Minor changes

The new owners have made a few alterations to the ghost house. 

Looks like its going to end up quite a bit bigger 

than it is now. Noel decided to see if there were any prehistoric bones lying around. 
 

Lets do Lunch

We were lucky enough to have two great friends and their lovely dog pop in for a flying visit and a spot of lunch while we caught up on event s over the last 2 years or 

so since we last saw them.

Marshall was on his best behaviour and a great ambassador for his clan. We are looking forward to Nick and Wanda returning in a couple of weeks for the pig roast garden party. 
 

He's coming home ....

Our clan is about to get a new arrival

a lovely big boy 

 who will be called Roscoe. 

Serves one

 Not only do I eat all the pies I now make them too, a beef and vegetable pie, unfortunately I had to share. 

up and down again

Just because we can we decided to have a staff meeting for icanfoster on the summit of Ben Nevis which is just up the road, a bit. This is why we drove through the night arriving at the north face car park at 2am, had a quick snack, loaded ourselves up with more snacks than was absolutely necessary and began a night navigation through the forest to the lower reached of the UKs biggest mountain. 

The plan was to get to the summit via the CMD arete and by 6am we had reached the CIC hut at the base of the north face of the Ben.

This led to a bit of a discussion as to the best next step. Ideally we would have headed up the CMD summit 1179 but the weather and visibility was not improving and so 

instead of picking a route through this 

we headed off around the base of the Ben to pick up the zig zags to the summit.

As we climbed the weather gave us brief glimpses of the height gained

the only good point being that the promised torrential rain failed to materialise.

Soon we had reached the start of the zig zags and pressed onwards and upwards

and while it is the easier route its still very high

and seemingly endless

but eventually we made it to the 

top!

Eric and Ernie cavorted around while we did some work, yes we did, and all too soon we were heading back the way we had came but this time smiling and telling the next groups of summiteers that it really wasn't that far to the top. 

A bit of expert map reading and a river crossing cut off some 3km 

and lo we were back in the car heading south with 208 miles no turns ahead which is about as far as you can travel in a straight line in the UK road network. 

Lucky for us he wasn't driving. We got back to safety of the shire at 2.30 am Saturday. So if you have 36 hours or so to spare, go and do Ben Nevis. 
 

Slowly slowly

The work on the games room continues..... slowly slowly

but surely making progress.
 

Its been a while

What with covid restrictions and thieves occupying a lot of our spare time it has been a while since we have been able to get to our favourite beach. Today we set that right, on a glorious sunny day we headed to Ynyslas.  

Naturally the day we chose to go it was not so sunny when we got there but hope reigns eternal and the nice lady on the car park gate said that an hour earlier the sea fog was so dense you could not see the coastline. 

Things were improving by the second!

And pretty soon it was scorchio. 

Which led to paddling 

and floating 

and pretending to be sea creatures 

while exploring the packed beach. 

The apprentice demonstrated his RNLI floating technique.

One of the main attractions of the beach is our favourite ice cream van which turned up right on time

selling ice creams as big as your head

keeping the boys quiet until the inevitable sugar rush. 

Back home we were treated to another amazing sunset, a view that could only be improved with the addition of the sea. 
 

Back in the saddle

Since the apprentice had a really bad fall off his bike about two years ago he has been a bit reticent to get back on it to say the least. 

However, today he just decided he wanted to go for a ride and as luck would have it the planets were aligned and his bike was A)serviceable B)where he left it and C) had two inflated tyres, he waqs able to jump right on.

Not only that but he chose to go to the local BMX track and have a go 

on the many lumps bumps and jumps.

This was indeed progress

which prompted RRMK2 to join in 

and it became quite competitive. Thankfully no one fell off and the bikes survived the unexpected outing. 
 

Walkabout

Will.I.Am, the Houdini of the equine world decided to go walkabout which meant 

yours truly also went walkabout with a load of K9s

to seek him out

in the wilderness.

Thankfully he isn't as stupid as Benjy and knows the ridge might have its attractions but is deficit in buckets of horse nuts 

hot and cold running hay

and sliced apples. 

Once the naughty horse was back in the corral 

we had a beer or three and a barby. Here is Ace giving it a clean after we've used it.