Monday 26 November 2018

What took you so long

 Its been great, seriously, there are many downsides to global warming, like fires, floods and idiot soundbites from the orange buffoon (Trump)but for yours truly the upside of the mega hot summer (except for our weeks holiday) was no mud. Yes the unfettered joy of wandering around the ranch knowing the only moist areas have fallen from someone's bottom and therefore easily avoided (unless you are a small child who both have the unerring ability to find any dump foot first and tread it into house or car depending on direction of travel)has been one of the highlights of my year.
Unfortunately the usual weather patterns have returned to less than sunny HQ and we are now surrounded by mud and horse fecal matter. Time restraints and lack of enthusiasm mean that the equation of F=C-4 applies or falls 4 times faster than its cleared. So imagine yours truly's surprise at being confronted by this scene of a morn. A stationary Pronto in a gateway surrounded by his and friends doings.
You might ask why the long face but that would be a really old joke, he is looking so forlorn because he has spent the night stood trapped in the gateway unable to move. The source of his predicament is hard to spot, but he has pushed through the gate which is secured by a piece of ubiquitous baler twine. It is pressed against his chest and as the cretinous equine has not considered the options available like break the string or walk backwards this avoiding the need to stand motionless for at least 8 hours. Yours truly, the hero of the hour, managed to snip the string and free the helpless horse.

Look closer.....

 This is Ripley and her sister sat on the floor like a good dog is Tasha, the mother of the latest pups to await forever homes.
 Look closely at Ripley, and then the picture of Reba on the wall, any similarities?
Guess who....Christmas is coming and someone has to help the fat bloke....and Father Christmas.

Thursday 22 November 2018

5 minutes peace

 They are not still very often so when they are we make the most of it.









Micro adventure

 Time should not be wasted, its a precious commodity, so as I had a gap of 5 hours between jobs that gave yours truly
 enough time to head off and experience the first winter day on the mountains. Mrs Bear was the obvious dog of choice as she would need no monitoring other than making sure she didn't over exert herself
 and so we rapidly made our way to the summit of Corn Du which was hidden in the mist and ice.
 Mrs Bear made it first, yours truly felt dreadful and was already planning a shorter route due to fatigue put down to poor sleep and heavy cold.
 Pen Y Fan was bagged, again yours truly was not feeling the love in the room and took a lot of self control not to pull the eject handle and bale off down the track back to the car.
 Mrs Bear posed at the summit stone
 and we headed towards the next target, Fan y Big.
 The clouds cleared but my mood didn't
 and the summit suddenly hove into clear view which really didn't help.
 Looking back from whence we came was not helping as the way home was back that way via a shortcut 100metres or so shy of the summit.
 Really not happy face.
 Trying to convince myself that all this was fun face.
 The summit and we were hit by a 50mph wind that was a force to be reckoned with, the only good thing about it was it would be behind us as we headed back.
 The sun picked out the path back and feeling really tired the plod to the almost top began.
 All sorts of promises were made, and bargains set, the best one being that although I had a full pack on with all sorts of goodies to eat, if I made it to the top instead of taking the escape route just ahead I would forgo the veg curry and rice in my bag and reward myself with a bacon and egg buttie from the van in the car park. Each step added a rasher, or beans, tomatoes and became a full cooked English in my head. I could not understand why I felt so rubbish, Kilimanjaro didn't seem as hard as this.
 Almost at the top a man appeared and asked the quickest way to Brecon, momentarily disorientated I almost pointed in the wrong direction before answering air ambulance and enquiring how had he got to where we were. He had walked up the ridge, I advised he walk back down again then. He didn't follow my advice and set off from whence I came.
 Summit bagged again I felt somewhat better
 and decided that enough was enough the car park was 1.5 miles away and the lump in front could be avoided on the basis I had done enough to get the reward of the bacon and egg buttie.
 All downhill from here and this was the point that I discovered why I had felt so truly awful. Nothing to do with colds or feeling rough, nothing to do with the lack of calories consumed since I had started or the weight of my pack which I had spent many a step calculating and recalculating the total weight...2kg water 1.5 kg food....2 kg spare clothes.....survival gear and shelter1.5 kg....and so on ....no it all had to do with time.
 Yours truly along with Mrs Bear had just taken on 4 peaks and a gnats whisker under 6 miles in suboptimal weather in totally surprising time of 2 hours 37 minutes, with 2 hours 8 minutes of that spent actually moving, the rest being spent taking pictures, falling over in the wind or leaning over hands on knees gasping like a guppy for air.
To the victor the spoils.......Mrs Bear one large hot dog no onions, yours truly a bacon and egg roll and 2 cups of tea while contemplating a slower walk next time.

Tuesday 20 November 2018

Medic!

 The apprentice has moved up a step from playing with his first aid kit
 and joined the St Johns Ambulance juniors or Badgers. This is he having a look at their fully operational emergency ambulance.
Who knows, maybe one day he will occupy the crew seat as a fully trained paramedic. Time will tell.

Of course its fun

 Yours truly has fallen off the wagon again and gained 28 pound of lard in a remarkably short time and as his trousers are a tad on the snug side something has to be done. Hence the time spent "running" away from the bonsai mountain up Bob the Bees pimple and back again.
 You can tell by the look on my face how much I'm enjoying the experience.
 Back at the ranch and after a lung transplant its out again to tire out two small boys.
 This seemingly impossible task gets harder the bigger they get the more energy they seem to store.
 They made the river gate in record time
 and even with time spent paddling
 not getting our wellingtons full
 and playing pooh sticks
 they made it back to Rock HQ
 after a few ups and downs
 in a record time of 58 minutes for the two miles.
 The Golden Berners on the other paw
were distinctly lazy today, only chewing one show and severing a number of cables. They are all advertised tomorrow!