29
Dec 14

Yr Aran

An unscheduled trip to the dentist for Iestyn this morning meant that we couldn’t spend the whole day up in the mountains. We left Caernarfon (with Iestyn’s teeth feeling a bit better) at around 11:30am. Our plan was to tackle Moel Hebog circular walk, but as we didn’t have that much sunlight left, we decided to head up Yr Aran instead, as it’s a lovely walk – fantastic views, and relatively quiet mountain, once you get off the Rhyd-Ddu, Snowdon bound path.

We parked the van in Rhyd-Ddu’s car park, booted up, and headed up towards Yr Aran, along the gentle slope of the Rhyd-Ddu path. There wasn’t much people walking on it this afternoon, which was nice – the snowline started at around the 500m high mark – just as we got into the old quarry.

We stopped briefly stopped by the entrance to the lake by the quarry to strap on our gaiters, and another warm layer, as the wind had started to whistle down from the mountains. Gina lead the way, up following the wall and fence posts past Bwlch-Cwm Llan, around Y Geuallt and straight up the breezy summit of Yr Aran (747m).

Looking over towards Moel Hebog and Beddgelert

Moel Hebog and Beddgelert

A very happy Gina

A very happy Gina

We stopped to enjoy the views, and had our lunch – pretty much exactly the same as yesterdays on the Glyderau – Cheese ‘n pickle sandwiches, Czech Xmas cookies, and a reindeer flask filled with mint tea. It was mighty cold on the summit, so we didn’t hang around too long. Just enough to enjoy the views, and admire Snowdon and Cwm Llan, as the rolling clouds came over.

Gina on the summit of Yr Aran

Gina on the summit of Yr Aran

And with that, we headed down the same Rhyd-Ddu path, back down towards the van. The wee Welsh Highland Railway had just stopped in Rhyd-Ddu by the time we got there, so Gina went ahead and took a few pics as it chuffed away down the valley towards it’s home in Caernarfon. Another awesome day up in the Welsh mountains.


28
Dec 14

Glyderau

After our beautiful, and relaxing Christmas break down in London, we headed to Wales from the 27th of December – to get in some hiking, and, as Wales had recently got it’s fresh dump of super powder snow on the mountains, we were in for a great time.

We woke up, first thing Sunday morning, and headed straight to Llanberis, as we needed some fresh hiking socks for Gina, as she had just bought herself a new pair of beautiful boots: Scarpa Ranger Lady – Gina was over the moon with them. After a swift purchase of her new socks, we jetted up Llanberis Pass, and parked the van in a wee lay-by just after Pen Y Gwryd (the expedition pub), booted up, and headed straight up the Southern flank of Glyder Fach. Once we hit the snow line, we knew we were in for a good day’s hike, as the wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, the snow was super fresh-powder, and the views were stunning.

Gina, Snowdon Horseshoe & her new boots

Gina, Snowdon Horseshoe & her new boots

Snowdon Horseshoe

Snowdon Horseshoe

We powered up the hill, cutting through the epic balls-deep snow before reaching a nice wee plateau to which we stopped and had ourselves a lovely spot of lunch. As we bought up with us from London the beautiful Czech cookies that Gina baked for us, we thought that these would be a wonderful addition to our hiking snacks, and boy we were right: cheese ‘n pickle sandwiches, Czech xmas cookies and wonderful mint tea – perfect hiking foods.

Gina hiking in the snow

Gina hiking in the snow

Snowdon Horseshoe

Snowdon Horseshoe

After a nice lunch, we headed right up towards the summit of Glyder Fach. We hadn’t seen a single soul all morning, and it wasn’t until we reached the top plateau that we found the other hikers traversing from Glyder Fach towards Glyder Fawr. We stopped over at Castell y Gwynt, where the views down the valley, and over towards Y Carneddau were majestical and Wintery. I took a few snaps of the ice covered rock formation over on Castell Y Gwynt, and looking across towards Glyder Fawr.

