02
Jan 17

Yuletide & 2017!

We had a great Yuletide season this year. Kicked off by purchasing our biggest tree yet and decorating it beautifully with lights and ornaments at the beginning of December already, and followed by visiting friends and markets in Freiburg, we were ready for the main events. This year I made fewer kinds of cookies, but no less delicious, and complemented by awesome German lebkuchen, we were not left wanting for sweets.

Tree

Solstice/my b-day celebrations started with a lavish breakfast of blueberry pancakes and a huge pile of presents (I wouldn’t want it any other way!). I got some beautiful stuff, including books and a Welsh print for the wall, and to top it all off a trip to Amsterdam in the spring! It’s gonna be awesome and I can’t wait. Since I already took the day off at work, I just lounged for the day, reading my books and enjoying myself. In the evening I went around town a bit to look at the lights and decorations set up everywhere for my benefit and celebration, and finally met Iest for dinner at Busaba Eathai.

The main celebration on the 25th was lovely as well, with lavish pressies (especially for me again), and fancy three-course meal including baked camembert with honey, figs and nuts as a starter, parmesan breaded garlic mushroom pizzas (made from scratch including Iest’s signature dough), and dark chocolate chilli mousse (made by me). I got (among many others) a membership of the UK National Trust for 2017, so that’s our weekend trips sorted – 581 places to choose from! We were extremely full and didn’t want to spoil the rest of the day anyway, so we left the packing for the next day morning and just enjoyed our day lounging and playing with pressies. Also played a full game of dice, in which I ruled like the dice queen I am.

Dinner

On the 26th we packed everything (like, literally – I can’t believe we ever made it to Wales by train), and loaded our trusty Terrell, and drove up to the beautiful Snowdonia. Where we got even more presents, including a boat trip over to the Skerries sometime next year!

Tuesday 27 December
Weather reasonable (there is no snow though this year), so we went up Moel Siabod for a stroll. It’s like a little hillock up from Capel Curig, no biggie. It was quite foggy and windy up top, and the streams were nicely frozen over. We countered it with nice tea from our thermos and a serving of yule cookies. Overall, we defo consumed more energy than we gave up on the walk, but after the week of only eating, the fresh air and some movement did us real good.

Moel Siabod

Wednesday 28 December
Amazing sunny day, no other possibility than lugging our holiday weight up a nice range – we selected the Carneddau for the honour. Starting up from LLyn Ogwen, we took the National Trust route straight up (I allowed Iest on it, even though he’s not a member), and basking in the winter sun we made it to the first peak. From there on it was a nice ridge walk, sprinkled with tea and yule cookies. It was still quite windy up top, and water was frozen solid, but the sun was unwavering until the evening. We went down through an uncharted territory to make sure we’d get to the car before dark, which these days comes way too early. Lovely walk!

Carneddau

Carneddau

Pen yr Ole Wen

Crisp evening

Carneddau

Thursday 29 December
Weather so so, and clouds lying low on the mountains. Perfect day for another National Trust treasure visit – this time the whistling sands beach of Porthor on the LLŷn peninsula. A beautiful place, not so much whistly this time around, but still a pretty piece of coast. Had a cuppa in the small café, and swung also by another great NT place – Porth y Swnt in Aberdaron – on the way. This is a nice exhibition about the culture and environment of the peninsula, and includes a puffin hole!

Pan chwery chwa oddi uchod â’r môr
Mae hen angenfilod
Y dwfn I’w wyneb yn dod
I’w haileni’n wylanod

Evening watch of long-anticipated Charlie Brooker 2016 Wipe – what a year this was! He still covered it in only an hour, and did well as always.

Whistling sands

Friday 30 December
And since we were so into NT places now, we decided to visit the great Plas Newydd and gardens on the Menai straits. This elegant house was redesigned by James Wyatt in the 18th century, and has lots to see both inside and out. Because of the season not all of the interiors were accessible (so we’ll have to visit again), but the ones that were were nicely decorated with trees and presents and fireplaces and board games and seasonal music, so it was all very nice. The gardens likewise, plus beautiful views across the straits. Good choice. To top the day up, we went by Rhosneigr for a little stroll, and finally had a nice dinner with friends at Dylan’s in Criccieth.

Plas Newydd

Plas Newydd

Saturday 31 December
Last day of the year! Which actually does not mean much to us – we do not partake in forced celebrations and parties on the night. But we thought we could go camping in the wild again, like we have done several times before. Alas, the forecast was for heavy rains to come for the night, so there was really no point (the point is to wake up in raging sunshine in the new year, perhaps even dip into the sea on the occasion). During the day we decided to make one more small walk in the hills, and selected my fave Yr Aran for the occasion. The peak was submerged in cloud, but overall it was a very fine final walk for the year.
We made a nice batch of chickpea curry for the evening, and went to bed way before midnight.

Yr Aran

We did however, drag Gina out of the warmth and down to Dinas Dinlle, where we made our text-book year number (2017!) in lights, together with some heart light-graffiti in the cold, wet rain.

2017 Lights!

Heart Lights!

Sunday 1 January
Packed everything, it does not seem we have less stuff even though we offloaded all the kids’ pressies that were taking up the trunk, weird. Made our way down to our London home via Snowdonia, which had now been blessed with a sprinkling of snow on its highest peaks (just as it was pissing down through the night in the valleys), so we could make an impromptu photoshoot of Iestyn’s beard and slippers in the wild.
At home sweet home we watched new Sherlock (kinda so so, better than the last one, but long lost are the splendours of season 1&2), with some pizza and wine (for Gina) before going to bed.

Monday 2 January
Thank gods for this day off, so we could do all the laundry, clean up, and purge our little flat of any sign of the preceding festivities – took down the tree and all decorations, and that was that. Back to normal and to 2017!


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!