few of us with somewhat... continue reading »

Easter was vaguely planned to be a multi activity weekend of fun... somewhat typically that didn't quite happen, for various reasons.  But I did get some good walking in, so it wasn't all bad!

On Good Friday I ticked off a bit more Wye Valley Walk - starting in Ross on Wye up to Hole in the Wall (home of PGL, fact fans) and back again along the Herefordshire Trail.

Ross was heaving - lots of sunburnt people lazing about by the riverside.  And walking slowly in my way.  But I soon got past them, and out into the fields.  Horrible smelly... continue reading »

On Saturday, I got up disgustingly early (5am?!) and drove for four hours with a somewhat hungover passenger.  We ended up in Diss (and on a side note, the A14 is a very very boring road).

Obviously there was good reason for this - a weekend away with friends from Keele   Scarily, this July will mark 6 years since graduation, thus 6 years of camping trips, days out and sleeping on other people's floors.  All good.

I refused to do any more driving that day, but off we went to the seaside at Southwold.  Which has a pier.  Quite a nice... continue reading »

I appear to have reached the point of growing up where my friends are starting to do silly things like getting married and having babies.  This summer seems to have been a steady stream of fancy invitations, and occasions where I can't get away with wearing shorts and flipflops (or better, freakshoes).

Last Saturday we celebrated Lucy's wedding.  For me, this mostly involved getting quite drunk, dancing badly, and covering everything I touched in purple glitter.  Oh, and pinching strawberries from the chocolate fountain to put in my Pimms, 'cos I'm classy like that.

Obviously that meant Sunday was a bit of... continue reading »

Well, I've had a really good and busy weekend   And as it turns out, also quite an expensive one.  bah...

Friday evening was a UBKC polo tournament.  Current teams vs old gits (I chose to just spectate, hah).  We then went for curry, which involved consumption of far too much wine.

Bit of a lie in on Saturday (and more than a bit of feeling quite ill).  Then off we went to Llangollen, for a quick bash down the Dee

Back to Birmingham and time for more socialising - pie party, then pub, then sitting about watching random films for a... continue reading »