Gina hiking up Glyder Fach

Gina hiking up Glyder Fach

Amazing views over towards Snowdon

Amazing views over towards Snowdon

Gina on Castell y Gwynt, with Pen yr Ole Wen behind.

Gina on Castell y Gwynt, with Pen yr Ole Wen behind.

Icy Castell y Gwynt & Glyder Fawr

Icy Castell y Gwynt & Glyder Fawr

From here, we traversed across to Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder, and stopped just shy of the summit of Glyder Fawr, as the sun was setting fast. We decided to head down a different route – from y Bwlch, straight down Bwlch Dwyglydion, and over to Llyn Cwmffynon. The sun was setting rather nicely, where we stopped for a breif moment to get some nice pictures.

Gina on Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder

Gina on Bwlch y Ddwy Glyder

Bwlch Dwyglydion - looking down towards Llyn Cwmffynon

Bwlch Dwyglydion – looking down towards Llyn Cwmffynon

Rather fantastic round trip, in glorious weather. Really nice to see Wales on top form!


26
Dec 14

Our London Christmas

Christmas started early for us this year. Gina came up with an epic timetable (it was called Action Plan – Gina), and different tasks for us to complete. My first task of the festive holiday, was to locate us a real, nice Xmas tree – and by the last weekend of November, I’d located one – fairly close by in Brick Lane, with a nice wee company called ‘Pines and Needles’. We were both super pleased with our wee 3 foot Nordman Fir Tree!

Our real hard work came on the first weekend of December. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Gina’s famous Czech Christmas Cookies – so, this weekend marked the first weekend of many, where Gina pulled up her sleeves and worked hard making the different doughs for us to bake. We now have many, great different cookie shapes (including a Welsh dragon-shaped one, which I got at work from my Secret Santa – he really IS watching!), so we got extremely busy.

Man shaped cookie

Man shaped cookie

Christmas tree cookies

Christmas tree cookies

Gina in the Cookie Factory

Gina in the Cookie Factory

Chocolate dipped cookies

Chocolate dipped cookies

Jam filled cookies

Jam filled cookies

Iest learning 'piping'

Iest learning ‘piping’

Cookie factory

Cookie factory

One of Gina’s project for the festive season, as my beard is pretty epic if I don’t say so myself (yes he does, all the time!) – was to create a ‘Christmas Beard’ – so one evening Gina went wild, and decorated my beard nicely. (Was not really a project, just a spur of the moment inspiration; wasn’t even on the Action Plan!)

Christmas Beard

Christmas Beard

Gina’s beautiful birthday also falls in the Christmas Season (there’s so much wrong with this statement! If anything, it’s the christmas which falls in my birthday time; but in reality, it’s actually both my birthday and the christmas that fall in the Winter Solstice days, the real reason for the season!) so we celebrated nicely. I made her some blueberry pancakes for breakfast – and we headed out for the day to town. (Yeah, like that breakfast was epic – the blueberry pancakes were delish, the tiny candles so cute, the rose petals so romantic, and The Economist: World in 2015 so me!)

Birthday breakfast!

Birthday breakfast!

And, what was left was the actual Christmas Day! Every year, it’s a tough one for Gina, as she usually has her Christmas presents on the 24th evening (by Baby Jesus), but here in the UK, we get them on the 25th in the morning (by a guy from a CocaCola commercial). So she did extremely well not to open any – although, she had a great time eyeing the presents that were nicely placed under the tree.

Our Nordman Fir Xmas tree

Our Nordman Fir Xmas tree

Christmas Morning!

Christmas Morning!

Christmas Morning! Ho Ho Ho!

Christmas Morning! Ho Ho Ho!

After opening our beautiful, beautiful gifts, I went to the kitchen, and started to work on our Christmas dinner – which took around 4 – 5 hours of cooking. This year we went for Veg Christmas Pies, with a plethora of seasoned baked veg, and for desert, a Cranberry meringue roulade – which was oh-so-good (I helped on that one). Very nice.

Christmas Table

Christmas Table

Christmas Food!

Christmas Food!