Five go to Snowdonia: Fires, Frogs and a whole lot of Fun (13-15th April 2018)

Daniel, Ally, Hazel, Neil and introducing Weekend Newbie Laura

Guest starring Rangers Andy and Geraint

My journey south started with a bus ride into Edinburgh in rather Scottish weather.  I boarded my train bound for Manchester and realised as I departed Waverley that Edinburgh Castle was not visible due to the mist surrounding it.  The weather did not really improve as I headed south.  I was to be met by Neil who, as in previous years, had offered to pick me up from Manchester Piccadilly station.  My thanks to Neil for this.

We wended our way towards North Wales for the annual "Spring in Snowdonia" weekend.  As we got further towards our destination I noticed that the Scottish mist had finally caught up with me and hoped it was not going to stick around for the whole weekend.  Once Hazel, Neil and I had settled in for the evening Hazel decided that a jigsaw was called for so ignoring the advice of NT Volunteers from “All over the place” in the visitors’ book to "Don't bother with the flower jigsaw" she chose the flower jigsaw (!)  Daniel and Laura arrived at 9.30pm and we received news that Pip and Mick would not be joining us for the weekend.

Good news!  The mist had cleared the next morning and we had a day of warm dry weather with the sun finally making a proper appearance towards the end of the day.  We were up early to meet ranger Andy for our day’s work in the Penmachno Valley.  We followed him in his pickup truck for the short drive there in Neil's Roomster and Hazel’s Yaris.  The brash we were burning were small hazel, oak, willow and hawthorn trees that had been chopped down by contractors who put in a new stock fence last week.  Andy started a fire for us all to burn the lopped trees and we worked away for an hour and a half until Daniel called time for a break at which we ate Ally’s delicious chocolate brownies.

We carried on working and Andy started a second fire because there was another pile of trees further away so we didn’t have to drag them so far.  We ate our lunch in the sunshine, Daniel sitting on his National Trust three-legged stool.  Neil had attempted to sit on his three-legged stool at break time but as he could feel it and himself sinking into the wet ground he did not reattempt to sit on it for his lunch.  After lunch most of us headed to fire number two to work around that.  We worked away until Daniel called the day to a close at 3:30.  We finished the whole area that Andy had wanted to clear and sat enjoying the sunshine until the fires had died down enough for us to leave them. During the day we spotted five frogs on the worksite with Neil spotting the first one.  Also spotted was what ranger Andy presumed was a blackbird’s nest, a wagtail and buzzards.  Hazel told us to look out for celandine and golden saxifrage.

Upon departure from the worksite it was decided that we would stick with tradition and get an ice cream from Cadwalader’s in Betws-y-coed.  We all got ice cream including Hazel who wasn't even there.  Our flavours were Malteser (Neil), Chocolate (Ally) and Daniel (Strawberries & Cream).  Laura got very excited when she found out there was dairy free chocolate ice cream as she is a vegan.  We got Hazel some Strawberries & Cream in a tub and took it back to the basecamp for her (it wasn’t totally melted) as she had left the worksite early to make dinner.

Dinner was Chunky Vegetarian Thai Curry with rice followed by Apple crumble with custard/cream.  It was delicious – a big thank you to Hazel for cooking it.  That evening we did more of the jigsaw, read the newspaper and dozed whilst listening to a selection of Neil's CDs including Cliff Richard, the Cast of Oliver and all time Musical Hits.

Sunday dawned cloudy and cool.  Daniel went for a run at 6:30 while the rest of us slept soundly in our beds.  Once he had returned and the other four of us were up we breakfasted on bacon rolls and left the basecamp at 8:50 to meet ranger Geraint at the worksite which was at the other end of the field from where we had been yesterday.  There was a bit of a steep slope to get down to the worksite so Ally decided the best way to tackle it with bowsaws in one hand and cake in the other without falling over was to slide down it - result!  We spent the morning again lopping the brash and trees.  Geraint got two fires going so that we didn't have to drag the trees and brash quite so far from the other end of the field.  Much to Laura’s amusement, on our lunch break Daniel managed to fall off his three-legged stool.  It was so elegantly executed that he could have won a gymnastics gold medal at the Commonwealth games!  We ate the leftover brownies and Laura told us how much she had enjoyed the weekend.  Afterwards we finished off the dragging and burning and the fire got higher and higher with all the cuttings.  We completed the clearing and burning which is what Geraint wanted so watched the fire start to die back and left Geraint to make sure it didn’t spread and burn the field completely.  Back at the basecamp we tidied up the dorms, washrooms and kitchen, declared war on our sleeping bags and suitcases, divvied up the leftover food.  We headed for home at 3pm trying to avoid getting caught in the traffic coming out of Old Trafford - Manchester United were playing at home (and lost 1-0 to West Brom to hand the Premiership title to Manchester City).

To sum up the weekend I will leave you with these words: although we were a small party we got a lot of work done, much fun was had but not enough sleep was had.

Thank you to Daniel for organising the weekend and thanks to rangers Andy and Geraint for organising the worksite and task.

See you next time, MNTV!

Ally